I once heard a sermon comparing Christ the King to Burger King—this wasn’t the whole thrust, but it was part of the thrust, and I have to admit I was bemused and wondered at how far afield we get when we contemplate Christ as the King. I think this may be because we are uncomfortable with the idea of a person wielding that kind of power in our lives. We Americans are deeply suspicious of kings and monarchies. A few Anglophiles, of which I admit I am one, dote upon the idea of the British monarchy, partly because the British monarch seems a monarch tamed by modernity. She and her family play polo or chivvy foxes about the countryside or breed corgis; they cut ribbons at the opening of shopping malls or factories; and every now and then the heir to the throne opens his mouth and says something ridiculous or one of their princes gets caught smoking pot and we laugh, thinking that they are just like us—only billionaires. This vision of a monarch is small, and not exactly relevant to our lives, a quaint little anachronism in a modern era, and even though she is technically the secular head of the Church of England, even we Episcopalians don’t get too worked up about her. Too often she is a symbol to us rather than a flesh and blood person. She doesn’t seem to wield too much power, and so we are basically unconcerned with her. Because she doesn’t seem to wield much power, she doesn’t seem to be very “queenly.”
If we contemplate kings at all in a more serious way, we often think of despots throughout history—those who HAVE wielded power, usually in the name of injustice. The Shah of Iran, for instance. Few shed a tear when he was deposed, although the regime that followed afterwards certainly did no better in responding to the needs of the Iranian people. Then there are those who have not arrogated the title “king” to themselves but behaved as one with absolute power over their people, and this list is long: Idi Amin in Uganda, Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti, Josef Stalin behind the Iron Curtain, Nikolai Ceausescu in Romania, Adolf Hitler in World War II, Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Than Shwe in Burma, Omar al-Bashir in what is now northern Sudan. And the list rolls on. These men were or are all about power, absolute use and abuse of power.
So then we are faced with the idea of Christ the King, and we don’t seem to know how to talk about it at all. But we aren't really Christian at all UNLESS we give Jesus that kind of power in our lives.
Perhaps this is because even Jesus himself often seemed to dodge the question when asked directly about it. In all four gospels, Jesus is questioned by Pilate if he is the king of the Jews (Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, and John 18). Even the translators of the original texts cannot agree on how Jesus answers. Some translations have Jesus answering, “Yes, it is as you have said,” while others translated Jesus saying basically, “So YOU have said.” But Jesus makes it clear that he is not a king of a kingdom on Earth. Jesus is king in the kingdom of God, which Luke 17: 20-21 makes clear is within all of us who follow Jesus.
The gospel reading chosen for Christ the King Sunday in Year A is Matthew 25: 31-46. In the narrative of Matthew, this conversation occurs between Jesus and his disciples before he is questioned by Pilate. The text we saw this last Sunday was in the context of describing the “kingdom of heaven”—a phrase which is only used in Matthew’s gospel, although it is used repeatedly—31 times, in fact. Chapter 25 of Matthew focuses on the kingdom of heaven, and indeed for the last three Sundays concluding with Christ the King Sunday we have been hearing Jesus describe the kingdom of heaven. First we heard that the kingdom of heaven was like the parable of the ten bridesmaids (Matthew 25: 1- 13) and like the parable of the talents (Matthew 25: 14- 30) and then Christ the King Sunday focuses on the Judgment of the Nations in the gospel reading. At first, Jesus certainly describes a king filled with worldly power: that king will sit on a throne of glory and of judgment and he will sort out the sheep and the goats. Sheep are those that follow the shepherd and they inspire care and concern in the shepherd. Goats, however, are stubborn and willful. They do not follow easily. They are independent. They go their own way. Our society definitely seems to admire the qualities of the goat over the qualities of the sheep.
Now, to our modern city-raised ears, we have some misconceptions about sheep. We think they’re dumb; we think they are foolish. We think of sheepdogs –like the ones many of us own as pets-- nipping at their heels and herding them through the use of fear and intimidation. But this is not the image that Jesus is calling to mind. Instead, in Jesus’ time, sheep were wealth. They provided everything for life: wool for clothing to keep one warm in sickness and in health, milk to care for the thirsty, and meat for the hungry. Jesus does not herd us through fear and intimidation. Jesus calls to us through love and in love and as love, as the Old Testament reading in Ezekiel 34 confirms. Ezekiel also describes goats as being disgusting and stupid: they trample the good grass under their feet and foul the water which they will drink, which is not only shortsighted but foolish. This verse made me think of the way many of us treat the environment with the justification that we have been given it to do with it what we will.
But in the kingdom of heaven, we want to be the sheep. We want to obey the shepherd. We want to follow the will of the king in order to be admitted into the kingdom. But where and what is this kingdom? Throughout the gospels Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom of God is within us, and bringing it into fruition is our responsibility. And indeed, the gospel reading for the Sunday of Christ the King tells us the same thing: we created the kingdom when we fed the hungry and gave a drink to the thirsty, when we clothed those who were cold and naked, when we comforted the sick or the imprisoned.
Notice the parallels to what sheep really provide to their human counterparts and what Jesus expects us to do as the subjects of the king. They are very much the same things.
It is also clear: the geography of this kingdom lies upon and within our hearts. The kingdom over which Jesus reigns is not in a place or in a time just as God does not exist within the boundaries of space or time. Jesus is God’s physical presence within space and time, within our understanding of the universe. Jesus’ power as king does not come from compulsion, or force, or power as earthly kings wield, but through the power of love and through example. Jesus’ power as king over our lives is not the power of demand but the power of love. We follow Christ and obey Christ through the choice of our will, which is what the root of the word, “voluntarily,” means.
The kingdom of heaven is also not centered upon our own personal salvation. Making Christ our king means letting love and caritas rule our hearts. Once we accept Jesus as our Lord and king, we are not done. Making a choice to save ourselves is easy. That is why true salvation lies in what we do for others rather than what we do for ourselves by clinging to Jesus like a lifeline. As we are reminded, if we want to save our lives, we must be willing to look beyond ourselves. Proclaiming Jesus’ name will not bring about the kingdom of heaven—living out Jesus’ love among our fellow beings will bring about the kingdom of heaven and show that Jesus is our king. We acknowledge our king not by words but through deeds.
The kingdom of heaven is one in which those who serve others are the ones who do God’s will. To acknowledge Jesus as our king is to give him the authority to help us behave to bring the kingdom of heaven to fruition right here, right now, for we ARE mortals living through time and space. As Christians, we are to act in specific love for those around us by the command of Jesus, our king, the bridge between this world and God. Oh, that all those who proclaim their faith in Jesus would act upon his saving grace to reach out to save others. That is what the kingdom of heaven is, and we have to overcome our republican preferences in this one. The Prince of Peace and Lord of Love is Our King. Amen.
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