Christ the King
November 24, 2013     

Listen to this homily (mp3 file)

     Each year on this final Sunday of the Church’s year we celebrate this wonderful feast of Christ the King, and each year, even as we pull out all the stops with glorious music, flowers, banners, bells, candles, and clouds of incense, we get a none-too-gentle reminder not to get too carried away with all the trappings of royalty.  The reminder invariably comes in the scripture readings – today, it came most pointedly in the reading from the Second Book of Kings where we met the young King David – a king minus any majesty, a king who was more shepherd of the flock than mighty ruler. The reminder also came in the reading from Luke’s gospel where the kingship of Jesus was a matter of mockery – and with good reason.  For what kind of king hangs helpless and dying on a cross between a couple of common criminals!

     This year, I would find it hard to preach on this feast without taking note of a striking contemporary model of the kind of kingship that Jesus stands for: servant kingship -- kingship without pomp or privilege.  The contemporary model I’m thinking of is Pope Francis. From day one, he has made it clear that he has no interest in playing the royalty card.  In fact, that’s the very sort of thing he calls “the leprosy of the papacy.” For Pope Francis, pomp and privilege have no place in the papal ministry.  It’s the poor and those on the periphery that are his priority – and they should be the Church’s priority, as well.

     And Pope Francis, as you know, doesn’t rely on words to get this message across.  Actions are his language – highly symbolic actions. So, no palace, no limo, no royal regalia, no kingly court.  Instead, a humble presence to people, a compassionate heart for the suffering, simple down-to-earth language that people can easily grasp, a refusal to take himself too seriously, a desire to be in touch with the people and to know what they’re thinking, and a commitment to sharing power, not wielding it. I think you’ll agree that every leader in the Church (and I include those considerably further down the food chain like myself) should take a chapter from his book!

     It’s worth observing that the Church got by for nearly two millennia without the feast of Christ the King.  It wasn’t until the years between the First and Second World Wars that Pope Pius XI put this feast on the Church’s calendar. For good reason. Various forms of totalitarianism were on the rise: Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany, Communism in the Soviet Union, and as a counterpoint to those godless grabs for power that denied basic human rights and trampled human dignity, the Pope raised up the figure of a most unlikely king – Jesus Christ, a king with no wealth or riches, no armies or weapons other than truth and love, and no territorial ambitions other than human hearts. It is this servant king, the suffering, crucified Christ of today’s gospel, whom we honor today and every day as our King.

     But it is risky, this business of kingship.  At its worst, throughout our long history, whenever the Church has lost sight of what sort of king Christ is, it has gotten seduced by the pretensions of power and the trappings of royalty or, to use Pope Francis’ telling expression, the Church has become “self-referential” -- inward-looking, self-absorbed -- caught up with itself and its power and prerogatives.

     The result?  In turning away from the humble ways of Jesus, the Church has too often taken on the tactics of the very authoritarian movements that this feast of Christ the King is meant to counteract.  A far cry that is from Jesus who demonstrated his authority, not by edicts and pronouncements, but by kneeling before his friends and washing their feet.

     My friends, it is important for us to be clear by what we mean – and what we don’t mean – when we call Christ our King.  Over the Sundays of this past year we have moved, chapter by chapter, through Luke’s gospel and have met there a Christ who is quite surprising – not only for what he said but, more importantly, for what he did.  Surprising, too, for the company he kept.  In fact, if we would follow this Christ, this king, I suggest that a good place to start would be to look at the company he kept.

     Here’s a rundown of some of his company – taken right from the pages of Luke’s gospel.  They are quite a bunch, I think you will agree: the lowly shepherds at the manger; the poor, the hungry and the mourning of the Beatitudes; the unlettered fishermen who were his inner circle; the sinful woman who crashed a dinner party to wash and anoint his feet; the poor woman with the hemorrhage who wanted only to touch the hem of his garment; the lepers who kept calling after him, “Master, have pity on us!”; the cheating tax collector, Zacchaeus, with whom Jesus insisted on having dinner; the dying thief of today’s gospel.

     These, my friends, are the company of Christ the King -- his royal retinue, if you will.  We have met them all this past year Sunday after Sunday, and each of them should be a reminder to us, a powerful reminder, that if Jesus is a king, he’s a king like no other.  For what king worth his salt would waste his time with that long list of losers?

     May our celebration of this wonderful, but potentially misleading, feast, remind us not only of what sort of King Christ is, but also of what his kind of kingship means for us – and for the company we keep!

     Father Michael G. Ryan