Watch this homily!
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. It came 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!
I find it hard to preach on this feast
without taking note of Pope Francis and how beautifully he embodies
the kind of kingship that Jesus stands for: humble, servant
kingship. As you know, Pope Francis isn’t into frills, fuss and
falderal. He’s all about simplicity and humility. He’s a pastor, not
a prince. He never plays the royalty card. He has famously referred
to such things as “the leprosy of the papacy.” With Pope Francis,
it’s never about pomp or privilege, it’s about the poor and those on
the periphery. They are his priority – and, of course, they should
be the Church’s priority, as well. Every leader in the Church (and I
very much include myself) should take a chapter from his book –
never taking ourselves too seriously, looking for ways to be in
touch with the holy People of God we are called to serve.
This feast is not very old on the Church’s
calendar. The Church went for nearly two millennia without a feast
honoring Christ the King. It wasn’t until the years between the
First and Second World Wars that Pope Pius XI put it 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.
Christ the King. Too often in its long
history the Church has lost sight of what sort of king Christ is,
letting itself get 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 taken on the tactics of the very
authoritarian movements that this feast of Christ the King is meant
to counteract. That’s a far cry 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
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