…every once in a while, a Sunday homily will make it to these pages…

Today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday which comes either on the Sunday before Thanksgiving or the Sunday following Thanksgiving. – a time we when we are busy about many things. We are preparing to travel, to cook, to receive visitors, to celebrate, and all sorts and manner of things. It is not a time when we are given to pause and reflect on what it means to hold that Christ is King.

After all, the word “king” conjures up many things in the American mind. I suspect if I asked most people, “Who is the King?” the answer might well come back “Elvis.” There is just part of us that lives in a pop-culture, king-sized world. And besides as a nation we went to a lot of effort, had a Revolutionary War to ensure that we were not subject to a king.

Yet the idea of kingship and kingdoms is rich in the heritage of our literature, movies and imagination: Richard the Lionhearted from the crusades and tales of Robin Hood. Henry V giving the “band of brothers” soliloquy on the fields of Agincourt.  The original namesake of our parish, King Louis the Saint of France. The sponsor of explorers of the Americas, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The great Elizabethan queens of England.  The lure of the royal courts lingers within us. When one of the English royals marries, even we Americans are attentive – one can only imagine when England has a new monarch.  Imagine the pomp and circumstance.

And on this day we celebrate Christ the King. A title clear in scripture – even if Jesus seems to push aside or even reject the notion, yet it is part of the genealogical inheritance from his ancestor King David.  And how did Israel get a king?  When we look back into the pages of salvation history the great names are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 sons of Jacob, Moses, Joshua – and none of them are kings.  Once in the promised land for about 200 years, it seems the people grew envious of their neighbors and wanted to be like them. In effect they said they no longer wanted God as their leader, protector, the one upon whom they would depend – they wanted a king. They wanted to be like another people, rather than the children of God. Even when warned about the rights and privileges of a king – to take for himself the best of their lands, their crops, and their children – the people still wanted a king.

It started out good enough with King David, but too quickly the core humanity of the king came through – absolute power corrupted absolutely. There were too many like King Manasseh, a cruel and idolatrous king, who lead the people farther from God. But hope could always be found in the heir to the throne. The birth of an heir carried a mixed meaning. Perhaps it was a moment of great joy when the people knew that the lineage of the good king would continue and there would be stability and prosperity in the land. Perhaps it was a moment of great joy because the child could not possibly be worse than his father. The birth of a new king would bring the Magi from the east to bow down before him and would inflame the jealousy of Herod, unleashing his murderous rage upon the Holy Innocents.

From our Scriptures, our literature, our movies, and our collective memories we carry a host of images about the king.  What is it that we carry on this solemnity of Christ the King. What memory lies underneath the celebration?  You might be surprised to find out that the celebration was only established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI.

1925 was an era when the monarchs of ages past were themselves passing away, holding ceremonial and symbolic power among their subjects while secular republics rules the affairs of state. But 1925 was also the era when Communism and Fascism was on the rise.  For the Church, thoughts of the Holy Roman Empire were distant and remembered no more. 1925 was when the remaining secular power of the Vatican and the Bishop of Rome was waning as the Italian states had effectively reduced the holdings and secular power of the Bishop of Rome to just the walled Vatican City. The Vatican was increasingly powerless on the world stage, the Italian stage, and even in the city of Rome.

It is that midst that Pope Pius XI rightly reminded the world  – and perhaps ourselves – that despite all the machinations and plans of men, despite the lure of power, there was truly but one King – the one whom the Book of Revelation describes in 19:16 and the Hallelujah chorus proclaims as the “King of kings and Lord of lords.”  Even as the Church seemed increasingly powerless, just like the people to whom the Book of Revelation was written – Christian powerless before the persecutions of the Roman emperor Domitian – we are reminded that we are indeed powerless.

And, let’s face it, we are powerless. Powerless to stop the tidal surge of hurricane Sandy. Powerless to prop up failing economies. Powerless to assuage our own guilt and shame. Powerless to change the past—things done to us, and things done by us. Powerless to stop death from overtaking us or our loved ones from us.

Powerless, yet not without Hope. Our Lord stands with us. Just as He does in the gospel standsing before Pilate.  There is no pomp, no circumstance, no projection of geo-political power. There is just our King, this Jesus – as the psalm proclaims: “The LORD is king; he is robed in majesty.”  The majesty of a crown of thorns, and whose robe is saturated with blood from his scourging, this King who will ascend to the throne with arms outstretched in crucifixion – even as all his subjects, the apostles, run away. Seemingly powerless.

Yet he came to establish his reign over the earth, over all created things.  Not within the boundaries of old Israel, not within the confines of an earthly realm, but in the hearts of we who succeed him in our royal inheritance. We who have been baptized and anointed as priest, prophet and as king. We who are called to work towards the Reign of God on earth to establish within ourselves, our families, our neighborhood, city, state and nations, the reign of God. A reign that is described in the preface prayers of the Eucharistic Rite: “…making all created things subject to His rule….an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.”

And so we follow our king – bloody, beaten, crucified and resurrected. Not for power, but in peace. Not with jihad, but in joy. Not in helplessness, but filled with hope. Ascending to our inheritance not with a lavish coronation, but in lavish outpouring of love.  We follow our King, “…the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth.  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever and ever.”

This is King we celebrate; Jesus, Christ the King – the one whose reign is of love and forgiveness.  Who reign is forever and ever. Amen