34th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C

Homily for Solemnity of Christ the King

I hope that all of us have struggled with this idea that Jesus is a king. If we haven’t, we should, because there is hardly anything in the scriptures that is more clear than that Jesus rejected the whole idea of being a king! In fact, most of the prophetic writing of the Old Testament is an indictment of kingship.

Actually, there was never a feast like this until the 20th century. 1925 was the first time we ever had a Feast of Christ the King. That is probably because till then we understood that Jesus never claimed to be a king. A number of different times in the scriptures, he rejected this idea. For example, when he was in the desert  and was able to feed thousands of people with five loaves and two fishes. And they wanted to make him a king. What did he do? He went and hid himself because he rejected the whole notion.

Or remember when Jesus was beginning his last trip to Jerusalem? He was teaching the disciples along the way, and he told them that the son of man was going to Jerusalem to pick up his cross and be crucified. Executed. Peter objected. “Well, of course”, he said, “you can do whatever you want. You have the power. You’re a king or could be a king. But why would you allow yourself to be put to death, to be executed?”

Remember what Jesus did? He turned to Peter and he said, “You Satan!” He called him a devil for even thinking that Jesus would want to be exalted as a king and use power and force over people. Peter didn’t understand so Jesus had to be very direct and confrontational; ” Peter, you’re wrong! Get it straight!”

In another incident  toward the end of his public life, the disciples are still trying to imagine Jesus as a king. They wanted him to restore what we heard about in the first reading when David was made the king of the united, chosen people and became a great king in their history. They wanted Jesus to restore the kingdom. And they thought he was going to do it. The mother of the sons of Zebedee, James and John, very famous apostles, comes to Jesus and says, “Look, when you become the king, when you take over this kingdom I want one of my sons on your right hand and the other on your left hand. I want them to have the greatest places of esteem, power and prestige in your kingdom.” And Jesus is very disturbed.

Here it is, the end of his public life, and the disciples are still trying to make him a king. They have misunderstood his message. So he calls all of the disciples together, and he says, “Now look, among the pagans, those who don’t believe in God, those in power lord it over others. They dominate. Among you it cannot be that way! It can’t be that way, because the one who is to lead has to be the servant of all.”

“Servant” of all. The word really means the “slave” of all. That is how you have a first place in the community of disciples of Jesus — you become a servant, a slave, the opposite of a king. Jesus reminded them that the son of man did not come into this world to be served but to serve and to give his service even to the point of giving his life.

That is what we see on the cross. Jesus is hanging on the cross, and even there he is being a servant, reaching out to that criminal who recognizes him for who he really is. Not as a king, but as a son of God. Jesus serves him by responding, “Yes, today you will be with me in paradise.” Jesus was serving even to the point of giving his life. Give up the idea of power, wealth, prestige, lording it over other people. Become a servant.

It’s so clear in the scripture. Why then do we have the feast of Christ the King? Why do we go against the words of Jesus and try to make him a king? Well, in my reading for this homily, Bishop Gumbleton suggested an answer. When Pope Pius XI established this feast in 1925 he wrote a document to explain why. He said: Because the people of the day” — of that time –had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives. As long as individuals and states refuse to submit to the  the way of our savior, there will be no hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations.”

Pius XI was writing these words and proclaiming them at a time when the world had just come out of one of the worst wars in all of human history, World War I. Literally millions of soldiers had slaughtered each other on the battlefields of Europe. There was no peace after that war, really, because the winners of the war had imposed a cruel kind of punishment on the German nation, making it almost impossible for that nation to survive. Out of anger, resentment and the hatred that was left as a result of that war, the whole ideology of Nazism grew in Germany and led to another war, a war worse than the first.

The “war that was to end all wars” became the seed of a second war that was even worse. Because people had refused, as Pius XI said, to let the rule of Jesus, the way of Jesus, guide their lives, their private lives and their national life.

Is it any better today? Ask yourself, “Are we, each of us in our own life, following the way of Jesus? Do we really want to let ourselves be a slave to others?”

Another question: If Christ is King, what is he King of? What is his kingdom all about?

What is it — and when is it? This phrase “the kingdom of God” appears over 80 times in the Gospels; yet these questions do not have simple answers.

What is it? We do know that it is something to strive for. It is more difficult to enter it if you are rich. It is easier to get into it if you are childlike. Its good news was proclaimed by Jesus and his disciples. It belonged to the poor, the humble, and those persecuted for the sake of righteousness. It has humble beginnings and grows like seed and yeast. It is not here or there but rather it is among us.

I think it is simply this: If the fullness of the Kingdom at the end of time is when we live in that perfect world where God had intended us to live, where social hierarchies do not exist, where there is no class or ethnic discrimination, where there exists an unquestioning trust in God and his providence, where all people operate with selfless love of others, where love conquers sin, where wholeness conquers sickness, where peace conquers suffering, where life conquers death, where hope conquers despair, where redemption conquers damnation, where fellowship conquers loneliness, then our glimpses are glimpses of these things here and now.

And so how should we act while we wait for this kingdom and cry “Thy Kingdom come”?

“Be the servant, the slave of all,” Jesus said. “That is why I came.”

Do we as a nation really enter the international community with that kind of an attitude? It is laughable to even think that that is how we are acting. Supposedly we are a religious nation. More people in the United States go to church on Sunday than almost any other nation in the world, yet are we following the way of God as shown to us in Jesus or are we trying to dominate through the force of arms? Jesus gave himself over to death rather than to kill. He tried to teach us that there is another way, and we keep rejecting it. Don’t we?

St. Paul in our second lesson today says the same thing. Listen again to what Paul said: “Through him” — this is through Jesus — “God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven.” To reconcile all things through Jesus. That would be Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Jews. Everyone can be reconciled to God through Jesus. “Through his blood shed on the cross” – Jesus’ blood – “God establishes peace on earth as in heaven.”

And that’s the only way.

So we can worship Jesus as the king today if we wish, but remember that he objected to any idea of kingship that resembles anything you will see in this world. Jesus gave kingship a whole new meaning

If we are going to worship Jesus as our king, we are going to do it according to his way. The one who is to be first has to be the servant and the slave of all, has to follow the way of Jesus in the way of reconciliation and love. That’s how we will bring peace into our own lives and into the world.

And that is the only way.

The kingship of Christ is not about power, certainly not the political or juridical power to “save yourself and us” from the ignominy of crucifixion. But, ironically, his power to save is revealed as he tells the criminal, “today you will be with me in Paradise.”

So let us see Kingship in this new Christian light, and savor the Good News that we hear today.

A boy was not doing too well in public school. So his parents got him into a Catholic school to see if he would improve. Immediately the boy stopped watching TV and playing computer games and spent all his time in studies. At the end of the year he was the best student in class. His baffled parents asked him what happened. “The first day I went to school,” he explained, “and saw that man hanging up on the cross, I knew you couldn’t fool around here.”

The sight of the crucified Christ might have spurred our young man to success, but the crucifixion, humanly speaking, depicts failure. It signals a brutal and disappointing end to the life and work of Jesus. When Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) his God did not take him down from the cross. When he cried, “Eli, Eli,” and the bystanders waited to see if Elijah was coming to save him, nothing happened. One of the thieves crucified with him even challenged him, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”(Luke 23:39) and he was still hanging there. By every observable, measurable, human standard, the crucifixion was a disappointing end for Jesus whom we acclaim today to be our King.

But Jesus has said that his kingdom is not of this world. By this he means to say not simply that his kingdom is not localized in this world but that the ways and standards of his kingdom are not the ways and standards of the world around us. One of the first people to appreciate this mystery is the repentant thief on the cross about whom we read in today’s gospel. Choking with the pains of crucifixion and imminent death, he turns and says to Jesus, his fellow convict hanging on the next cross, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Unlike the third convict who asks to be delivered from the cross, this holy criminal knows that success in God’s kingdom is measured by a different set of standards. He knows that to get into the kingdom of Christ one has to be saved not from the cross but on the cross.

How often we, followers of the Crucified, make the mistake of the unrepentant thief, of seeking to vindicate ourselves by a show of power, wealth or connection!

A certain knight dragged himself back to the king’s court after a narrow escape from a wearisome campaign. The king ran out to meet him. “What is wrong, Sir Erasmus?” asked the king. “My Lord, the king,” answered the knight, “I have been out fighting your enemies to death.” “Which enemies?” asked the king. “Your enemies on the western border,” replied the knight. “But,” countered the king, “I have no enemies on the western border.” “Well,” replied the disillusioned knight, “now you do.” In his zeal for the king, the knight has been going about sowing seeds of enmity and discord in the kingdom whose peace and harmony he was supposed to safeguard.

Aren’t we often, like this knight, so different from our King? As soldiers of Christ when shall we learn to fight with the same weapons used by our Master? What weapons did Jesus use to wage the spiritual war of the kingdom of God? He used the weapons of Truth and Love. The truth of the word of God is a sharp sword against all the forces of the enemies of the kingdom. Salome, the mother of James and John wanted to add her financial power to propagate Jesus’ teaching. Jesus turned it down. The people wanted to make Jesus king and so to prop up the power of his words with the power of royalty. Jesus ran away from them. The sword of the word of God, wielded with love and meekness as Jesus did is all that we need to spread the kingdom of Christ on earth.

As we celebrate the kingship of Christ today, Jesus invites us as he did 2000 years ago: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). Today is the day to ask ourselves how far we have responded, as individuals and as a community, to this invitation to cultivate the mind of Christ in our dealings with one another, especially in our dealings with those we perceive to be different from us. This is the way to show in our daily lives that Jesus Christ in indeed our king: by cultivating and living out in our lives the gentle and humble mind of Christ. And so, let us conclude with a prayer: Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto thine.

One of the most challenging articles of the Christian faith, especially for African Christians, is the very first one: "I believe is God, the father almighty, creator of heaven and earth." Most Christians will readily admit that they believe in God, who loves us as a father and to whom all power belongs. In our day to day lives, however, we often act as if some power belongs to some other beings or creatures that are in rivalry with God. When confronted with this apparent contradiction between what they profess and how they live, such Christians try to justify their fear of demonic spirits by pointing out that God did not take away the powers of the devil. It is true that God did not take away the powers of the devil and his fallen angels. This is because God knows that there is no way that the devil could use his "powers" to successfully challenge God and God's design in the world. In spite of the devil's powers, God still remains all-powerful.

Today's second reading from the Letter to the Colossians reminds us that this all-powerful nature of God which we hold to be true irrespective of the "powers" of demonic spirits, is equally true of Christ. The passage presents a list of reasons why we should believe in Christ as our all-powerful Lord, the existence and activity of demonic forces notwithstanding, as well as the implications of this belief for Christian living.

(1) Christ is God made visible and the fullness of God dwells in him. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" (Col 1:15) and "in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" (Col 1:19). That is to say, all that we can say of God, we can also say of Christ. He is Immanuel, "God with us." To have Christ is to have the fullness of the Godhead on your side.

(2) Christ is the co-creator through whom all things were created. "For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers" (Col 1:16a). This means all things: visible things on earth and invisible forces in heavenly places, "whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers." Demonic beings, together with the limited powers they are supposed to possess, were created in Christ, that is, with Christ's involvement. Their created powers cannot rival or challenge the divine, uncreated powers of Christ. Just as the thickest darkness cannot overcome, but must flee before the candlelight, so the most demonic of forces cannot nullify the purpose of God in Christ.

(3) All things are for Christ. Over and above the fact that all things in heaven and on earth were created through Christ is the fact that they were created for him. "All things have been created through him and for him" (Col 1:16b). In a mysterious way that is too deep for us to grasp in this life, all things ultimately work together for Christ, including principalities and powers. This is what we see so graphically depicted in the story of Job, where Satan is clearly at the service of God, even as he goes around creating hardships and temptations for Job. In the end, all things will submit to Christ, just as they were all created for him.

(4) In Christ all the opposites we experience in life find a final resolution. In him they find their ultimate reconciliation. "Through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross" (Col 1:20). Classical theology speaks of God as the coincidentia oppositorum, "the coming together of opposites." In Christ all the dualities we experience in life, for example, between male and female, natural and spiritual, good and bad come together in perfect harmony. Christ is Lord of all things: in him positive and negative come together in perfect unity.

What relevance does this understanding of the cosmic role of Christ have for us today as we celebrate the solemnity of Christ the King? We see that Christ is king not only of the political but also of the spiritual realm. His authority prevails not only in nature but also in supernature. Just as the kings and rulers of the nations have power in the political order, yet the power of Christ prevails in all the earth, so the demons and principalities and powers have power in the spiritual order, yet it is the power of Christ that prevails even in supernatural realm. Christians, therefore, need not live in fear of demonic forces either in their personal lives or in their lives together as a church. In spite of all appearances to the contrary, Christ remains "the head of the body, the church" (verse 18). Christ himself promised that "the gates of Hell will not prevail against it" (Matt 16:18). As we thank God today for the kingship of Christ, let us resolve to live in confidence as God's own children and not in fear of demonic forces, since Christ is king over them all.

The Solemnity of Christ the King, marks the end of the Liturgical Year, and prepares for Advent by speaking about the Second Coming and the end times. It was established by Pope Pius XI to both to celebrate the jubilee year 1925, and to mark sixteenth century since the Council of Nicea (325 AD). The Council of Nicea affirmed the teaching of the apostles on the divinity of Christ and expressed that teaching in the Creed. The Creed had been developing around the Rite of Baptismal three-fold questions. This Solemnity therefore highlights the divinity of Jesus Christ, of whom the Angel Gabriel told Mary, “of his kingdom there will be no end” (Lk.1:33); the one anointed King by the Father. That is why today in the preface we pray: “You anointed Jesus Christ, Your only Son, with the oil of gladness, as the eternal Priest and universal King.” The account of David’s anointing in the first reading speaks of his closeness to the people and his future role as a shepherd-king. David is the deliverer and shepherd of his people, thus pre-figuring the mystery of Christ, who is King, Shepherd and at the same time the lamb slain on the cross for his sheep. That is the point of Luke’s crucifixion narrative, in which everything said about Jesus comes to be true: the “chosen one”, the “Messiah”, the “Saviour of all”; the one who saves himself by surrendering his own life. Indeed the readings lead us to meet Christ, who, in Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, "is the image of the unseen God and the first born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible...everything was created through him and for him"(Col. 1. 15-16). In this beautiful hymn that is highly poetic, St. Paul gives us a glimpse of the Father, who sums up all creation in Christ.

St. Paul's meditation on the Father summing up and reconciling all things in and through Christ, is one of the most beautiful prayers of thanksgiving to the Father. We are invited to offer our gratitude to the Father for all that he has done for us throughout the Liturgical Year that comes to an end this Sunday. Thus in the Eucharist, we offer to the Father a sacrifice of thanksgiving through Christ, the King, who by his death and resurrection enters into an eternal and universal kingdom: a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace. The prayer after Communion beautifully sums up the mystery of Christ we celebrate this Sunday: “Lord, you give us Christ, the King of all creation, as food for everlasting life. Help us to live by his Gospel and bring us to the joy of his kingdom”. This last Sunday of the Liturgical Year challenges us to be more determined to live by the values and principles of Christ our King, and to be willing to sacrifice ourselves for those values. Our baptism into the life of Christ was and continues to be a bold statement to the world: Jesus is Lord and King of our lives. We dream His dreams. We share His hopes. We believe that nothing, not even death, can take away the dream of His Kingdom from us. The Solemnity of Christ the King is not just a conclusion of the church year. It takes us to the beginning: ushering in the King who is, who reigns in our hearts, and who is yet to come, a new Advent. So what message do we take home this Sunday? 1) We are invited to live by the Gospel Christ preached; by His values of peace, Justice and love that Christ shared; and by rules that govern His Kingdom –the Commandments. 2) The readings exhort us to let Christ reign in our lives, so we may be truly united with him, and thus be effective witness in Christ’s kingdom. 3) As we conclude the Liturgical Year, let us pray that you and I continue to be faithful servants of our King; that we may continue to bear good fruit for the growth of his Kingdom.

 By Bishop Kasomo Daniel PhD; D.Sc

The Catholic Bishop of The Society of St. Peter and Paul (SSPP)