{"id":145,"date":"2010-11-20T17:15:24","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T21:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/?p=145"},"modified":"2010-11-20T17:15:25","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T21:15:25","slug":"homily-for-november-21-2010-christ-the-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/?p=145","title":{"rendered":"Homily for November 21, 2010: Christ the King"},"content":{"rendered":"

If, like me, you attended a Catholic elementary school in the 1960\u2019s (or earlier), your memories of the feast of Christ the King probably include lots of marching.\u00a0 We\u2019d line up– boys on one side, girls on the other, and led by our battalion commander, Sister Mary Alma, we would march from the school yard into the Church, singing some sort of martial hymn proclaiming ourselves soldiers of Christ, following the cross, and ready to storm the ramparts of evil.\u00a0 It was pretty rousing stuff.<\/p>\n

Back then we knew what a King was, because we were still pretty close to fairy tales and storybooks.\u00a0 But even then, because we didn\u2019t have a King– in fact, since our country was founded in opposition to a king– we knew that this was metaphorical.\u00a0 And as we grew up, the metaphor became more and more of a problem.<\/p>\n

I suspect that for most people, the generic King is like the little guy from the comic strip the Wizard of Id.\u00a0 This king is short, impulsive, reactionary, and exercises absolute authority.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an accident that the kingdom he rules is called Id.\u00a0 This is a dangerous king, because at the least offense, he could order you jailed or thrown on the rack.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, the king of Id is universally disliked and feared.\u00a0 It\u2019s the reason our country has never vested unlimited power in one man, or one office.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For many years, that was the sort of King most people saw on this feast day, I suspect.\u00a0 Christ the King was one of the most triumphalistic feasts of the Church\u2019s year.\u00a0 Lots of talk of thrones and dominion and majesty and power.\u00a0 You can see that even in today\u2019s first reading from 2 Samuel, where David is anointed King of Israel.\u00a0 David wasn\u2019t the first of Israel\u2019s kings, but he was considered the greatest of them.\u00a0 At first, God told the prophets that his people didn\u2019t need a king.\u00a0 But the people insisted.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 For security.\u00a0 The nations around them had kings, and they wanted to feel secure.\u00a0 The prophets warned them that kings are dangerous, that they would be taxed, oppressed, and drafted into their king\u2019s service.<\/p>\n

And all of that did come to pass.\u00a0 For all his strength and military power, David did some terrible things.\u00a0 And Israel\u2019s subsequent kings would be progressively worse, until the nation itself was divided and conquered.\u00a0 Throughout the Scriptures, having a king is generally speaking a disaster for God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n

So why do we today celebrate Christ the King?\u00a0 The answer is in the Gospel.<\/p>\n

Christ the King isn\u2019t the triumphalistic king, or the king of armies and wars, or the king who rules by capricious commands.\u00a0 He\u2019s the king on the cross.\u00a0 He\u2019s the king who taught that to b the ruler of all is to be the servant of all, and in this Gospel, he\u2019s offering the ultimate service:\u00a0 dying for our sins instead of saving himself.<\/p>\n

All three of the Gospels for this feast function this way.\u00a0 In year \u201cA\u201d we get the judgment scene from Matthew 25, where the king separates the sheep from the goats.\u00a0 The ones welcomed into heaven are the ones who recognized their king in the hungry, and the thirsty, and the refugees, and those in prison.\u00a0 In year \u201cB\u201d, Jesus stands before Pilate and declares that his kingdom is not of this world.\tThese Gospels shatter our images of the king who lives in the castle, exercising absolute authority over his subjects.\u00a0 What it leaves us is the King who sacrifices, who lives in the poor and the rejected.\u00a0 Whose highest value is the truth, and who lays down his life for us. \u00a0 That doesn\u2019t leave much room for triumphalism, or imperialism, or even for authority as we understand it.<\/p>\n

The feast of Christ the King ought to make us a bit uncomfortable.\u00a0 Not because we\u2019re uncomfortable with the metaphor of a King, but because we\u2019re still too comfortable with our own power, and our own place in the hierarchies of our world.\u00a0 Part of our sinfulness is that as much as we say we dislike the idea of Kingship, there\u2019s always a temptation to think, \u201cWell, it might be OK if I were King (or Queen).\u201d \u00a0 But the Christ the King of these Gospels challenges that temptation.\u00a0 We are asked to follow the King we see in the poor and the rejected, the criminal who stands before Pilate for threatening the status quo, and the king who died on the Cross.<\/p>\n

This is the last Sunday of the Church\u2019s year.\u00a0 Next week begins the season of Advent.\u00a0 That time of preparation ask us to get ready for the coming of our King\u2014both the victorious Christ who comes at the end of time, and the helpless infant born into our world 2000 years ago.\u00a0 But we really begin that preparation today, with the realization that power and glory as this world understands them are corrupt and temporary things.\u00a0 We follow the one whose reign begins with service, compassion, and justice:\u00a0 Christ the King.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If, like me, you attended a Catholic elementary school in the 1960\u2019s (or earlier), your memories of the feast of Christ the King probably include lots of marching.\u00a0 We\u2019d line up– boys on one side, girls on the other, and led by our battalion commander, Sister Mary Alma, we would march from the school yard into the Church, singing some sort of martial hymn proclaiming … Continue reading Homily for November 21, 2010: Christ the King<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homilies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5FUlW-2l","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}