The welcome

Homily for the Feast of Christ the King 2017 

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In Latin it begins, Excita, quaesumus, Domine … This, sad to say, is not about Christmas puddings, but is about asking to be excited.

The Christian life is not easy. It’s not about blindly following a pre-established rulebook or imposing rules on others. Jesus did not write an arid rulebook for his followers. Jesus did not think that belief in him could be attained through imposition. He did not come to establish a new religion. In fact more and more I think he came to abolish religion—to set us free from rules for their own sake, by showing us how to renounce all the vain things that charm us most. He came to show us wisdom that has no need of the rules of jobsworths, no need of prosperity and security for ourselves, no need of always having to be right. Then we are free to live selflessly, ego-free, for others.

A Vicar comes in contact with all sorts and conditions. People who are recovering from illness, people who have been in and out of hospital, people who are out of work, homeless, hungry, at their wits’ end, people who’ve endured more hardship in life that I would wish to endure. I witnessed dignified behaviour from people at their most exposed, most vulnerable, weakest. Regal, king-like.

Is this the kingship of Christ the King? If so, it involves accepting stuff that happens. Being passive: the passion. It involves rising above desolation in the hope of a fresh start. Resurrection and ascension. It’s not comfortable: we have to cope with the darkness of the deeps before we can rise to the sunlight. But the gospel readings of the last few weeks have not been comfortable. All of them have spoken of judgment, of exclusion, of condemnation for those who are late, or lazy, or easily satisfied, or who—as today—are hard-hearted.

********

Conquering kings their titles take from the foes they captive make: Jesus, by a nobler deed, from the thousands he hath freed.

Who do you remember from your past? Do you remember with gratitude those who punished you, who tried to impress you, who imposed on you? Do you remember with gratitude those who showed you, taught you, encouraged you, goaded you to action perhaps by words that rankled at the time, and then left you to get on with things?

Christ the King never uses power to his own advantage. He shows, teaches, encourages and then lets us get on with it. He is a team captain who works with the team rather than imposes on them; a captain who uses power for the benefit of others rather than for his own self-interest. He is the sort of king who leads us, pushes us, to places we fear to go. He stirs us, excites us, to action. He provokes us to realize that we don’t need to be fearful and ashamed of the past, but that we can move on with the past behind us to great new things. He doesn’t burden us with expectations and rules and shoulds and oughts. He takes them away from us and carries them himself. He is the sort of King who makes our loads lighter, not heavier. Christ the King lifts us from the rut and excites us to look to the future.

Conquering kings their titles take from the foes they captive make: Jesus, by a nobler deed, from the thousands he hath freed.

********

Kings have kingdoms.

When Christ the King was on trial for his life, he said his kingdom was not of this world. This is NOT about the afterlife. He was telling Pilate that his kingdom was an inner kingdom—a kingdom of outlook, of attitude, of motive—that powers Godly action here and now. It’s a recognition that the trappings of the material world are part of the layers we surround ourselves with in order to make ourselves look big. Vanity. Illusion. Look at Robert Mugabe and his millions, his palaces, his jets, all the people he has conquered and maimed and killed and humiliated.

We make the ideal kingdom—the Kingdom of heaven—here NOW. Life before death, not life after death. It’s about you and me making a world where we show, we teach, we encourage. A world where we don’t impose. A world where we don’t sit back criticizing others and looking down our noses at them. It’s not a kingdom where we stifle and suffocate and kill, but a kingdom where we excite and inspire others to action.

The Kingdom includes children, who were nobodies in that world—children who take risks, who listen, who experiment, who play, who are uncynical. The Kingdom excludes the pompous jobsworths. The Kingdom stands in judgment of the elites who create and shape things so that they can grow richer and fatter at the expense of the rest of us. Mugabe again.

It’s a kingdom where we seek the lost, bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, strengthen the weak. Where those who had trampled the weak are brought down. A kingdom where people are brought in, and community is restored. Where the tendency to entropy is reversed, where chaos is transformed into cosmos as in Genesis 1. Continuing creation.

********

We live messy lives. The mess of holiness. God bless this mess. We honour the King

• when we forgive others and let go of resentments.
• when we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the outcast, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner—thus helping to free them from their pasts.
• when we realise that the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the imprisoned, are all parts of us that we have lost contact with—parts of ourselves that are strangers to us. And as we forgive others, we begin to forgive ourselves. This is truly the key to liberation from the past. Harden not your hearts ….
• when we grow up, and take responsibility for ourselves.

We do all this to refresh and re-empower ourselves in order to do what we say we will do at the end of Mass—that we go in peace to love and serve the Lord, to bring about his kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.