A Reflection for Last Sunday of Pentecost All Saints’ Church, Southern
Shores, N.C. November 22, 2015 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
Christ
the King Sunday
This is the last Sunday of Pentecost, the last
Sunday before the Season of Advent; but it is also known as the Feast of Christ
the King. When I was growing up in the Episcopal Church and using the 1928 Book
of Common Prayer, we did not use the name “Christ the King” in our church
calendar, but some churches were borrowing the name of this feast from the
Roman Catholic Church, and the Collect and lessons for today follow the Roman
Catholic lectionary and Missal. This unofficial practice became official when
the 1979 Prayer Book came out.
The Feast of Christ the King began in 1925 when Pope
Pius XI, in the aftermath of World War I, became concerned about the number of
countries who were moving in a more secular trend and displaying increased
nationalism. The War itself was partly caused by increasingly competing
nationalism.
 |
| 1st page of Manifesto of 93 German Intellectuals Supporting the declaration of War by Germany in August 1914 |
In 1914, Karl Barth was a
young Swiss pastor having studied under the foremost German religious scholars, and he watched in disbelief when the German Government
declared war and his major professors at Seminary celebrated and joined in the
fervor for war to save their national culture as they saw it. The horrendous
slaughter of the war, over 20 million military and civilian deaths and over 17
million wounded, appalled everyone. Good German Lutherans fought against good
British Anglicans and good Scottish Presbyterians, and good French Catholics
fought against good German Catholics, and good Italian Catholics fought against
good Austrian Catholics. The fact that all of the local priests and ministers blessed
the boys going off to the blood bath and the eagerness with which religious
institutions - Protestant and Catholic in Europe and Orthodox in Russia and the
Balkans - all joyfully joined in, undercut the respect for organized religion
in which Christ was a captive of culture.
Pius XI issued a Papal Encyclical in which he called
for the Peace of Christ to be in the hearts and minds of all believers so that
all would see themselves as primarily citizens of the Kingdom of Christ. It
would be nice to say that the churches lined up behind this idea, but the sad
fact was that each church looked to its own advantage to protect their
religious institutions. Instead of working to change hearts and minds, the
churches played it safe by only addressing personal sins. Then came World War
II with 21 million military dead including 5 million military prisoners of war,
and 50-55 million civilians dead which includes 20-28 million civilians who
died from war-related from disease and famine.
The idea of the Kingdom of Christ with the Peace of
Christ begins in the first lesson from the Book of Daniel. This book was
probably written in the 2nd Century during the time of persecution
of the Jews by the Selucid Empire under Antiochus IV Ephiphanes. The writer, channeling
the spirit of Daniel who had withstood persecution under the Babylonian empire,
has a series of visions in which God sends God’s spirit in human form to have
dominion over all creation. This will be seen as a Messiah who is to come in
Jewish hope. However, the hope was for a military Christ as the Messiah would
lead them to victory over their enemies.
When Jesus appears in Israel, two centuries later,
many people see him as the Messiah, the coming King, or the Christ. They want that
Kingdom to be a political kingdom like all the other kingdoms they know in this
world. However, Jesus in John’s Gospel tries to tell Pilate that the Kingdom of
the Christ is different from all the other kingdoms of this world
.
What are the differences in the Kingdom of Christ
and the rest of the kingdoms of this world? In other kingdoms, the leaders are
separated from the citizens. They live in special houses and they have special
perks which they take for granted. Let me give you an example of a perk: I am the Rector of this church, “Rector” in
Latin means Ruler, and one of my perks is that I have a parking space out in
front of this church which says Clergy Parking Only. On last Monday night and again
on Wednesday morning, I drove into the parking lot and in both instances there were
cars where my car ought to be. I was unprepared for the resentment that boiled
up in me as I wanted to force the malefactors of prerogatives, in one case a
misguided Methodist, to acknowledge my right to have deference. Luckily I had
been thinking about the Kingdom of Christ rather than my own rule, and the
words died in my shame before I spoke them. In the Kingdom of Christ, all
rulers are turned into servants who ask not what they can grasp but what they
can give. In the Kingdom of Christ privilege is no virtue, humility is no vice.
In all of the other Kingdoms of the world there are
classes of people who are divided by wealth or social status, where the rich
and the high-born work to keep their positions over others and greed becomes their
social norm. They are called “job providers” for the servants who look after
them and supply them with luxury goods. They pay for the finest legislators
that money can buy to arrange the tax codes to favor them and keep the poor in
their place. In the Kingdom of Christ, all are supposed to work hard to support
themselves and help their neighbor. Hard heartedness is no virtue, generosity
is no vice.
In
all the other Kingdoms of the world, revenge is a key virtue so that fear is
generated against any who would challenge or harm the Kingdom. That is why we are
addicted to wars to teach anyone who would threaten our mastery. World War I
was fought for mastery of Europe, as was World War II. In those Kingdoms, the
most popular entertainment is the “good guys” blowing away the “bad guys” with
massive firepower, echoing the song of Lamech, the great grandson of Cain who
had killed his brother Abel and who passed on his love of power in the 4th
Chapter of the Book of Genesis: Lamech said to his wives:/“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; /you
wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:/I have killed a man for wounding me,/ a
young man for striking me./If Cain is avenged sevenfold,/ truly Lamech
seventy-sevenfold.” In
the Kingdom of Christ, violence and hatred are no virtues and forgiveness is no
vice.
In other Kingdoms of the World, there is
usually a security system to make sure the citizens tow the mark, but Jesus had
this system where he kept giving people freedom to make other choices and
forgiveness was freely offered when they fell short of the mark. Jesus taught
that compassion was to be a virtue of strength, not a vice of weakness.
In other Kingdoms of the world, they worry
about uniformity and keeping out people who think differently. However, Jesus
in his ministry, the blueprint for the Kingdom of Christ, called together his
disciples from all parts of his society.
Sworn political enemies such as Simon the Zealot and Matthew the Tax Collector
worked together, as would Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free. All were equal citizens of the Kingdom of
Christ to be treated with love. In the Kingdom of Christ, discrimination is no
virtue and respect of differences is no vice.
At a meeting last week, one of my fellow
attendees told me how she always kept her cell phone on in the car as she drove
alone. She said it was like having a companion on the road that she could use
if there was trouble and, if it rang, she didn’t really have to answer it if
she didn’t want to. I told her that I had been thinking about Christ the King
and how we have, in this so-called Christian nation, domesticated him so that
he has become sort of like a public utility - a good companion on the road who
could be of help if we run into difficulties and whom you can ignore if you
don’t want to listen.
This last week there were some comments
about allowing only Christians to receive asylum because, as the logic goes, Christians don’t do acts of violence or
kill people who disagree with them, and this is a “Christian” nation. If we
were a Christian nation with Christ as our King and following the Peace of
Christ, what would this nation look like? How would this change us?
Did you ever wonder how Christ would do in
an election in our system and culture? I wrote a poem about that:
Advisers
for Christ The King Election
Should free Americans
elect our Kings?
If want for elect Christ
we need to hustle
composing polished pro
campaign swings
with winning campaign
strategy to muscle
the boy up. Know whole
forgiveness stuff
doesn’t play well in the
polls- say it makes
him look weak. Turn the
other cheek fluff
is problematic: less
doves and more snakes!
He needs to point out opponent
eye specks
The only planks must be
in party platform
of prosperity, wealth
and a strength to flex
What kind of name is
Jesus anyway? Norm
must be considered not
Hispanic or foreign.
Party be crucified
unless call him “Warren”.
No comments:
Post a Comment