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Readings for Today. Listen to our other podcasts.
Kingdom of God
Today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. The image of a king is not really one we think much about in this country, unless something dramatic happens in Britain, I would say. We may not like royalty much as it pertains to our own country, but when Queen Elizabeth died and King Charles became the new monarch in Britain, it’s no secret that many Americans tuned in to watch, some even as it was occurring live.
But for the people of Jesus, this image of Jesus as a king was one that they fully expected. If they had come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah, then they would have seen Jesus as a king. That was the promise to David, after all, in the book of Samuel. That there would be someone set upon his throne, a dynasty, a house that lasts for all ages. And so the image would have been a familiar one.
But this doesn’t really answer the question because when we think about Jesus, the first question is, well, what does it mean to call him king? Because the king they expected was not the king they got. In fact, they expected a military king, one who would like King David ride off into battle and win the victory for Israel.
To the best of our knowledge, Jesus never entered into a war. He was never on a horse, and he never led the troops into battle. And yet we call him a king. Why? Because Jesus comes to inaugurate a kingdom, a realm, a reign. Jesus is referred to as the newborn king of the Jews from the very beginnings of his human life. But the kingdom he inaugurates is unique indeed. It’s not like other kingdoms in the world.
The kingdom that Jesus inaugurates is one that turns everything upside down, turns all things on its head. For it is a kingdom where every subject of the king is required to act in a particularly dramatic way. The gospel lays it out, but so too do the other passages of the gospel that highlight those who are the tremendous citizens of this new kingdom.
It’s the widow that puts in everything she has by only putting a couple of cents in the treasury. It is the man who sees the person in need on the side of the road and cares for his needs. It is, as Jesus tells us in the gospel, each one of us, when we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit those in prison.
For those of a certain generation, those types of things would be familiar as the corporal works of mercy. This is in fact what Jesus asks his citizens to do. But we know that’s not as easy as it sounds. See, sometimes we can convince ourselves that the hungry are hungry because, as St. Paul says, those who will not work should not eat. And we can say to ourselves, well, if they only worked a little harder, they wouldn’t be in this situation. Why should I help them?
We live in a time, in a culture, where it seems that it’s not enough to point out the poor, but that it seems that we also need to blame the poor for being poor. And even if personal choices result in the situation or circumstance that someone finds themselves in, Jesus makes no distinctions in his gospel.
But it’s even deeper than that for us. For even without believing that Jesus is the King, we could do all these things mentioned in the gospel. What does it mean for us to profess that Jesus is the King of the universe, as we said in our opening prayer? Is it not that we develop a personal relationship with the King?
Because when we do, when we really seek to have this deep and powerful and wonderful relationship with the King, it becomes easier to recognize the King when we see Him in other persons, other places, other circumstances, other situations. And as a matter of fact, when we deeply dive into this relationship with the King, we begin to see just what it is that the King has done for us, the gifts, the talents that Jesus has given to you and to me. And moreover, the help to use these gifts and talents in a way that makes us true citizens of the Kingdom of God.
Today, let us make a promise as we come to the end of this Church year. Let us ask ourselves to make the Lord Jesus Himself the center of our lives, in a deeper way, in a more full way, in a more complete way, so that we might come to be able to recognize Him in everyone that is in need, finding ourselves among the righteous.
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