Christ the King Sunday

All Saints Park Slope. Photo credit: Ron Hester

This homily was preached at All Saints Park Slope on Christ the King and Harvest Sunday, November 20th, 2022. 

Happy Christ the King Sunday. And thank you for inviting me to be here today. It is a joy to be back at All Saints and to be able to bring greetings from Fr. Francisco Rodriguez and the community of San Andrés. All Saints is always in the thoughts and prayers of San Andres and I am so proud and honored to be jointly sponsored by both congregations in the ordination process.  

On Christ the King Sunday we celebrate Christ’s sovereign rule over all creation, including his Kingship over all “earthly thrones, dominions, rulers, and powers.” Christ the King honors that peculiar title for Jesus which is scattered across a number of places in the New Testament, where we hear Jesus called the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”

These titles for Jesus are ancient but this celebration of Christ the King is actually a relatively recent development in the life of the Church. The first Christ the King Sunday was celebrated in the 1920s in the devastating aftermath of the First World War. The then-Pope, Pius XI, instituted this celebration as a response to the destruction, economic collapse, and dangerous nationalism that he saw surging all around Europe. To affirm “Christ is King” is a reminder to the Church and world that lasting peace is never to be found in nationalistic fervor but rather in loyalty to the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords.  

Which brings me to a key point about this day: there is a kind of longing embedded in Christ the King Sunday. Today is essentially about hoping and longing for a different type of leadership than the dominions and powers who are currently stewarding our nation and planet. 

Like Pope Piux XI, today we look at the violence of war, poverty, and disregard for the natural world, and say “not this.” We Christians hope for something else. When we celebrate “Christ the King” we affirm that our hope is not to be found in any earthly ruler and that our deepest loyalty is to God. 

This theme of hope, longing, and loyalty to God comes through in the lectionary readings for today but especially, I think, in the reading from the prophet Jeremiah. 

Today’s passage from the Book of Jeremiah begins with him quite literally cursing the earthly kings and rulers of his day. In God’s name he proclaims, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” “You have scattered my sheep and have failed to attend to them, [and] so [God] will attend to your evil deeds.” But though this passage begins condemnation, Jeremiah then offers a word of hope. “One day,” he states, “One day God will raise up a shepherd who will actually shepherd God’s people.” “One day there will be a King who rules with wisdom and justice and righteousness.”

During his lifetime in the 6th century BC, the prophet Jeremiah had to watch his homeland of Judah be taken over and violently destroyed by the invading nation of Babylon. Jeremiah saw Jerusalem, the religious and political center of his people’s life, destroyed by Babylonian invaders and thousands of his people killed, or deported and sent into exile. This traumatic moment in Jewish history, called the Babylonian exile, is what is evoked in those hauntingly beautiful words of Psalm 139, which is frequently set to song: “By the rivers of Babylon / we sat down and wept / we sat down and wept / when we remembered Zion.” 

Jeremiah himself did not escape the violence of this invasion. He and several others ended up having to flee to Egypt for safety. He became a refugee, in other words. And, significantly, it is in the midst of this, as he is fleeing, that he turns to us all and says, “Not today / but one day / one day in the not-too-distant future / there will be a different kind of ruler. There will be a different kind of king, one who rules with wisdom, justice, and righteousness / and who will be a good shepherd to my people.

Now, at the risk of belaboring my point here, I want to repeat those values he just named. And I do so in part because our own national politics is so insane. 

When the prophet Jeremiah says that this future King will rule with wisdom, he is hoping for a leader who draws from many fields of knowledge and a diversity of experiences to make sound judgments. When Jeremiah says this king will lead with justice, he means there’s a focus on fairness, equity, and giving each person their due. When he says this future ruler will be righteous, I hear a hope for moral integrity, the sort of person who “does the right thing even when no one is else watching.” The final value of this hoped-for-King is that of being a good shepherd and guardian of the most vulnerable. This means caring for the poor, the widow, and the orphan. Welcoming the immigrant and refugee. 

Wisdom. Justice. Righteousness. Being a good shepherd and guardian to the most vulnerable. Jeremiah uttered this hope nearly three thousand years ago, yet to my ear, this dream still rings true today.

As Christians, we believe that we have come to know such a king in the person of Jesus, and his life and teachings, his death and resurrection, continue to inspire and transform our lives. Which brings me to my final point about Christians and our awkwardly divided loyalties. 

In the second and third centuries, Christian communities would often write to one another and frequently used this very peculiar formula to begin their letters. So, for instance, if we were in the second century, and All Saints wanted to write its partner parish of San Andres, the letter would begin, “From the citizens of God’s Kingdom at All Saints Church, resident-aliens of Park Slope Brooklyn, to the citizens of God’s Kingdom at San Andres, resident-aliens of Sunset Park.” 

This is a really strange way to begin a letter. And in that opening you can hear the peculiarly divided loyalties that ancient Christians carried with them every day. 

It suggests that as Christians, we are indeed citizens and resident aliens at the same time. We are residents of Brooklyn yet our citizenship is in the Kingdom of God and our loyalty is to a very different King. We affirm the fact that there is no King / or Lord / or President / or former President / who merits our deepest loyalty. Our faith and loyalty are reserved for God alone. 

Now, I know that in addition to being Christ the King Sunday, today is also Harvest Sunday, and somehow I need to bring all of this all together so that All Saints can make its budget for next year. 

So I’ll leave you with this. In Spanish, and at San Andres, these pledge cards are called Tarjetas de promesa, which kind of translates to pledge cards but actually includes the word ‘promise.’ They are ‘cards of promise’ / which I really like / and which is interesting to reflect on in this Christ the King Sunday. 

For today we ‘pledge’ and ‘promise’ our loyalty to God. We pledge and promise our fidelity to this community of All Saints, and, I think, we promise ourselves to a vision of a world that is marked by wisdom, justice, righteousness, and care for the most vulnerable. Through our offerings, we say that we believe in God’s promise of a more just future, and we ‘promise’ our lives to help to bring this vision of God’s Kingdom about.