Year A Christ the King Matthew 25:31-46

At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, every tongue confess him King of glory now; ‘tis the Father’s pleasure, we should call him Lord, who from the beginning was the mighty Word. (Hymn 69 – red hymnal)

Today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, or Reign of Christ Sunday, to use the more gender neutral term. It is a day of celebration, placed on the very last Sunday of the Church year. That gender neutral name unfortunately waters down the impact the original name is supposed to make on our consciousness. Jesus as King - Jesus, at whose Name every knee should bow, or at the very least, every head dip in respect and reverence.

Because our Puritan forbears shunned anything they considered “papist” (as did all early Protestant denominations – but more so the Puritans), we in the Congregational Church tend to not use these old, reverent practices, and sometimes we don’t even know about them. For example, we all know what a crucifix is, but we don’t use them, nor do we know their history in the Church. We also tend to not know the history or use of the cross as a symbol of our faith. Our altar cross, and any cross we might wear around our neck as jewelry, will be be plain, gold or perhaps silver, even wood. This is in keeping with Puritan ideals, so it may come as a surprise to learn that the cross used in the early Church was different, normally encrusted with rare jewels.

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Until the thirteenth century, the cross as the symbol of our salvation was fashioned not with a corpus, the realistic body of Jesus, and not just in plain gold or silver, but with precious gems which spoke to the faithful of the time of Christ's victory over sin and death, and of His reign as King of heaven and earth. In fact, adding the corpus didn’t really catch on until the time of St. Francis of Assisi (the saint we picture with all the animals around him).

Because of the realistic aspect of the crucifix, the focus became more on the Pascal Victim. But the image of Jesus Christ the King, of Christ's triumphant kingship, has not been completely lost. We need to remember that by their portrayals of Christ's passion and crucifixion, the evangelists underscored the fact that Jesus went to his death not as a defeated victim, but as a victorious king; not as the last act of a dramatic tragedy; but as one of the last scenes of a well- planned love story.

Like Christians in the centuries before us, our lives are guided by our images. If our image of hospitality calls us to drop everything when unexpected visitors arrive, following the old Benedictine saying, “Let all visitors be received as Christ”, then we put aside our work and share our time with our guests. If we imagine that persons committed to peace do not lash out at others in anger, we try to live by that image. So our images of Jesus Christ guide and influence our lives. Each of us has a favorite image of Christ. We may prefer to picture Him as the Good Shepherd, or as a teacher who embraced children. Still others may think of Jesus as a brother, companion, or friend. But we need to remember that there is a powerful, reigning Jesus, who told His followers:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. - - - And what will happen to the goats isn’t pleasant to contemplate.

In fact, what will happen to the goats is frightening, and we do not wish to be among them. How do we serve this King, especially when to us, crowned heads are a thing of history? And such a peculiar King. No purple robes. No crown. No legions of soldiers. No great processions and parades. No castle. No place to live -- period.

Our King claims to be poor, and hungry, and a stranger, and in prison, and sick, and thirsty. He claims to have nowhere to lay his head. But Jesus does not leave us wondering how we must serve Him. He explains to us, His disciples, "See all these sisters and brothers of mine who are homeless like me? They are me. I am them. To serve me you must serve them. When I come back, I will see what you are doing and whom you serve….

So there we are, with the instructions with which we are all so familiar, to look after those less fortunate. Jesus has explained to us, over and over again, the things he expects us, commands us to do – feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for widows and orphans, take care of the poor – love every single person we meet as we would love Him, because each person is Him, though sometimes, as Mother Teresa would say, in a “distressing disguise”. And when we do not do these things we can be sure we have sinned in His eyes.

Now there’s a word – “sin”. It means simply we have not managed to do what we have been told to do by our Lord. We have lived only in the moment, when that “sinful” situation presented itself. We have allowed ourselves to do that terribly tempting thing we want to do rather than refrain from indulging in it. We are offered something that seems delightful, though we know it is wrong, and we think, what difference will it make? We act out of desire or greed or folly in ways that offend God – and we know what we’ve done.

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But in today’s Gospel, in explaining how we may serve Him, Jesus utters these words, Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

This is where it gets more complicated for many of us. The things we don’t do. We are presented with a task that requires of us time, or energy, or personal sacrifice, and right then and there we decide we can’t do it. We give ourselves very good reasons why we can’t, and we move right on to the next thing. Sometimes we aren’t even paying attention when an opportunity to respond to the command to love and serve the Lord presents itself to us. Later, looking back, we may see where we offended, disappointed Jesus, but at the time we may be unaware of what we have not done. We need to pay attention, because in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus specifically mentions things left undone.

Think of the time you have not spent in prayer, or the excuse you gave yourself, back before the pandemic, for not going to church on Sunday. There are the times you refused to be of help, times you simply looked the other way when you knew you should speak up to protect to support, to do the work Jesus has given all of us and each of us to do. It is of the “not doing” that Jesus speaks to us today, and it has been said that it is the not doing that will, when the time comes, prevent us from entering heaven.

Our problem is that most of the time, we live by short term plans. These may work for the secular world, but Jesus has promised us entrance into an eternal Kingdom, He has given us a lifetime plan, and He expects us to follow it.

Today we are reminded, in terms that have become a bit archaic, that Jesus is our King – but what does that mean? That means He rules everything, has absolute power, absolutely the final say about what will happen to us, our loved ones, our world, our souls. This ought to instill in us that often difficult to interpret condition known as “the fear of God”, a fear that is respect and reverence of the type so deep in us that it causes us to kneel at the name of Jesus.

Our King is the Almighty – think about that word – but He is also all loving. He is a King who came to us as one of us to learn more about us, to heal us, to teach us, to die for us and save us.

Christ the King Sunday calls us to stand before our risen Lord and make a positive, unqualified, declaration of faith that Jesus Christ is the supreme ruler of our lives -- as Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians, "so all will be made alive in Christ." We end this Church year and prepare to begin a new year by making a clear commitment "for" Christ in our lives. We cannot be Jesus's followers by default, but by choice. Our prayer this day is to be part of the kingdom and reign of God.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, enthroned in glory over all creation, You are a shepherd to the lost and the least. Teach us to see Your face among the poor— feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting those who are sick or in prison— so that we may follow Your example, and share in your eternal realm prepared from the foundation of the world; we ask you Lord Jesus, for your love and mercy’s sake. Amen!