Year C Christ the King Jeremiah 23:1-6 Luke 23:33-43

“The King of Glory comes, the nation rejoices. Open the gates before Him, lift up your voices.”

Today, as we celebrate the upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving, it is also, in the Church calendar, Christ the King Sunday. In an attempt to use less gender specific words, some denominations have watered that down to Reign of Christ Sunday, but that really misses the point.

We need but look around us to see how important this day is. In our world today, we witness strong-man authoritarians who aspire to be kings espousing nationalist, white-supremacist, anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-democratic policies. We see this internationally and right here in the United States.

In 1925, as the world was being gripped by similar nationalist, secularist, anti-Semitic, authoritarian, fascist dictators, the Roman Catholic Pope, Pius XI, instituted Christ the King Sunday to refocus us on why we are here. And why is that? to be icons of God’s love in this world. So appropriate, so applicable to life was this originally Roman catholic holy day, Christ the King Sunday has been embraced by Catholics and Protestants alike., and this Sunday has been embraced by Catholics and Protestants alike.

Kings are not something about which we know much. The last truly well-known monarch, a queen, died this past September. Queen Elizabeth II embodied all that is good and true in a modern monarch, but she wasn’t the sort of ruler that existed in Jesus’ day. With noted exceptions, many of those kings were more like the tyrants of modern times. Yet here we are today, calling Jesus “king”. References to Him as king can be found in our New Testament, but He is not a king like the despots of old nor the dictators and sociopaths of today, nor is He a figurehead like the late British queen.

In our first reading this morning Jeremiah condemns in no uncertain terms the tyrants of this world, and in so doing foreshadows the coming of the King of Kings.

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. … It is you who have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord”

Jesus has none of the trappings of these wicked shepherds; Christ does not destroy, scatter and divide. Rather, our Jesus heals, repairs, gathers, and unites everyone and everything.

Jesus taught us to trust in a loving and merciful Father and to pray to Him in faith for all our needs. He taught that we are all infinitely precious, children of one heavenly Father, and that we should therefore treat one another with love, respect, and forgiveness. He lived out what he taught by caring for those he met; by healing the sick – a sign of God’s love at work; and by forgiving those who put Him to death.

Jesus’ actions alone would not have led him to a criminal’s death on the cross: but His teaching challenged the religious and moral beliefs of his day. People believed, and still do, that He can lead us to a full experience of God’s love and compassion.

Above all, Jesus pointed to His death as God’s appointed means of bringing self-centered people back to God. And God knows, we are self-centered people. Jesus also foretold that He would be raised to life again three days after his death. When, three days after He had died on the cross, His followers met Him alive again; everything changed for them. Frightened and defeated women and men became fearless and joyful messengers. This news, of Jesus, His life and death and resurrection is our Gospel, which means “good news”.

This Gospel the Good News, is why there is a Christian faith today. It is why the Church is here at all: to follow Jesus; to heal, gather, repair, restore, and unite everyone and everything. To be a blessing to all the earth, and everything therein.

Our King stands in contrast to the tyrants of this world, and to those who would, claiming to be His followers, perpetuate hate and violence. To follow our King may make our lives less comfortable in our materialistic world, but all joy is ours, all salvation is ours through Him. For this we arise our great thanksgivings.

And this certainly is a reason for thanksgiving.

The Church has also set aside a Gospel just for Thanksgiving day. It reads in part:

When the crowd found Jesus on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.

Naturally, the people gathered that day asked, "What must we do to perform the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

And, being people just like us, they responded, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, `He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Then Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."

We, who have little knowledge of kings, also have little knowledge of starvation, but we do fear hunger, and we are always eager for good food the tastier the better. As we settle in this week for our Thanksgiving feasts, it would be wise to hold in our minds the thought of the Bread that gives life to the world, and of those many people, both here and abroad, who are starving for it, who need to heal, gather, repair, and restore, who long for unity and peace.

This Thursday will be Thanksgiving day, and we are called to be grateful, but gratitude is tricky. It can easily become a cumbersome process of making a mental list of things one is thankful for, or another source of feelings of spiritual inadequacy. Gratitude, in the vision of Jesus, is much deeper than a list; it is a way of life that grows out of God’s faithfulness.

While our consumer culture tells us to be grateful for the stuff of life, God invites us to share in profound gratitude for life itself. And it is not only our lives for which we are called to be grateful, but the lives of our family, our loved ones, friends, and even those we do not like, but who, like us, are infused with life given by God, and in whom, like our loved ones, we are called to find Christ and serve Him.

This Thursday, while we cut into the turkey or tofurky, while we enjoy the food and the company of those gathered around the table, or perhaps while we dish out food to the homeless at a shelter or other designated location – let us look around us and be grateful for what we have been given, not our stuff, but our very lives and our eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

Let us pray:

Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, help us to always be thankful and to show for in all our doings the life and Love of our glorious King: through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now