Feast of Christ the King

The Rev. Denise Giardina
Sunday, November 22, 2009

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

Today is the Feast of Christ the King. And what, you may wonder, is that? It is a relatively new, 20th century feast day, declared by Pope Pius XI in 1925, to be celebrated on the last Sunday before Advent. According to my Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, the pope’s purpose was the “celebration of the all-embracing authority of Christ which shall lead mankind to seek the ‘peace of Christ’ in the ‘Kingdom of Christ.’” Pretty vague, actually. When feeling uncharitable, as I was when read this, I would consider that to be ecclesiastical gobbledygook. But after 1925, we Anglicans signed on to the feast of Christ the King. So we end the church year with this feast day just before we start the cycle of Advent, when we await the birth of Christ the baby, and so begin the church year all over again.

The question remains: What does “Christ the King” mean? First of all, the metaphor of Christ the King is problematic for us here in the United States of America. We don’t have a king. Our national identity is bound up in the fact that we rebelled against a king, dumped his tea in Boston Harbor and expelled his soldiers from our soil. Our forefathers and mothers made clear they disliked the King of England so much they would have none of their own.

So if we were to translate to our own culture, we would be celebrating Christ the President this morning. Christ the president? I don’t think so. In this country, being called Christ the President would hardly be an honorific.

Our current president, according to some of his opponents, is an illegal alien born in Kenya, or someplace else, who is moving our nation toward socialism, or fascism, depending on whatever the mood the opponent is in. Our most recent past president, according to some of his opponents, was an idiot who wandered away from his village in Texas. Before that the president was a man who his opponents claimed engaged in shady real estate deals, and who had, well, difficulty with his belt buckle. Before that --- well, that president was bland, but the vice president couldn’t spell “potato.” You get the picture.

Christ the president? That is enough to make even a poor carpenter from Nazareth squirm. But Christ the King is worse. What is a king? In some places and times, a figurehead. In others, a tyrant. In still others, a fool. But in all times and places, the king embodies power. Earthly power. And earthly power is used in ways that are often decidedly unchristian.

Why on earth did the Catholic Church decide to celebrate Christ the King, and why did we Anglicans follow suit? I have to tell you, I have done some research into this feast day and the pope who established it, and I find it troublesome. Pius XI supposedly established the feast day as a rebuke to Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy, because Mussolini was interfering with the Church in Rome. And yet Pius XI also appeased Hitler during the 1930s, and strongly supported the fascist dictator Franco in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. We are, then, caught up in 20th century wars when we celebrate this feast day. It would be wise to be wary.

Perhaps we should forget the “feast” of Christ the King and look at the gospel encounter between Jesus and Pontius Pilate appointed for this day. People who appreciate straight answers, and I suspect Pilate was one, will be frustrated by Jesus’ responses. “Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate asks. Jesus replies, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Not exactly an answer. But also certainly not a claiming of the mantle of kingship.

When Pilate points out that Jesus has been handed over to him because of Jesus has supposedly made this claim – and the implication is that to claim to be King of the Jews would be a claim considered treasonous by the Roman Empire, for it would challenge Rome’s power – Jesus responds, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

I suspect Pilate was totally mystified at this point. He asks, “So you are a king?” But the only kingship Jesus will claim is that, as he says, “for this I came into this world, to testify to the truth.”

I want to celebrate this feast day, since we do have it, by looking carefully at the words of Jesus. “My kingdom is not from here.” And “I came to testify to the truth.”

Yes, Christ is King. But Christ is not an earthly king. An earthly king studies the balance of power in the world, and who has what resources, and decides to invade other countries, even if they have done nothing to deserve it. Christ declares, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” An earthly king decides who can have health care and who cannot. Christ heals all the sick the sick who come to him.

An earthly king supports his most rapacious citizens as they rape and pillage the earth in pursuit of profits. Christ condemns those who pursue money as the greatest good, and calls for worldly wealth to be given away. An earthly king declares his nation’s well being the utmost good. Christ stands for the well-being and dignity of all human beings, but especially those who are persecuted. An earthly king takes sides. Christ does not. An earthly king takes sides based upon expediency. Christ does not take sides, yet Christ does stand with the sick, the poor, the prisoners, the peacemakers.

Let us today, on the feast of Christ the King, not celebrate a king but examine our own allegiances. Let me raise a direct challenge. Are we Americans first? Or are we Christians first? You might wonder, are the two incompatible? I would say – and you may disagree with me, but I would say, yes, often, they are incompatible. As wonderful as our nation is in many ways, it has many failings when measured against the life Christ calls us to. And it would be far too easy to substitute our nation, and its values of commerce and selfish pursuit of individual goals as opposed to the wellbeing of the community, for the values Christ holds up for us. Too many times, our churches follow the dictates of American culture, not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

On this Sunday, I would like to close by holding up examples of people who witnessed – not for Christ the king, but Christ the suffering servant -- over against the powers of our earthly monarchs. I am thinking of the young Jehovah’s Witnesses here in West Virginia who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school because it made an idol of the flag and the nation, and took their case all the way to the Supreme Court. I am thinking of Martin Luther King, who broke the king’s laws again and again because they were unjust laws, and ultimately paid with his life. I am thinking of Tom Bennett, a student at West Virginia University who hated the king’s war in Vietnam, and refused to carry a weapon to support it, and yet as a medic saved the lives of many soldiers before losing his own. I am thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who disobeyed his king and even engaged in a plot to kill him, in order to save the lives of others, and who lost his own.

Perhaps you see a pattern here. Oppose the earthly king, and you may lose your life. Just as Jesus the poor carpenter’s son from Nazareth did. Christ the King. I wonder, when Pilate speculated that Jesus might be considered a king, did Jesus feel, among other things, embarrassed? I wonder, if we hold up the spectacle of this feast of Christ the King with great pomp and pageantry, does Christ feel – embarrassed? I wonder, if Christ were to come again, today, here, would he celebrate the feast of Christ the King? Or would he take himself off to Manna Meal to get a bowl of hot soup, and then shuffle out into Quarrier St. to a future where nothing would be certain except that it would involved its share of suffering? That is the Christ we worship.