Sunday Last before Advent, the Solemnity of Christ the King (Year C)
21 November 2021—8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Said Mass
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)
The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37
Our Hope and Our Fear (16:00-30:00)
God, give us hearts to feel and love,
take away our hearts of stone
and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
The Kyle Rittenhouse trial and verdict has troubled most of us, if for different reasons. Those who welcomed the verdict thought that the case never should have been brought to trial; those who found the verdict appalling saw it as one more nail in the coffin of any belief that the U.S. is a just society.
Fr. Robert Hendrickson, a friend and sibling member of the Society of Catholic Priests, expressed well how I personally feel about the matter: “Sadly, it is possible for something to be correct on the letter of the law and still morally and ethically repugnant. We see things that are legal every day that are abhorrent. From Pontius Pilate to our justice system today we know that a verdict, action, or case can be within the letter of the law and utterly outside the bounds of decency and ethics. This is one reason why Saint Thomas Aquinas still speaks to us today with his famous"Lex malla, lex nulla" (an evil law is no law). This is why Christians have never rested their hope in human laws, systems, or politics. Slavery and so many other institutions of human depravity have been completely legal — and absolutely outside God’s law. Claims that this is a Christian nation are put to the lie every day. Today is no different. We will find our Christian nation in the Kingdom alone. Our task is to find ways to bring some portion of that great peace, justice, and mercy to our own day and time as we await the judgment to come. May the souls of those who were killed find rest and may justice roll down.” These as appropriate thoughts on this, Christ the King Sunday, called by some by the inclusive/expansive “Reign of Christ Sunday.”
The image of Christ as King does not really speak to us Americans. We live in a republic that gave up on kings 250 years ago. We tend to belittle the very idea, except perhaps for vicarious royal-watching titillation in viewing such programs as The Crown. So it is hard perhaps to see how connected this theological concept is to the Christian desire to have justice and compassion expressed in our political and legal institutions.
I once met a king. When I was living in Africa, I was honored for my work with villages and traditional leaders. Together with Roman Catholic priest and sustainable farming advocate Father Godfrey Nzamujo, I was named an honorary prince of the Yoruba Kingdom of Kétou. Within the larger context of the Beninese and Nigerian states, the kingdom is ruled by a hereditary ruler, a King called the Oba. I have to confess—I was nervous, since the ceremony was partly religious and the closest thing to a state church there is what we in the West dismissively and ignorantly call “Voodoo.” My staff at the American Cultural Center was excited to have their boss thus honored, and told me to obey exactly any instructions from the King or his ministers. They assured me that we would not be asked to do anything dangerous, immoral, or compromising our Christian faith.
Fr. Nzamujo and I were received at the palace of the Oba unceremoniously ushered into the basement while dancers and singers performed for the assembled crowds in the palace courtyard. Three elderly women looked us carefully up and down, and left. Then the King’s chamberlain evenly commanded, “Mettez-vous à poil (strip naked).” We proceeded to do so under the watchful eyes of the king’s security guards.
We then waited together in the dark naked for a few minutes, feeling vulnerable and a little silly, until the chamberlain returned. He looked harshly at us, and had his assistants produce three items in sequence. “This is water from the Oba’s well. Let him quench your thirst if you are to become his sons.” We drank deeply from the gourd. “This is manioc from the Oba’s table. Let him satisfy your hunger if you are to become his sons.” We ate the gray paste. And finally, “These are ashes from the King’s pipe. Enjoy his leftovers and taste bitterness with him if you are to be his sons.” We tasted the ashes. Then, producing a small bowl of palm oil, he had a vodun priest anoint us as he translated the Yoruba chanting into French for us: “I anoint your brow that you may think as the King thinks, your eyes that you may see with his eyes, your arms that you may defend him and his people, your legs that you may always hurry to heed his call.” Then he clothed us with exquisite royal robes and hats, hemmed to our exact bodily dimensions in the minutes while we waited in the darkness. The elderly women who had scanned us were expert tailors. We then were ushered up a stairway into the bright light of the tropical courtyard. We were told to approach the Oba, who then took a full mouthful of gin and sprayed it over us as the priest said, “You are my sons, princes of Kétou.”
After a lengthy public ceremony, we were handed plastic bags containing our original clothes and escorted back to our car. I didn’t really realize how much all of this meant to the Yoruba until what happened next: On the long drive back to the city, we stopped to have a late lunch at a roadside restaurant. Not having the chance to change back into our western clothes, we were both in the royal robes as we walked from our car. A group of 20 or so market women came around a corner and, when the saw us in our robes marking us as royalty, they all, in a second, fell prostrate before us, faces in the dirt. They remained motionless until we had passed and entered the restaurant.
This experience taught me that a king is the object of love, awe and fear. He embodies the well-being or woes of his people, and is responsible for them. The “divine right of Kings” is not simply an effective propaganda tool to enforce hierarchy on possibly restive subjects. It expresses a faith of an earlier age: a king reflects in some way—however dim—God’s relationship to us, just as a parent, a shepherd, or a trusted teacher.
God in the Bible is often described as a King, and even the “King of Kings.” The Royal Psalms describe the King of Israel “Son of God.”
The core idea here is not hierarchy, authority from top down, or rule for the sake of the ruler. Rather, it is the responsibility that comes from being chosen: the Monarch is first in battle to defend the people, and last in retreat from an attack on them.
The fact that royals so often fall far from this ideal is the reason that the Deuteronomistic History in the Hebrew Bible also includes an anti-royal tradition. In it, God, the only true king of Israel, reluctantly allows the people to set up kings like Saul, David, and Solomon. This is a defection from God’s true plan, a concession to God’s people, who want to “be like the nations round about us.” These very passages were used by the Puritans—including one of my ancestors—during the English Civil War to justify their murder of the Blessed Royal Martyr, King Charles I, and later, by the Revolutionaries in the North American colonies to justify rebellion and sedition against King George III.
So why should we, good citizens of a Republic, celebrate Christ as King?
If we change the question slightly, the reason becomes clear. Why we do not celebrate Christ the President, Christ the CEO, or Christ the Celebrity? Leaders chosen because of popularity or achievement may make sense, but most certainly might not be leaders who give us what we need rather than what we want or merely find attractive.
The heart of the matter is found in the very story in John’s Gospel where Jesus empowers his followers, and calls them friends rather than slaves. In that most anti-hierarchical of passages, Jesus puts it plainly: “It was I who chose you, not you who chose me.”
In our marketplace of goods and ideas, we tend to have a consumer’s approach to things. But being attracted to an idea does not make it true. Choosing leaders because they or their program strike our fancy is no guarantee that they will lead us where we need to go. In fact, the very individualistic egotism and partisanship of such an approach almost guarantee the opposite.
Again, in John’s Gospel, Jesus meets initial success. Large crowds follow him, intrigued by his
signs of power and his teaching. But
when he gives the bread of life discourse. Immediately, large numbers desert
him. Not liking his message, they vote
with their feet, withhold their pledges, and find another teacher more to their
liking. Jesus asks the Twelve if they
are going to leave too, and Peter replies, “Lord, and just where would we
go? You are the one who has the words of
eternal life. We have come to trust and
know that you are God’s Holy One.”
(John 6:60-69)
The Roman Catholic catechism defines faith as “trusting and believing in what
God reveals because of the authority of
the revealing God.” Submission to a
higher power, to an authority, is a key part of faith. Simply agreeing with God’s word because it
pleases us is not faith. It is consumer
choice. It cannot transform us because
it can take us only as far as we already have gone. It may at times demand support, but this is
simply an appeal for funds based on the logic that you may want to continue to
have your ears pleased and your fancy tickled.
In such an approach, it is we who choose Jesus, not Jesus who chooses
us. This is boutique religion, not a living Christian faith able to save us from ourselves.
Christ as king means we have a personal loyalty and devotion to him. As the personal embodiment of God’s love, responsibility, awe- or fear-inspiring power, we admit he has chosen us, and not we him. On this last Sunday of the Church year when we will be gathering in our offerings and pledges to Christ and the Kingdom for the next year, let us remember that Christ is King.
In the name of that King, Our Christ, Amen.
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