by Sharon Marr
(channelling Debie Thomas)
(Based on Matt 25:31-46)
This week the Church celebrates Christ the King, and we pause to reflect on the meaning of Christ’s reign over the Church, the world, and our lives. What kind of king is Jesus? What does his rule look and feel like? What does it mean to live and thrive under his kingship?
Given the power and pomp we typically associate with kings, we might expect the Anglican lectionary to give us readings that sound … well, kingly. Something gorgeous from the Book of Revelation, perhaps, about Jesus decked out in splendid robes and a jewelled crown. Or something majestic from Isaiah: “A son will be given to us, and the government will rest upon his shoulders.” Or at least a shiny moment from the Gospels: say, Jesus transfigured on the mountaintop.
But, no. The royalty Jesus describes in Matthew’s Gospel is of another order entirely. It is homeless Jesus. Sick Jesus. Imprisoned Jesus. Hungry Jesus. Naked Jesus. It is, in the words of theologian Fleming Rutledge, the “royalty that stoops”.
I learned that “Reign of Christ” Sunday is a fairly recent addition our church calendar. Pope Pius XI instituted it in 1925, in the hope that a world ravaged by World War might find in Jesus’s humble kingship a needed alternative to empire, nationalism, consumerism, and secularism.
I love the Pope’s vision but, sadly, we know it has not been realized. At present there are wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ethiopia and Columbia (to name just some of the 28 countries listed as having conflicts at present).
I am afraid that instead of embracing the countercultural possibility of a humble, wounded king, we have given ourselves over to a version of kingship that is all about domination, supremacy, triumphalism, and greatness. We don’t need to look far – we as New Zealanders must surely acknowledge this fact: it has taken a long, long time of negotiations back and forth, flying from this city to that city to form our present government coalition. Just who would have their demands met and just who would be deputy prime minister, even though it was said to be “largely a ceremonial job”?
We have fallen in love with the loud, the muscular, and the aggressive … and forgotten that the only power Jesus wielded on earth was the power to give himself away. He’s the king who entered humanity red-faced and crying, a king whose greatest displays of power included riding on a donkey, washing dirty feet, hanging on a cross, and frying fish on a beach for his friends. How did we go from the God who empties himself of all privilege, the God who perpetually pours himself out and surrenders his own life for his loved ones — to God as Iron Man?
So many of us long to ‘see Jesus’. And rightly so. We pray for an experience of Jesus’s presence. We yearn to feel him close. We sing hymns, recite creeds, hear sermons, and attend Bible studies — all in the hope of seeing and knowing Jesus in a deeper and more meaningful way.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with these practices — unless they keep us at a comfortable arm’s length from where Jesus actually is, unless they lead us to believe that the work of justice and compassion is somehow secondary to the real business of Christianity. The real business of Christianity is bending the knee to Jesus. And where is Jesus? Jesus is in ‘the least and the lost and the broken and the wounded’. Jesus is in the un-pretty places. In the bodies we don’t discuss in polite company. In the faces we don’t smile at. In the parts of towns we speed by.
It’s not that we have to earn our way to majestic King Jesus by caring for the vulnerable. It is that majestic King Jesus, by his own choice and will, has stooped and surrendered in such a way that he is the vulnerable. There’s no other way to get to him. That’s it! As Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “Each one of them, that is, each vulnerable person, is Jesus in disguise.”
So what is it in us that turns away when Jesus offers us his whole self in such provocative, unbearable simplicity? This is a real question — one I wrestle with all the time. What am I afraid of? My inadequacy? My vulnerability? My reputation? Mercy has been described as “the willingness to enter into the chaos of others”. Is that what we’re afraid of? Other people’s chaos?
It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to have questions. It’s okay to see the huddled figure on the bench, in a doorway or living in their car, and not know exactly what to do. But at some point, our fears must come face to face with reality: “Whatever you did to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” There is simply no way around it. Not if we take Jesus’s kingship seriously.
Likewise, there is no way around the perplexing fact that our reading — a reading that describes the final judgment of all humanity — says nothing about ‘belief’. Think about that. Matthew 25 depicts a scene from the heavenly throne room. It’s a scene describing the culmination of history, when all nations will gather before Christ, and he will separate his people as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. Notice the criterion he’ll use for the separation. What will it be?
Not our confessions of faith. Not our beliefs, not our doctrinal commitments, not our ‘personal relationships’ with Jesus. The criterion will be compassion, and compassion alone.
Surprised? I am. But, yes, this is our king, and, yes, we are meant to be provoked and bewildered by his priorities. As Fleming Rutledge puts it, “The Son who ‘sits upon his glorious throne with all the nations gathered before him’ is the same one who, at the very top of his cosmic power, reveals that the universe turns … upon a cup of water given to the littlest ones in his name.”
If we’re not at least a little bit unnerved, then we’re not paying enough attention.
My mother paid attention, and as her health declined over the years she said to my sister Bronny and me, “My one fear is that when I join that queue in heaven I find myself behind Mother Teresa!”
Soon we will enter into Advent, a season of waiting, longing, and listening. Soon we will walk into the expectant darkness, waiting for the light to dawn, for the first cries of a vulnerable baby to redefine kingship, authority and power forever. But on this Sunday, here and now, we are asked to see Jesus in places we’d rather not look. We are asked to remember that every encounter we have with “the least of these” is an actual encounter with Jesus. It’s not a metaphor. It’s not wordplay. It’s not optional. The person huddled beneath the blanket, sheltering in a doorway, sleeping in a car, is our king. Let’s see Him.
Will you have a “cup of water” for the king.
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