A sermon for the Last Sunday after Pentecost, Christ the King Sunday, November 26, 2023. The scriptures are Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24, Psalm 95:1-7a, Ephesians 1:15-23, and Matthew 25:31-46.

This Last Sunday after Pentecost, the Sunday just before we begin a new church year with Advent, is nicknamed “Christ the King Sunday.” But it hasn’t always been that way. This Sunday as “Christ the King” came about only in 1925.

During the early twentieth century, Christians (and especially organized churches) came under political pressure in Mexico, Russia, and some parts of Europe. Overt and militant secular regimes came into power and threatened religion freedom, especially the freedoms and the power enjoyed by the Roman Catholic Church. For that reason, in 1925, Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King to respond to growing secularism and atheism.  The observance of this Sunday was meant to remind us (and the world) governments come and go, Christ reigns as King forever. 

But in its intention, the Pope was only putting forth one image of Christ AS King— solely one of power, authority, and dominion. 

Scripture, theology, and religious experience teach us differently. 

Images around “kingship” run throughout today’s scriptures. It can be helpful for us to know some of the richness behind the word used for “king.” As some of you know, in Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, there are no vowels as such, and so words are constructed by combinations of root consonants. The context then reveals the meaning of the word and in that way one knows which vowels might be put in for pronunciation. The consonants M, L, K form the root for “king,” in Hebrew. But not just for king. They also form the root for “messenger,” and “servant.” The idea is unmistakable—to be a proper king, a real king, one will also have the heart of a servant. That’s exactly what is described in today’s first reading.

Ezekiel gives us the image of a shepherd king—which is not a really mighty image if you think about a king over sheep. But that’s part of the image, that this is an unusual king who seeks out and saves, who shelters, nurtures, and protects. The bully sheep will be dealt with—whether they are simply ignored, cast out, or sent to the butcher—the shepherd king is not sentimental—but strong and true.

A similar idea appears in our Gospel. While we might get all caught up on the judgment between the sheep and the goats, let’s just notice that judgment is none of our business. It belongs to God. It’s for us to be like our shepherd-king and look out for one another, especially the least well-off and the neediest.Jesus says,

Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.

Christ the King Sunday can be a problem if we allow ourselves to get swept up in the imagery and music of the day and imagine Jesus in any way like a worldly king—just more so. It can reinforce the worst of Christian tradition when it prizes strength over weakness, force over cooperation, violence over peace, or even more explicitly, male over female. 

The Diocese of New York is encouraging churches to use this day as a day for Breaking the Silence around violence against women and children, and it seems to me that in important part of breaking that silence involves the Church’s honesty with its historic complicity around these overly male images for God. When a woman or child is abused at home by a man and then goes to church and hears a male-only, chauvinistic interpretation of scripture and theology, that violence is reinforced. This day invites us to question our traditions, what we’ve been told or taught, and perhaps even what we’ve come to think, ourselves. 

Holy Trinity is enriched by several of our members serving on the Diocese of New York’s Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Task Force. We should lift up the good work of Yvonne O’Neal, and Christina Dhanaraj, and Dr. Victoria Rollins. The Rev. Paul Feuerstein, who used to assist here, is also a key part of the task force.  (As an aside, Father Feuerstein also founded Barrier Free Living, and has been working with survivors of domestic violence with disabilities for nearly 40 years. Our Christmas project of buying gifts for the children staying at Freedom House is a part of the work of Barrier Free Living, offering help to families trying to move out of places of violence.) There is a tool kit on observing this day and the 16 Days of activism to end violence against women in the back of the church, and you can also talk with Yvonne, Christina, or others if you have questions or want to get more involved. 

As the preacher on this day, it is for me, I think, to simply note that our scriptures are rich and complex. God is never confined to one image, one characteristic, and certainly not one gender. And though male in human form, Jesus acted in counter-cultural ways both AS a man, and in his dealings with the women he encountered. 

Christ may be King, but he is unlike any king ever known before or since. 

Every chance he gets, Jesus refuses a royal entourage (and so he enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday riding on a donkey, if anything, a symbol of rebellion). He rejects a crown, and so his persecutors have to make him one of briars and thorns. He rejects power, prestige, popularity—he even rejects success, at least in the eyes of the world. He serves alongside us, in front of us, in back of us. Jesus is the king who is mopping the floor even when we have finished the party.

But Christ the King DOES have power—he has the power of God. God will get the cheats and liars and bullies. Justice will be done. Fairness will prevail and the righteous will know eternal life.

Christ our King Sunday reminds us of at least two things. The first is that God is our king—in that way of interceding and sticking up for us.

But the day also reminds us of our share in the kingship, that we can be a person who speaks with authority and justice because we’ve put in our time as a servant. We may not have any official title, let alone be “king” of anything, but because of our share in the kingship of Christ, there will be those times when because of our experience, our friendships, or positions, we are called upon to say and do what a leader should. 

– In the office when someone makes a sexist or homophobic comment. 
– In the neighborhood, when someone is targeted as being “different,” “not from around here,” or “foreign.” 
– When we see a woman, a girl, or a child who seems to be in a dangerous relationship.
– At the school, when those with special needs might be bypassed in favor of those gunning to get ahead. 
– In a conversation, at the family dinner table, in a bar, on the playing field or court. . .
Christ the servant-king wants to be known and heard—through us– standing up, speaking out, feeding, clothing, and befriending.

May those beautiful and powerful words in the Letter to the Ephesians come true for us, that we may be given that “spirit of wisdom and revelation [that] … with the eyes of [our] heart enlightened, [we] may know what is the hope to which he has called [us], what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.