26 Nov 2017
Solemnity of Christ the King
The Catholic Church in the United States donates about 30
billion dollars annually to charity. That
includes: parishes, collections for the poor, Catholic Charities, Knights of
Columbus, in addition to the ministries of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society,
food pantries, homeless shelters, assisted living, adult day care for dementia
sufferers, hospice programs, and so on, and so on. The Catholic Church invests a lot of time,
money, and love in trying to meet the needs of those who have needs.
And so it would be awful thing, after all this charitable
work, if the Church were to hear the Lord say, “Depart from me, you accursed,
into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” And, of course, our natural response would
be: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill
or in prison, and not minister to your needs?...I thought we were doing good
work, Lord, following your example.”
Now, of course, I don’t know if the Lord would put us in with
the goats for doing good. But, from our
gospel reading, it sounds like it could happen.
And this is what has always troubled me about this particular passage.
We have here a group of people who are intentionally doing
good, meeting the needs of those who have needs…and they’re cast aside because
of it. And then there’s the other group
of people who, apparently, have no idea what they’re doing; they’re not at all
intentional about helping the needy…but they
end up being the inheritors of the kingdom.
It doesn’t make sense.
It seems like the King we celebrate today has the potential
to make some questionable judgments. Of
course, that’s incorrect; we’re the
ones who can make the wrong judgments; because Jesus didn’t cast them aside for
doing good works. That would be
silly. He did it for another
reason. Jesus sees way beyond outward
appearances. He sees into the heart and
mind. He sees what our motivations are;
he sees where our focus is.
As we know, Jesus said very clearly to “Love your neighbor as
yourself.” It’s one of the Great Commandments. And so it’s something we have to be attentive
to. But he also said the “first and greatest commandment” is to “love God with
all your heart, will all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your
being.” Love of God comes first. That’s the motivation, that’s the focus Jesus
is looking for in our hearts and minds.
Now, in the gospel, it’s not really clear how these two
groups of people were helping the poor and the needy. But it is clear that the first group—the inheritors
of the kingdom, weren’t focused at all on doing that good work; apparently, it
was just something that happened in the course of their day. Their focus was simply on God, and following
him. They were just a bunch of sheep,
living a good life, following the Shepherd.
But with the second group, it’s clear that they were very
focused on helping the needy; they put a lot of thought behind it. But perhaps that was the problem.
Jesus didn’t cast them aside for doing good works; they were
cast aside because they’d lost sight of God.
They had neglected “the first and greatest commandment.” God hadn’t been the source and the motivation
behind the good they were doing…they
themselves were the source of the good they were doing. They didn’t need God, apparently. And so
God let them go.
But this judgment by Jesus shouldn’t sound all that shocking;
we’ve heard it before. He’s the one who said,
“Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake
will find it” (Mt 16:25). “In the same
way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my
disciple” (Lk 14:33).
We’ve heard it before—many, many times before—and we’ll hear
it again and again until the day we pass from this life: “Love God first, and
love your neighbor as yourself.” And we’ll
keep hearing it because it’s such a hard thing for humans to do: loving God,
putting God…first. And that’s the
central idea, perhaps, behind today’s solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King
of the Universe: putting ourselves in God’s hands, letting him take first place
in our lives.
You know, the difference between a king and a president is
that a president isn’t at the center of our lives; regardless of who the
president is, that person is not at the center of my life. But a king is. A shepherd is, a judge is. For a flock of sheep, the voice of the
shepherd is everything; he’s the one who protects and provides, who guides and
nurtures. For someone standing in front
of a judge, that judge has the power to determine the course of life; that
judge’s voice and his or her decisions are life-altering.
And, for a nation of subjects, the king (or queen) is central
to life; that’s the one who protects and directs, who nurtures and
provides. And that’s what we remember
today: Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, and also Judge and Shepherd, and
King. He’s all of those things (and
more) rolled into one. As much as Jesus
is our Friend—and he certainly is—he is first our Lord, Judge, Shepherd, and
King.
And, in fact, it’s because he is all those things to us that
he is our faithful Friend. Remember what he says: “You are my friends,
if you do what I command” (John 15:14).
That’s Jesus the Lord and Shepherd speaking. And then he says, “I have called you friends,
for everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John
15:15). That’s Jesus the King speaking.
Jesus issues his commandments, and we’re his “friends” if we
listen and follow. Jesus also opens up
the treasuries of his wisdom and love, and we’re his “friends” if we accept his
graciousness. In fact, Jesus lives his
Kingship and Friendship with us so perfectly, that’s where his authority comes
from.
It’s why we genuflect and bow. They’re signs of respect and awe of him. They’re signs of reverence; they’re signs
that we see (in our Catholic imagination) what Doubting Thomas saw: “My Lord
and my God!” And we genuflect and bow. They’re actions we do with our body to
express what’s in our hearts; a sentiment that says, “You, Jesus are my King,
my Shepherd; I depend on you, and I love you and I need you—my Lord and my God.”
And the ultimate reason we have such respect for him is
because of the Cross. Of course, he did
many wonderful things: healing people, casting out demons, preaching, and so
on. But we revere him most of all
because of his fidelity to the Father.
On the Cross, everything comes together. There on the Cross is Jesus the Shepherd
saying, “This is the way, the Cross is the way, follow me. Remain faithful to God, no matter what.” There on the Cross is Jesus the Judge issuing
his judgments: “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” He’s also issuing the judgment we hear at
every Mass: that we “have been found worthy to be in his presence and minister”
to him.
There on the Cross is Jesus the King giving his life to
protect his brothers and sisters, pouring out all the gifts of his life for our
benefit, sharing with us what the Father shares with him: selfless love. There on the Cross the “glory of the Lord” is
reveal. The glory—the essence of what he’s
all about—is revealed right there on the Cross.
The Cross is his throne of glory on earth.
And it’s from the Cross that Jesus’ authority comes. And we have that “throne of glory” right
here: it’s the altar. The glory of our
King and Friend is revealed to us right here—broken and shared, poured out and
given, freely and happily for us.
It’s why we come to the altar of God and, right off the bat, we
“acknowledge our sins and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred
mysteries.” Compared to the glory of
God, we have a ways to go…and that’s okay.
Actually, the most glorious and perfect thing we can do to start Mass is
to bow before God and say, “Lord, I have sinned, and you know it. I need your mercy and your forgiveness.” It’s a spectacular show of our dependence on
God—as long as it’s sincere.
It’s also a reminder to him and us that we’re trying to keep
him first in our life. It’s a reminder
that we’re trying to let him be the inspiration behind all the good we do, and
not us. In many ways, it’s a gesture of
our own subjection to him. As much as
God has made us to be free, we aren’t free on our own. The “first and greatest commandment” is
always in effect. We’re always subjects of the heavenly King, putting him
first.
And that doesn’t always rub us the right way—the idea of
being a subjected to, or under-neath, someone else. It’s one of the reasons why so often people
will have a problem with Ephesians 5:22, when Saint Paul says: “Wives, be
submissive to your husbands.” We don’t
like to be under somebody else’s thumb.
But, of course, the other half of what St. Paul says here is, “Husbands,
love your wives.”
Saint Paul isn’t saying, “Submit yourself to a tyrant, to an
uncaring, cold, manipulative troll.” He’s
saying, “Submit yourself to one—and only
to one, who loves you unconditionally, with his or her whole heart, mind,
body and soul. Submit yourself to that one—wives and husbands—it goes both ways.”
And that’s an echo of what Jesus our King and Shepherd says, too: “Submit
yourself to me, love me first…because I am the
one who loves you unconditionally.
Submit yourself to my love.”
And so, we bow, we genuflect.
We receive the Body and Blood of Christ with open hands. We worship him because he’s the inspiration
and the goal of this adventure we call “life.”
Every week we have a chance to come here and put our life in order again:
God first.
It’s a wonderful thing to just be led by him, and to “go with
the flow” of the Holy Spirit. And that’s
because the Christian life isn’t so much about doing, as it is about being: being
a friend of Christ, being a subject
of our King, a trusting sheep in the flock of the Shepherd. Everything else we do beyond that—including love
of neighbor—just sort of happens.
A heart in love with God overflows into a life of love in
general. If we want to love and be loved,
then we want to submit ourselves to Christ our Friend and King. If he is our focus, then those who need to be
loved will be; we needn’t worry about that.
His love will reach them, through us.
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