O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
Today - this last Sunday of the Church Year - is the Sunday that is called "Christ the King Sunday".
For most of us the image of Christ as King is perhaps troublesome. We live in a place call HongKong after all - our minds can't quite wrap themselves around the whole concept of kingship, even when it is applied to Christ Jesus.
It may help us to appreciate what Christ the King Sunday is all about if we know a bit about how it came to be.
The title for this Sunday was created fairly recently - in 1925 in fact - by Pope Pius XI, and it entered into the Protestant Church during the nineteen-sixties as more and more Protestant churches began to use the Lectionary (or fixed schedule of readings) as a basis for proclaiming the Word of God each Sunday.
Why did Pope Pius XI create this Sunday and suggest the readings that we have just heard?
Quite simply because the church needed the image of Christ the King at that moment in time.
On its first celebration, Mussolini had been the leader of Italy for three years; and a rabble-rouser named Hitler had been out of prison for a year. Hitler's Nazi party was growing in popularity, and the world lay in a great Depression: a depression that would become far worse over the next fifteen years.
In such a time, Pius XI asserted that, nevertheless, with all of those new dictators and false values in the world, Christ is King of the universe.
The feast of Christ the King, then, was - and is - basically a language thing, a symbol, a metaphor, designed to be a statement of life's fundamental question for broken times such as ours.
The question - who exercises dominion over whom? And the question - Who or what rules our lives and how?
If we pick up on that theme, then the feast of Christ the King can makes sense for us today.
Who rules our lives? Who dominates culture?
The answer to the last question - who or what dominates our culture is - I think - fairly obvious. The forces of evil hold great sway both here in Hong Kong and around the world.
Greed, pride, selfishness, and fear motivates much of the world:
- in our corporate systems;
- in our media - and especially our advertising media;
- in our economic and governmental systems, where what matters most is not whether you are right - but whose side you are on - or who you work for;
- and in the hearts of many individuals - of those who think only of what is in it for them and for those they love, and rarely, if ever, about what is in it for those they don't know - or those they don't like.
The fruit of those forces that rule in our culture - and in every nation of this world - are as obvious as the huge pile of rubble and debris that sits in the heart of Central District here in Hong Kong today - as clear as the pictures of starving children in Africa and Asia and that come to us on Television so very often - and as manifest as the number of homeless - beaten - battered - abused - drug dependant - persons that live on our streets or are hidden away in our middle class homes.
The pursuit of happiness - the pursuit of success - and the exaltation of our families and our region or our country or our religious and political thinking as the most important things in life - is fraught with danger.
These are, in part, the things that led to Mussolini and to Hitler in the 20's and 30's -and they are in part the things that feed the Bin Ladens and the Arafats of our world today - the things that allowed countries to spend so much money on weapons and very little to help the people of their own country who need help. Are warplanes and warships more important than people's lives? Who and what rules our culture?
The answer is depressingly obvious.
And it feels even more obvious - and even more depressing the more we focus on all that trouble out there, the more we look at all the negative stuff, the more we experience the body blows of troubles within our own families and the more we are slapped silly by the series of illnesses and deaths within our very own community.
Think of them all.
In the last few months many people have been taken from us - one after the other - both young and old - people like Maggie, Michael, Jean, Ah Sze, Lok Man, Vincent, and now Carol.
You just get up off the floor from having been hit by one death or illness or tragedy and another comes and knocks you down.
It makes you wonder who or what is in charge doesn't it?
It makes you wonder if it will ever end.
If things will ever get better.
Hence this day - today - Christ the King Sunday.
Today we assert the Gospel message - the message that Christ is in charge.
And we assert the Gospel message that not only is Christ in charge - but the peace that we need, the hope we need, can be found in him, now, today. And more - that the peace our world needs - the peace our culture needs - is coming through him, on the day that God has chosen.
But - as Jesus himself said to the disciples on the night of his betrayal, the peace he gives - he gives not as the world gives.
And that is important - very important - as we, with Paul, name Christ not only as the King of the Universe, but as King of our lives - of our hearts.
In the first reading today we heard that:
"The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness"
The word Righteousness conjures up for most of us an image of someone who is holy and good, of someone who is following the laws of God - the laws of moral correctness. And that is indeed part of the meaning of the word Righteous.
But when the word Righteous is applied to God in the Bible it is almost always used in reference to the saving and healing activity of God.
God shows us that he is righteous by delivering us from our enemies and by making us whole. God is righteous when God forgives us. God is righteous when he keeps his promise to be our God and to watch over us and protect us.
The righteous branch of David, the one who will be called "the Lord Our Righteousness", is, of course, Christ Jesus: the one that Paul describes in our reading from the letter to the Colossians as the image of the invisible God; the one who through whom and by whom all things were created; the one who is the head of the church, and the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead.
Let me illustrate the nature of Christ's Kingship, this Lord of Righteousness with a story.
It is the story of a little boy who wanted to do something good. A fellow like most of us.
Six-year old John decided one Saturday morning to fix his parents pancakes. He found a big bowl and spoon, pulled a chair to the counter, opened the cupboard and pulled out the heavy flour canister, spilling it on the floor. He scooped some of the flour into the bowl with his hands, mixed in most of a cup of milk and added some sugar and an egg, leaving a floury trail on the floor, which by now had a few tracks left by his kitten.
John was covered with flour and getting frustrated. He wanted this to be something very good for Mom and Dad, but it was getting very bad. He didn't know what to do next, whether to put it all into the oven or on the stove, (and he didn't know how the stove worked!). Suddenly he saw his kitten licking the bowl of mix and reached to push her away, knocking the egg carton to the floor. Frantically he tried to clean up this monumental mess but slipped on the eggs and landed on the floor - getting his pajamas white and sticky. Just then he saw Dad standing at the door. Big tears welled up in John's eyes. All he wanted to do was something good, but he'd made a terrible mess. He was sure a scolding was coming, maybe even a spanking.
But his father just watched him. Walking through the mess, he picked up his crying son, and hugged him - getting his own pajamas white and sticky in the process of loving him.
That's how God - our Lord and King - deals with us and the mess we have created. That's how Jesus - our Lord and King - deals with us and the mess we have created.
He enters into our reality and takes our mess onto himself. He loves us and forgives us
- and shows us the way of true love;
- the way that gives life - and that abundantly;
- the way of the kingdom over which he rules;
- the way of the kingdom in which he serves.
Jesus provides us with an image of royalty totally different from the world's image of royalty.
His is a total reversal of roles usually assigned to royalty and servitude. He refuses to be master of the world, the mighty monarch, the spiller of blood.
Rather he is a king who serves others. He is the king who dies for others. He is the king who is ridiculed, scorned and mocked. He is the king who is described in the Book of Revelation - not as a lion - the usual image for a king, but as a lamb - a crucified lamb upon a throne, with sword coming from his mouth by which he smites his enemies.
I don't know about you - but in all the years I have watched nature shows I have never yet seen a killer lamb... how about you? I have seen lions take down prey - but a lamb?
Jesus our Lord, our Righteousness, is one who heals, who forgives, who restores: one who refuses to take up the sword to protect himself, or call ten thousand angels to keep him from the cross, one who even as he dies promises us, as he promised the repentant thief on the cross beside him, to remember us when he comes into his kingdom, one whose word is his sword - rather than steel and space age alloys, one who conquers - not by killing others - but by allowing himself to be put to death.
I will tell you this - although Jesus as a King is a lamb rather than a lion, he is a king I want to obey - a king I want to rule over my heart and my life, a king - whose ways - whose kingdom - I want to have rule over my world and my culture.
Jesus is Lord - Jesus is King - precisely because he is not like the kings of this world.
And it is his faithfulness and his obedience and his love which has conquered death and opened the way to eternal life to all who call upon his name - for all - not just for those who are good enough, or strong enough, or smart enough.
Who and what rules our culture? I think we know who rules right now.
But it will not always be so - because I know in here - and from the words of Scripture that the one who rules our hearts and our lives is stronger than the one that rules this world.
Jesus told his disciples - and he told Pilate - "My kingdom is not of this world". And that is true. But this world will be of his Kingdom one day.
For now - let each of us hasten that day by becoming citizens of that kingdom by focussing on its Lord - and living by his direction - his values - his wisdom - here and now.
If you must look into the darkness - and occasionally we must if we are to do the work of God, then look at it with the light of Christ behind you and within you.
When the world strikes you - and then strikes you again, remember whose you are - trust in him - pick yourself up - turn the other cheek - forgive those who need forgiving - and proclaim once again that Jesus is Lord and King and that his way is the way of life.
As you do you will find within you the peace that he has promised to give to all who follow him.
Praise be to God, and Praise be to Christ Jesus our Lord: our King - our brother - and our friend. Amen
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