Today we celebrate the festival of Christ the King. It is the last Sunday of the church year, the culmination of the stories of Jesus and the stories of God’s people Israel and the stories of the early Church we’ve heard all year. Next Sunday, the calendar will begin again with the first Sunday of Advent. Christ the King, also called “the Reign of Christ”, is a rather recent addition to the liturgical calendar. It was introduced in 1925 by Pope Pius XI.
A colleague of mine, Pastor Lauren Muratore, described it beautifully in this way:
“Pope Pius was sitting there in Rome (I’m guessing) considering the state of the world at the time. It was just after WWI and he noticed that countries all around the globe had started to turn inward on themselves. It was a time of great fear and suspicion, which led to a kind of circling of the wagons, nation by nation.
“At that time, everyone wanted a strong military, weapons. The whole world was being separated into teams-by-nation, poised for the next big war. Defining their camps: secularism, communism, fascism, Nazism was on the rise. People wanted their borders protected. In the U.S., people wanted dangerous immigrants (then European—Polish, Italian, and Jewish) to stay away.
“At that time, where you were born—what country you were from—had become by far your most important identifying characteristic. Your nationality was who were. Your nation, right or wrong, was who you pledged your allegiance to. Unquestioning.
“It was around that time that our own pledge of allegiance was edited, in fact. The original had us pledging allegiance to “my flag and the republic for which it stands” but that was changed in 1923 to “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America” lest there be any confusion for new immigrants about which flag they lived under. Which one was theirs, now.
“This era was the birth of Nationalism. Country first, humanity a distant second. “Country first.” Sounds familiar, right? We can’t help but recognize that Nationalism seems to be the sentiment in 2019 America, but we should note that the concept is neither new nor noble, and in the 1920’s it was global in its reach.
“Pope Pius the XI, sitting there in Rome (I imagine) saw all this. Saw that the hearts of people all over the world had turned from God first to country first, from love to fear, from faith to self-reliance, from a vague hope for peace to war, and then wars, and then wars. Constantly defending or attacking. And Pope Pius saw what it was doing to us. How it was tearing all of creation apart.
“And so in 1925 he inaugurated Christ the King Sunday…
“He did it to remind those of us who are Christian that while we may have been born in a particular place and while we may deeply love our country, and while that is all good and well, there is only one who truly has a claim on us in the end, and that’s Jesus. There is only one ruler of our hearts, and that is Christ the King.
“Regardless of who we choose to pledge allegiance to in a given moment, in baptism we have been claimed by this Jesus, this Christ the King. We do well to remember it.”
As Pastor Lauren so wisely reminds us, when we gather as the people of God - for worship, or learning, or service - we do so with our focus on Christ, first and foremost. The Christ we claim as king demonstrates power not through violence or force, but through suffering love. The Christ we gather to worship chooses forgiveness over vengeance. The Christ we follow leads us not with the flag of any one nation, but with the cross.
The cross is the center, the focal point of our life together. It reminds us of a God who gathers all people; a God whose love knows no bounds. The cross reminds us of a God who is found most clearly not in riches or displays of glory, but with us in the midst of our suffering.
I know there are those among us who are disappointed, or even upset, that I as your pastor have not allowed the observance of American patriotic holidays in worship to the fullness that they wish. On those and all days, I am careful about the messages put forth in the hymns we sing, and intentional about how and where our nation’s flag is displayed in the sanctuary.
The reasons are summed up here nicely. When people come to worship, our focal point is always, always the cross. Our attention is always, always on worshiping Jesus - we do not worship our country or leaders, nor do we worship our armed forces, even as we give thanks for their sacrifice and service and pray for their safety.
When we gather in worship, it is to confess our sin and hear God’s forgiveness. When we gather in worship, it is to hear the word of God read in Scripture and proclaimed in preaching and song. When we gather in worship it is to receive into our bodies the body and blood of Jesus, which offers us salvation, forgiveness, and new life, and joins us to God’s people of every time and place - not just Americans, but all people.
Further, as people who recognize Christ as our King, we are called to turn a critical eye toward our own actions and the actions of the worldly empires in which we find ourselves. Where are the places that the marginalized and vulnerable are being exploited? How might we as Christians, called and empowered by the God of love and peace, stand against injustice, exclusion, and hatred of any kind?
Christianity is dangerous when it – when we - lose our focus on Jesus and instead worship empire. As we celebrate and remember today that it is Christ who is our king, we give thanks for a God who knows no borders or boundaries; for a God whose power is displayed in weakness, and whose strength is shown in love; for a God who rescues us and sets us free.
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| Photo by Mitya Ivanov on Unsplash |
A colleague of mine, Pastor Lauren Muratore, described it beautifully in this way:
“Pope Pius was sitting there in Rome (I’m guessing) considering the state of the world at the time. It was just after WWI and he noticed that countries all around the globe had started to turn inward on themselves. It was a time of great fear and suspicion, which led to a kind of circling of the wagons, nation by nation.
“At that time, everyone wanted a strong military, weapons. The whole world was being separated into teams-by-nation, poised for the next big war. Defining their camps: secularism, communism, fascism, Nazism was on the rise. People wanted their borders protected. In the U.S., people wanted dangerous immigrants (then European—Polish, Italian, and Jewish) to stay away.
“At that time, where you were born—what country you were from—had become by far your most important identifying characteristic. Your nationality was who were. Your nation, right or wrong, was who you pledged your allegiance to. Unquestioning.
“It was around that time that our own pledge of allegiance was edited, in fact. The original had us pledging allegiance to “my flag and the republic for which it stands” but that was changed in 1923 to “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America” lest there be any confusion for new immigrants about which flag they lived under. Which one was theirs, now.
“This era was the birth of Nationalism. Country first, humanity a distant second. “Country first.” Sounds familiar, right? We can’t help but recognize that Nationalism seems to be the sentiment in 2019 America, but we should note that the concept is neither new nor noble, and in the 1920’s it was global in its reach.
“Pope Pius the XI, sitting there in Rome (I imagine) saw all this. Saw that the hearts of people all over the world had turned from God first to country first, from love to fear, from faith to self-reliance, from a vague hope for peace to war, and then wars, and then wars. Constantly defending or attacking. And Pope Pius saw what it was doing to us. How it was tearing all of creation apart.
“And so in 1925 he inaugurated Christ the King Sunday…
“He did it to remind those of us who are Christian that while we may have been born in a particular place and while we may deeply love our country, and while that is all good and well, there is only one who truly has a claim on us in the end, and that’s Jesus. There is only one ruler of our hearts, and that is Christ the King.
“Regardless of who we choose to pledge allegiance to in a given moment, in baptism we have been claimed by this Jesus, this Christ the King. We do well to remember it.”
As Pastor Lauren so wisely reminds us, when we gather as the people of God - for worship, or learning, or service - we do so with our focus on Christ, first and foremost. The Christ we claim as king demonstrates power not through violence or force, but through suffering love. The Christ we gather to worship chooses forgiveness over vengeance. The Christ we follow leads us not with the flag of any one nation, but with the cross.
The cross is the center, the focal point of our life together. It reminds us of a God who gathers all people; a God whose love knows no bounds. The cross reminds us of a God who is found most clearly not in riches or displays of glory, but with us in the midst of our suffering.
I know there are those among us who are disappointed, or even upset, that I as your pastor have not allowed the observance of American patriotic holidays in worship to the fullness that they wish. On those and all days, I am careful about the messages put forth in the hymns we sing, and intentional about how and where our nation’s flag is displayed in the sanctuary.
The reasons are summed up here nicely. When people come to worship, our focal point is always, always the cross. Our attention is always, always on worshiping Jesus - we do not worship our country or leaders, nor do we worship our armed forces, even as we give thanks for their sacrifice and service and pray for their safety.
When we gather in worship, it is to confess our sin and hear God’s forgiveness. When we gather in worship, it is to hear the word of God read in Scripture and proclaimed in preaching and song. When we gather in worship it is to receive into our bodies the body and blood of Jesus, which offers us salvation, forgiveness, and new life, and joins us to God’s people of every time and place - not just Americans, but all people.
Further, as people who recognize Christ as our King, we are called to turn a critical eye toward our own actions and the actions of the worldly empires in which we find ourselves. Where are the places that the marginalized and vulnerable are being exploited? How might we as Christians, called and empowered by the God of love and peace, stand against injustice, exclusion, and hatred of any kind?
Christianity is dangerous when it – when we - lose our focus on Jesus and instead worship empire. As we celebrate and remember today that it is Christ who is our king, we give thanks for a God who knows no borders or boundaries; for a God whose power is displayed in weakness, and whose strength is shown in love; for a God who rescues us and sets us free.
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