Christ the King
November 24 , 2002


What is kingly behavior?

He was rude, arrogant, loud, outspoken, and generally pretty obnoxious. I remember that I didn’t like him much during my days in college. Did I mention that he was arrogant? And I did not do a good job at loving him and was glad when our lives took us in different directions. But, God is a good God, so he gave me another chance. For there at my first parish, who should come bouncing out the door with his usual swagger but my buddy. God, you are a funny guy, I thought.

So I endured him for as best I could. Until the day he showed up at my door asking for help. It seems he had just been fired from his job for the very reasons that had endeared him to me. And he wanted me to help him. God, you are a funnier guy then I even thought before… It didn’t take me long to realize that I had to find a way for me to love him. I couldn’t pretend, I couldn’t fake it, I couldn’t use the cop out that “God loves you” when I was unwilling to say the same thing. Either I loved him and helped him, or it didn’t. It was that simple. And I knew something more important was at stake for me than the question of this man’s job, as important as that was. What was at issue was my ability to respond to the call of God in my life.

You see, the danger of Christianity is that we can let God be the fall guy. “God loves you. He really does. So brighten up. Cheer up. God is in your side. He’ll walk with you.” What was unspoken in my choice with my ‘buddy’ was this: God loves you, but I don’t. God will walk with you, but I’ll wash my hands of you, entrusting you, of course, to my prayers and good wishes. But I won’t get my hands dirty in the loving of you. I won’t be involved, because God will take care of you.”

Do you know that temptation? Have you lived that struggle in your own life? If you have, then you have heard the challenge that Matthew puts before us in the gospel today. In the only story about the final judgement that the gospels record we have this astonishing claim laid on our hearts. It matters not the motive for our love or failure to love. It doesn’t matter if we love because we believe in God or it makes us feel good, or we can’t stand to see people struggle. It doesn’t matter if we don’t love because we grew up in dysfunctional homes, or are busy college students or are children of alcoholic parents. What only matters is: Did we love? Did we give our very human love away in service to the least of our brothers and sisters. Or did we not. Boom. End of story. Either you love with what you have to give away – your own heart and will and choices. Or you don’t. It is not like I have this separate love inside of me that is God’s and then my own right next to that and I can partition them off. No, I have just the one love to give.

It is interesting to me that both groups are surprised. ‘Lord, I had no idea that when I spoke to that classmate in their dorm room that it was you whom I was loving.’ ‘Lord, I had no idea that when I walked past that person of different color from me without so much as acknowledge that he existed, that I did that to you.’ “Whatever you did to the least of my brothers and sisters you did to me.” It rings like a clarion call to our hearts. And if you want to know what it means to celebrate the Kingship of Christ – there you have it – to let Christ rule even over the fickleness of our small hearts – to expand them with a love that we give away, that we offer, because it comes from us.

I want to leave you with a final story about this day and one of the challenges that I heard in the readings.
It seems there was a very wealthy king and a poor beggar. Each day the trumpets would blare and the drawbridge lower, and the kings carriage, with its golden wheels glistening in the sun, would leave the castle. And the begger would begin to think about his list. If the king should come to me, what would I ask him for, for he heard that the king was very generous. And then, about noon, the trumpets would blare again, the drawbridge lower, and the carriage return to the castle, and the begger would be left there with his dreams. On this morning, the trumpet blared and the drawbridge lowered, and the kings carriage, with its golden wheels glistening in the sun, left by a different road, the one that would eventually lead to where the beggar stood. And so he began to think again of what he would ask for, and in what order. Suddenly, from around the corner, came the sounds of hooves, and then, the kings carriage was slowing to a stop, right in front of him! His heart was pounding loudly, as the livery men opened the king’s carriage, and out stepped the king. But, before he could say a word, the king asked: “Have you a gift for me, your king?”

The beggar was dumbfounded – “I am just a lowly peasant, and he a king, yet he asks me for a gift?” But the kings eyes were insistent, so he reluctantly reached into his beggar’s sack and from the bottom, handed the king a kernel of corn. The king thanked him with a bow, and returned to his carriage. He was just about to leave, when the beggar found his voice. “Sire, have you no gift for me, your loyal servant?” “You will find it already in the bottom of your sack.” And with that, the carriage departed. As soon as it disappeared around the corner, the beggar rummaged anxiously through his sack. Sure enough, there in the bottom of his sack, in the exact shape and size of the kernel of corn, was a nugget of pure gold.

It is said that the beggar wept bitterly that he had not been more generous with his king….