Sunday was Reign of Christ Sunday (or Christ the King Sunday), a recent addition to the Christian calendar. It was instituted by the Roman Catholic Church in 1925 to try to stem the rising tide of nationalism and secularism, by focusing the attention of Christians on the kingdom of God instead of our own, potentially more idolatrous kingdoms.
The idea of Christ as King is not new. Jesus talked about the coming of the kingdom of God, and all through the Gospels people ask when and how he will become King, what place they will have in the kingdom, and what will happen to those who opposed his kingship.
In today’s reading near the end of the Gospel of Matthew, it sounds like Jesus is saying, “Okay. You want to know about the kingdom? You imagine me coming on clouds of glory, with power to usher in God’s kingdom on all the Earth? Okay … here’s how to picture it …if you really must know … and really you should.”
Scripture reading: Matthew 25:31-46
“When the Son of Man [the servant of God at the end of the age, an image they all understood, it was part of their worldview] comes, and all his angels with him, to sit on the throne and judge all the Earth – [again what they expected would happen, and how it would happen] – he will divide the peoples and the nations of Earth into two groups…”
Ah yes, we love “two groups,” don’t we? I imagine Jesus’ disciples’ eyes lighting up – yes! At last we’ll see it, and find out which of us makes the cut. I imagine the Pharisees standing nearby, thinking – hoping – that now at last Jesus will have to fess up and say that – yes, in spite of all his arguments with them – when it really comes down top it in the crunch, really all their strict moralism and ritual purity will count for something at the end – will count in their favour.
And the other folks there? The poor, the outcast, the lepers who always seemed to follow Jesus, standing around the edge of the crowd? I wonder if from where they’re standing, they feel hopeful about anything at all in the picture Jesus is about to paint.
“He will put the righteous people at his right hand …,” Jesus goes on to see [Yes! Little fist pump on the part of the Pharisees] … “and the others at his left [Shoot! I just knew it, the lepers and sinners and ne’er-do-well’s mutter; when nit come down to the crunch, that’s how it always turns out].
“Then the king will say to those on his right – the place of favour – ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, come in to enjoy the kingdom prepared before the creation of the world, because … [oh yes, here will come the recitation of our high moral standing, the Pharisees think!] … because when I was hungry and thirsty, you fed me and gave me drink; when I was a stranger and homeless, you welcomed me in; naked, you clothed me; sick, you took care of me; and in prison, you visited me.”
“ ‘Well, the king will reply,’ Jesus says, “whenever you did it for one of the least of my brothers and sisters” – [nodding his head maybe to folks at the edge of the crowd] – “you did it for me.”
And as all eyes shift to the poor, and the outcast and the sinners at the outside of the circle, it slowly dawns on folks to wonder what right and left side they’re looking at – is it “their right” or “his right” that is the right-hand crowd in the kingdom. We sometimes get that confused. And backward.
“And then the king will say to those on his left” – [those who maybe thought they were in the right] – “Go away! Go to whatever is prepared for the devil and his angels. Because all that stuff I said about the folks on my right hand? What they did and how they loved me and cared for me in the least of my brothers and sisters? You did none of it.”
But … we really tried to be good. We were good people – the good guys. We did all the right things. Kept ourselves pure. Punished sin. Preached morality. Excluded the unrighteous. Taught the law, commandment by commandment.
“ ‘Yes, you did,’ the king replies,” says Jesus, “’and whenever you did not show simple, straightforward, heart-felt, self-giving love to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did not show it to me. It was you – not me—who made the choice.’”
Meditation
Before the reading, a song that Karen sang in our online worship was “This is the day that God has made! Rejoice, and be exceeding glad!”
Maybe this is the day. Maybe any day – every day – is a day he appears, sitting on the throne – or somewhere -- to judge and divide people and nations into right- and left-hand camps. On one hand, those welcomed by God into the kingdom of blessing and joy prepared from before creation began, and the others let go to something else.
There was one day earlier this week, that may have been one of those days for me.
For a few days Japhia was suffering increasing nausea – a flare-up of a chronic disorder she’s suffered for a number of years and that’s led to some extended hospitalizations. Over the weekend and into Monday we did what we could at home to turn things around, but by Monday afternoon – around 3:00 or 3:30 it was so bad we called an ambulance and she went in to the ER for whatever treatment and assessment they would do there.
As the ambulance pulled away and I stayed behind – with COVID-19 no visitors are allowed in the ER, I felt distraught, exhausted, lonely, powerless. Back in the house I tried to focus, get my bearings, feel some solid ground under my feet again, and wait.
Have you ever felt like that lately? Alone, anxious, and powerless? Waiting for something good to happen, having no way of making it happen, and not even knowing if it can?
A few minutes later – maybe 10 or 15 – a text appeared on my phone. “Is it okay if we come over to hang out? We have a viewing and have to be out for a couple of hours.”
It was from Japhia’s daughter. She, her husband, and their two kids are trying to sell their home, and they needed a place to be for a couple of hours – not an easy thing to find on a cold day in the midst of a pandemic with not many other family with space to offer within easy driving distance.
We’re only a few minutes’ drive away. But I texted back, “Sorry. Not up for company right now.” No room right now in the inn.
Later I relented. Repented of my habit of withdrawal and isolation in times of stress and anxiety. I considered their need for a comfortable place to hang out. How we easily could have handled it safely with a park and a playground just two doors down.
Considered too that welcoming them in and helping them out was probably good for me at that point. It would stretch me a bit, and be just what the doctor ordered. Just what the king was offering my broken and sorrowful and lonely soul as a way to be revived in meeting the needs of others.
I texted back – an hour or more later, and said come on over if it would still be helpful.
But later was too late. They’d already found other places to be. Were getting on with life and having a good time. I didn’t hear back from them.
It’s easy these days to be despondent about where we are in the pandemic. To be depressed about being restricted again with Christmas coming on. To be angry at COVID-19, angry at confusing government directions, angry at people whose carelessness or selfishness seem to make the rest of us suffer. To get lost and morose in our powerlessness.
Here at Fifty, for instance – and probably it’s the same in most other churches – we can’t have a Christmas Eve service in our sanctuary. We won’t be preparing and serving our annual second-Sunday-in-December dinner at the Wesley Centre. Nor collecting and carting down a carload of gifts and donations for the Wesley Urban Ministries Holiday Store.
At home, we can’t have the big family get-togethers. We might not see Grandma or Grandpa if they’re in a long-term care home. Can’t invite the neighbours over. Can’t enjoy the crush and rush of packed Christmas shopping.
It seems we’re having to give up Christmas. It’s being taken from us. The Grinch has won, and we won’t be celebrating the coming of Jesus, the Christ, to be among us – at least not as we’re used to.
But I wonder … if the restrictions that we’re being asked to accept, are themselves a kind of Christmas gift we’re being asked to offer each other this year because of the pandemic. That wearing a mask, staying distant and restricting our contacts is one way of saying to family, friend and stranger, “I love you. I want you to be well. I’ll keep my distance and let you feel safe from whatever you may fear from me. Merry Christmas!”
Strange gift, wrapped in a mask and offered at a 2-meter distance. But this year maybe one of the more meaningful ways we can share the good news of “peace on earth and good will to all whom God loves.”
And then of course, just as we begin to accept the situation, and maybe start to sink into a malaise of isolation as the best there can be, there is still also the text on the phone, the knock on the door, the tug on the heart strings, the call to our spirit that may be just what the doctor has ordered – what the king might also be sending as a way most needed this year into the kingdom of blessing, the kingdom of love and joy together with others – especially with others of his brothers and sisters who are less, and have less than we do.
Food bank usage is up across the region. I’m told the Grimsby Benevolent Fund Store and their community services are busier than ever. Hunger, loneliness and depression are on the rise. As are opioid use, and abuse and violence within homes and families.
And I can’t begin to tell you what kinds of needs speak to you, or what kinds of responses are yours to act out. Each of us has our own way of feeling the lure of the Christ when he comes to us in our own time of brokenness, in the company and maybe in the guise of others of his brothers and sisters broken in other ways than us. And each of us has our own ways and means of responding –our own way of opening our door, opening our heart and our hands, opening time in our schedule, opening our wallet.
Because really isn’t that what a Judge who was born among the poor and lowly, who walked and ate all his life with sinners, who lifted up the poor and welcomed the excluded, and who died between unwanted thieves is looking for – and wanting to lift up, and celebrate, and give his blessing to—among the peoples and nations of the world?
Is it too early to wish you a blessed Christmas? And to pray you have chances to receive and to care for the King in whatever way he reaches out to you through the least of the others he may want you to meet?
Loving and holy One,
for coming and showing us
the way of your kingdom’s coming,
we give you thanks.
For the poor and the homeless,
for the hungry and thirsty,
for the naked and the abandoned,
for the sorrowing and dying,
for the oppressed and imprisoned,
for the beaten and abused,
for the fearful … we pray
And for the ways you invite each of us
in your own way,
and in our own ways
to reach out … to open up …
and to enter in with you and with others to the joy of your kingdom
we give you thanks.
Amen.
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