Christ the King 2005Hasn’t this year gone by really fast?
I mean, here we are already at the end of the year.
What? Its not the end of the year yet? But it is. Oh, you mean its not December 31st yet. No, it isn’t, but it is the end of the year. It’s the end of the churches year.
Next Sunday we begin the countdown to Christmas. Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent. We start at the beginning again, we remember Jesus birth and how this is the fulfillment of God’s promise of grace to humanity. The wheel turns, the end becomes the beginning.
But this week, today, we celebrate the end of the year with the feast of Christ the King. How appropriate. Because we finish of with a reminder of who is really in charge, who’s agenda it is, who’s church it is. Its Jesus’ Church, and He is the king.
The King. Now that’s a troublesome title in Australia today, isn’t it? I mean, we are not the most fiercely royalist nation on earth, although I think if we had the Danish royal family we might be a little more so. Our lot have so much scandal, don’t they? But the title is not terribly helpful to many of us. What do we think of when we hear the word king? In an Anglican context we might remember King Henry 8th, who whilst he was in many ways responsible for the Anglican Church breaking away from Rome, was not a terribly nice person. When he didn’t want to be married anymore, he usually found permanent ways to rid himself of the missus. Not a very Christian thing to do. We may think of persons in power, good and bad, who are waited on by many servants, who live lives of luxury, privileged and power, in great big mansions and castles behind big walls and with many guards. They are untouchable, they are above us, they are out of reach. Is this what we mean when we affirm Christ as the King?
Of course, when we look at the Gospel reading we see a very different type of king. We don’t see the king of luxury but the king of poverty. We see a King who identifies with the least of the world, not the most. Its not some patronising visit to a childrens hospital or to see people whose legs have been blown off by land mines, but is so identified with the least that He chose to die the death of the Least, after being born as one of the least, in a place where animals were kept, and attended by dirty smelly shepherds. This is the real idea of Kingship, an idea that humanity just can’t seem to grasp. What does he say “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” This is an example of leadership, of relationship that we could all benefit from – treating each other as if they were Christ, treating each other as if they were royalty. It’s a good lesson to remember today as we reflect on the year gone by and remember who the boss is. It’s not me, in spite of what my cup says, it’s Jesus. It’s his church in the end. Not mine, or yours, or the Archbishops, or even MDC’s. Jesus is our Lord. It is Jesus’s church. That’s who is in charge.
How many kings, or any other leaders, for that matter, lead from the front? How many presidents, or prime ministers, or government members lead wars from the front? Would the answer be none? How many leaders lead from the streets, where people live rough, or lead through their lives in outback communities, or by doing it tough some where? How many church leaders really do it tough these days? Not many, I would imagine. I’d include myself amongst the ones who don’t do it tough. But Jesus as King did it tough. He led from the front lines, the battle against oppression in the name of religion, the battle against injustice, the battle against the habit we humans have of being in-human with each other – in short, He led the battle against evil, the battle for life. Perhaps militaristic language isn’t entirely appropriate but it is a battle sometimes, it is tough sometimes, and Jesus copped the worst of it. For us. That’s a real King. That’s a real leader. Even at the end, on the cross, when hope could have been abandoned, it instead became the defining moment of His Kingship, the point at which all human concepts pertaining to the Kingdom of God were destroyed forever. The Kingdom is in this world but not of it. It was the end of the old, the beginning of the new. The Kingdom here on earth. A possibility that Jesus won for us.
End times are tricky, they can be difficult, they can be sad. The end of a life can be a sad time. My Nan died on Friday morning, and that’s sad. I guess the fact that she was very very ill, at 90 years of age, makes it a little easier to take. I’ll never forget her jelly cakes, they were the best. Its sad for us left behind.
We are at an end time now in this parish. We are at a crossroads. We cant afford to have full time ordained ministry here anymore. In effect, we cant be a parish in the way we have been used to being a parish.
How do we feel about this? I imagine many of you will feel as I did, quite down about it, and that’s natural. What I want to say though, is this – that even though it’s the end of the way we were, it is the beginning of a new way of being. It is freeing, in a sense, because we can go for broke now, with reckless abandon. We can try stuff out, without fear of failure, because we have nothing to lose, and plenty to gain. Before a resurrection there has to be a crucifixion. Before the beginning again, there is an end. The end is a transitional phase, just as death is. It’s a way of being something different. That is the opportunity that confronts us now.
What do we do? Do we accept that our parish is dying? Do we just let it go, not changing our attitudes, not struggling, not attempting to call for help? That’s the key – calling for help. We need to ask God for help, if we really want this parish to keep going.
