First Lutheran Church, Detroit Lakes, MN
Pentecost 25 – Christ the King | 11.22.2020 | Matthew 25:31-46
Today, on this final Sunday worship of the church year we conclude once and for all that Christ is King. Christ the King Sunday.
Now, this might seem like an obvious, or not very meaningful, or cliché claim, but I want to make clear that to claim Christ as King is perhaps the most radical and powerful claim we can make for our everyday lives.
On a macro scale, saying that Christ is King means that NOTHING gets more of our allegiance or loyalty than Jesus – not the United States, not the American Dream, not the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party, not Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, not capitalism, not any economic theory, not any global empire, not any celebrity, not any cultural trend, not any cultural principle gets more of our allegiance or loyalty than Jesus if we are to claim Christ is King.
And on a more micro scale or personal scale, to say that Christ is King means that nothing gets to claim rule over us or define us no matter how hard these things try – not our insecurities, not any workplace or schoolyard bully, not our financial situation, not the pain people have caused us, not our past, not our shame, not our anxieties, not our diseases, not our afflictions, not even death.
All these things pretend to claim that we belong to them, that we belong to our shame, that we belong to pain and trauma, that our worth is tied to what we produce or consume, that we ought not love or appreciate ourselves, or that we belong to the bad things that are happening around us, but defiant of all these voices, today we proclaim to each other that, NO, none of these things rule over us; in fact, all of these things are dethroned once and for all when we claim that CHRIST IS KING!
So, again, we need to remember how radical it is to proclaim that Christ is King in and over our lives. In a world that profits off of our self-doubt and insecurity, in a world that uses and exploits human beings for power, and in bodies that carry too much pain, too much guilt, and too much shame…to say that Christ is King is an outright act of rebellion against all these forces – a rebellious battle cry of the King who defines you and reigns with this promise: YOU ARE LOVABLE AND LOVED. YOU ARE FORGIVEN AND SET FREE. FOREVER.
That is the promise for us for each and every day of our lives.
Christ is King.
Now, my friends, changing gears a little bit here based on our Gospel of Matthew today, keep an eye out for where our King shows up in our lives. Not only is our King unique in the way that he shares power and rules with mercy, but he is unique in where he decides to dwell.
He does not dwell on some immaculate throne, he will not be found in the halls of worldly power and might, he will not show up with well-armored armies, he does not reside atop some mystical mountain, and he will not be accessed, as one theologian writes, once some “spiritual journey” is completed.[1]
As Jesus says here in our passage in Matthew, he will show up in our neighbor. He will show up in the thirsty, the hungry, the stranger who is wandering, the unclothed, “in the least of” our sisters and brothers (Matthew 25:40).
The philosopher, Peter Rollins, writes, Jesus the King is found:
…in the outstretched hand of a hungry stranger, in the flesh of a tortured body, in the figure of the thirsty, the homeless, the imprisoned…God is not encountered in the highest being in the chain of beings but rather in the lowest and most humble of things.[2]
In other words, Christ the King is not only a proclamation of our own royalty in Christ Jesus, but is also about seeing the royalty in our neighbor, in whom our King tells us he dwells.
Therefore, where we serve our neighbor, we serve our King. Where we treat the vulnerable as royalty, we acknowledge the royalty of Jesus who exists in their very bodies.
This inherently implies our responsibility for our neighbor, especially the suffering…AND, it is powerfully good news. That God exists in real human being means thatGod is not inaccessible. God is not far off. God is not ‘out there’ or ‘up there.’ He’s not Zeus atop Mt. Olympus. He’s not at the end of the journey, or the spiritual obstacle course. Choosing to make his grand palace in the flesh of humanity, OUR KING IS HERE!
This is the dynamic proclamation of Christ the King Sunday. Christ is King, and therefore all other powers are dethroned, you are claimed by nothing else other than Jesus and his love. And our King dwells neither in the halls of power and prosperity, nor at the end of some rainbow…He is here. In his Word. In the Sacrament. In you and me, and, as that same theologian writes, he is in the “actual, physical bodies and circumstances,” of our neighbor.[3]
My friends, Christ is King…which means you are royalty, and your neighbor is royalty…now, and forever.
Amen.
[1] David Lose, “Christ the King A: The Third Sacrament,” In the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2020/11/christ-the-king-a-the-third-sacrament/.
[2] Peter Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2009), 142.
[3] David Lose, “Christ the King A: The Third Sacrament,” In the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2020/11/christ-the-king-a-the-third-sacrament/.
pastorjoeskogmo 