Christ, King of Kindness
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
For most of human history, we have been ruled
in one form or another by monarchs;
whether they be kings or queens of kingdoms
or chiefs of clans and fiefdoms,
we have been ruled by monarchs of one form.
Sometimes, they are elected;
sometimes they are selected;
or sometimes they just simply beat down the opposition
and win by force and strength.
There is something about the human condition,
I’m not quite sure but we select this.
Time and time again, in generation after generation,
we want somebody to lead us.
Most often, it is because we want a type of warrior-king.
Somebody who is strong and
shows that if we are with him or her,
mostly him, then we are strong.
It is done either by personal fortitude, personal strength
or by volumes of armies or weapons.
There is even a tradition that as a warrior king,
you had to be able to beat anybody who challenged you.
We saw this in the Game of Thrones.
In one of the tribes, you had to be able to defend yourself
and if not, you are challenged and you die.
That is just the way it works.
This warrior king is even embedded in our scriptures.
The history of Israel is also filled with the same thing.
The Israelites wanted to be like the rest of the surrounding kingdoms.
They asked of their God,
“Give us a king like all the others.
Everyone else has a king.
Can you not give us a king?”
God said, “No you don’t want a king
because then that king is going to take
your women, your children and your lands.”
And they said,
“No. We do want that. That is exactly what we want.”
So, they got Saul and Saul was anointed king.
In today’s first reading, we hear part two of this story
where Saul is on his deathbed
and they have just anointed David as their king.
They selected David.
David goes on to be one of the greatest kings of Israel’s history.
Yet, all these kings or monarchs are human kings.
They all fall afoul of this strength-building;
this inability to be able to see their own weakness.
The power goes to their head.
Even the greatest one who is David,
later his wife is not enough.
He spies another woman.
He wants to have her so he has her husband
sent to the front lines to be killed so that he could have his wife.
That is the great king David.
That is who we hold up as one of the greatest kings;
and who most of the responsorial psalms
are written by either his hand or for him.
There is something about our human condition that has this.
I know we are American, and we reject all kings.
That is part of how we got to be an American.
We rejected the Queen and the King of England;
we rejected the royalty in France
and said we will not be ruled by monarchs.
Yet, we elect people who tend to operate
a little more autocratically than we would maybe like.
And this is who we are.
This is the human condition.
If it is any solace, this is the very issue
that even the Church got caught up in.
Jesus comes along and even his disciples
want a warrior king too.
They thought that this Messiah was going to be that;
that he was going to be a king like a warrior.
They expected him to cut down the opposition
and to reach up; grab his crown; and be a king.
And then this happens;
he is crucified on a cross.
The only crown he gets is a crown of thorns.
Jesus knew that and chose that
because his kingdom was not of strength;
it was not of force;
and it was not of manipulation and domination.
The kingdom he was ushering in was a kingdom of kindness;
a kingdom of gentleness;
a kingdom of vulnerability;
a kingdom of truth and justice;
a kingdom of brokenness;
and a kingdom of healing.
He was coming in to be the King of Love.
And you cannot take love by force.
You cannot take and be kind by force.
That is an act of the will and it has to be freely given.
And that is our King.
And that is what we are celebrating today.
Here is the interesting part:
Even though we get that in scriptures;
and that is what we read each Sunday,
we still as a Church get caught up in it ourselves
We had the holy Roman Emperor and he was the Pope.
And for 1900 years, we got caught up with this.
Eventually, the Pope said you know, this doesn’t make sense.
We are not meant to be the kings and queens like others.
We are meant to be just of the spiritual kingdom.
And so, he rejects all state and makes the Church a Vatican state
that has no temporal power anywhere else.
And this was Pius XI in 1912.
This was hard to hear.
This got more reaction than the Vatican II pushback.
This was, “No you can’t.”
We wanted our power and strength!
We have all the hangovers of the royalty, including these vestments.
This is all part of the royalty thing, right?
And are those in the Church, especially bishops
who love all this and maintain this is a core to who we are.
But it is not core to who we are.
Jesus keeps on calling us back not to that type of king.
Christ the King of the Universe
that we are called to follow is this King of kindness;
of gentleness;
and of vulnerability.
When we come together today to celebrate
Christ the King of the Universe at the table of the Eucharist
and we receive Christ, we are called to then go forth
and to be subjects and citizens of his universal kingdom;
this cosmic reality that we are called to be the opposite of what it seems.
We do not want any monarch or other earthly king.
We want only our King Christ, who will rule over our hearts.
So, what does that mean for us in concrete terms?
It means we must resist the innate urge for power;
for insisting on strength that wins.
We must resist the urge that says more is better;
that stronger is better;
that we claim kindness is better;
less is better;
and gentleness and healing is better
because Christ is our King.
Today, as we go forth from here,
can we practice our citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven;
the Kingdom of the Universe the Christ
by being kind, gentle, loving and forgiving.
And in doing so, knowing that we are choosing the better part.
We are resisting the instinct and
instead choosing Christ as our King, the King of the Universe.
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”