It’s Christ the King Sunday!  The term “Christ the King” is so familiar to us that it is easy to forget how odd it is—almost a contradiction in terms.  A poor peasant, crucified among criminals, is revealed to be the Lord of lord, and the King of kings.  

As odd as it is, it is clearly a significant concept, not only for us because of our parish name, but for the whole Church.  This is the last Sunday of the church calendar—next Sunday, we begin again with Advent.  So Christ the King Sunday is the capstone of the church year—the exclamation point at the end of the sentence.  This day draws together and underlines themes that are central to our lives as Christians. 

What are those themes?  One theme is justice.  Both Ezekiel and Matthew speak of the day of judgment, when all earthly rulers and governments, all human institutions and every individual will be judged according to their deeds.  At the heart of biblical faith is the conviction that what we do here on earth matters.  The world will not just spin merrily on its way until the sun cools and life on earth comes to an end.  There will be a day of reckoning, when all must answer to God for what we have done and left undone. 

Ezekiel focuses on the judgment of the rulers of Israel.  Just before the passage we read today, Ezekiel has been castigating the shepherds of Israel—the rulers and leaders—for exploiting and abusing the people of Israel.  The action of these bad shepherds, according to Ezekiel, has led to conquest by the Babylonians and exile for the people of Israel.  In today’s passage, the prophet turns to the hope of a restored Israel, when God the true shepherd will gather up his people from  the nations where they have been scattered, and will tenderly lead them home and care for them.  And the powerful leaders who mistreated them will be judged. 

Matthew gives us a vision of judgment as well—when the king will come and sit on his throne and judge between the sheep and the goats, based on how they have treated the least among them.  We will be judged by how we have treated the littlest, the weakest, the most vulnerable people among us—the poor, sick, hungry, prisoners, elderly and disabled, children. 

To underscore the importance of this, the king says that whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me.  In other words, the way we respond to the needy in the world is the way we respond to God.

Notice that both the sheep and the goats are surprised when the king reveals that he was the one who was thirsty, hungry, in prison, naked and sick.  He was the one whose need they responded to or ignored.  Neither group recognized God in the needy people they encountered.  God has chosen to be present in this world, not just in the beauty of a sunset, or the crash of a wave on the beach,  but even more profoundly in the depths of poverty and suffering.  No wonder it is hard to recognize God!  Now if God appeared in glory, with lightning flashes and loud thunder, we would know it was God.  And we would presumably straighten up and do the right thing.  In the words of an old bumper sticker, we would say to each other, Jesus is coming—look busy. 

But God comes disguised as the suffering and needy people of the world and as a result, we often don’t recognize that it is God.  When God became a human being, he entered the world as a poor, out of wedlock child, and he died a criminal’s death among criminals.  And the company he kept while he was here was surprising as well—prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers and poor people.   God is still among us, but in a hidden way—in AIDS orphans, the women in the rape camps of Darfur, the cancer victims and the homeless poor. 

The Bishop of Rhode Island, Jeri Wolfe, once spent a couple of months visiting parishes in her diocese dressed as a homeless woman—to see how they would treat her.  Later she reported on her experience to each parish.  They were mad at her and you could question her tactics, but you can’t fault her theology.  God is hidden in the needy people of the world, and we will be judged by how we treat them. 

So, Christ’s kingship, or to use the more politically correct term, Christ’s reign, means that there will be justice for all—the poor and suffering will be raised up, the rich and powerful will be brought low.  But as much as we need justice, I believe that Christ’s reign encompasses much more than a great reversal.  It’s not that the rich and poor will change places and the poor will have a turn at being at the top of the heap.  Nietzsche was sharply critical of Christianity for being a religion of resentment—of the rich by the poor.  And if the vision were of simply changing places and letting the poor be on top for a while, he would be right.  But the vision is of a world beyond those divisions—a world where all are included, all are received with love and treated with dignity.  It’s not just about a change of party, but an end to the party system.  It’s not even Ralph Nader or Joe Lieberman.  Christ’s reign is far more subversive than the weak trading places with the powerful—it is a world where the very structures of power and authority are no longer necessary.  I no longer call you servants, Jesus says in John’s gospel.  I call you friends. 

So what are we about at Christ the King?  Like the whole of God’s church, we are called to be a school for compassion.  We are training ourselves and each other to respond to the needs of the least among us until it has become second nature.   We see examples of such care and compassion all around us.  The husband who cares for his terminally ill wife, the wife who tends her failing husband.  We see parents who pour themselves out for a disabled child, and children who give of themselves for their aging parents.   None of these people would say their behavior was extraordinary—they might even be surprised if you pointed out to them.   It’s just doing the right thing—it’s just being human.  That’s the goal for all of us in the way we treat all of God’s children--doing the right thing for the needy and vulnerable people in the world would just become second nature. 

We are a school for compassion and also keepers of a subversive vision.  It is God’s vision, of a world with no more divisions among people.  That vision was given flesh in the form of a poor carpenter who gathered a community of love around him, and laid down his life for his friends.  That carpenter will be king when we allow his love to fill our hearts so completely that there will be no room for anything else.