Today is Christ the King Sunday.
This is ironic, because this is the very title Jesus seemed to most avoid!
Because people would apply to that title
all their expectations about a king
bound up by their perception of the current political situation:
They were expecting a Davidic King,
someone in the lineage of their greatest king, David, who would lead them to victory
– finally the Romans would be out of there –
and this would establish a reign that would be unending,
this reign being understood as political domination,
the very temptation the devil had placed before Jesus
during those 40 days in the wilderness.
Looking back to Matthew 4: Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor;
and he said to him,
“All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Mt 4:8-9
It seems as though
the devil was claiming ownership to the kingdoms of the world,
if, as he said, he was able to give these to Jesus.
As you recall, Jesus declined the offer.
But now here in this parable that he addressed to his disciples
it is Jesus himself this time who brings up the title of King.
But it is not of the kingdoms of this world that Jesus claimed his kingship.
He actually preferred instead the title that is commonly translated
as “Son of Man”
or more fully understood as son of humankind, servant of all humanity.
So this is a very unusual place in the Gospels
where Jesus, this ultimate Servant, speaks of himself
as a king sitting in judgment over all the nations.
And here is the judgment – did you feed me, give me something to drink,
welcome me, clothe me and visit me?
- all duties that a sovereign could require of his subjects.
Did you do all this for me,
but not as I appeared in a kingly fashion,
but as someone in dire need:
hungry, thirsty, alien, naked, sick and a convict.
So now the judgment here has to do with one’s relationship with those
who are without power, the weak, the vulnerable, the marginalized:
What is the relationship of those of means and privilege
with those of lesser power than themselves?
- a question with some relevancy for today.
If this relationship is characterized in serving them,
especially those who are the least, the end of the line,
then they are blessed, they are blessed
those who did not shrink from serving the ones at the bottom of society.
This is the way of discipleship.
If we are to be authentic disciples and followers of Jesus,
this is the guaranteed way to do it: be the servant of the lowest.
This is following the example of Jesus
who stooped to wash his disciples’ feet,
taking the job of the lowest ranking household slave.
This kind of discipleship is not perhaps what a lot of us have had in mind
in following Jesus.
We might have thought that we could be the disciple who teaches Godly Play
or leads study groups,
or the disciple who helps to lead worship,
or administers the congregation’s property and finances,
or hosts joyful fellowship gatherings,
or raises money for good causes.
But what is described in this parable of the Kingdom of Heaven is not
some do-gooder charity of giving a handout from a distance.
It is a hands on servant role in direct relationship
with people much different from ourselves.
It is welcoming into your own home and community the alien
- with or without documentation -
and giving them the same kind of hospitality
that you offer your own relatives and friends.
It is taking the coat off your own back and giving it to another.
It is risking the health of your own status by being with those socially quarantined.
So note:
This is a kind of service that leads to the annihilation of self-serving interests,
for there is little room for that
in the kinds of ministries listed in this parable.
And none of these actions, you can see, will gain you any advantage
or line your pockets
or leave you better off.
That’s the way it is with being a disciple of Jesus.
But if you carry out the discipleship of serving in whatever way,
with a willing heart for putting others first and forgetting self,
you will be expressing a very powerful form of devotion.
This is the way of self-forgetting.
Become a servant to those who cannot pay you back,
and, Jesus says, you will be washing his own feet,
the One who washed the feet of his disciples,
the King of the Kingdom of Heaven
where power structures are always topsy-turvy.
In the Kingdom of Heaven the least is the greatest,
the King is the One who serves,
and the Kingdom is in the midst of us even now.
It is all of a piece.
Kingdom – this is not a type of political structure with much currency
in today’s world of democracies in various stages of struggling to be.
The Kingdom we are talking about here
is the state of being where God reigns,
actually it is what is truly real,
not a political construct about how things ought to work,
but the way life actually goes.
The King is the One who poured out himself in serving
to the point of annihilation, to the point of his own death.
And the judgment of the disciples
is in their serving.
Sheep and goats: We read this parable
and it is a mirror for us of our own spiritual condition
and I can tell for myself whether I am a sheep or a goat.
In another part of Matthew, chapter 20
Jesus called his disciples to him and said,
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,
and their great ones are tyrants over them.
It will not be so among you;
but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,
and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave;
just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,
and to give his life a ransom for many.” Mt 20:25-28
Now here’s the point that is hard for us to hear:
In all this Jesus is calling his disciples to become like him,
calling us to join him in his extreme service of self-forgetting.
There is a beautiful reason for demanding of us such a discipleship.
This is the promise.
It is in self-forgetting that we will wake to our true identity,
as being in Christ, in the Heart of Christ.
It is then that we awake to discover our union with God,
of the profound love within which we exist.
It is then that we discover life in all its abundance.
It is then that we can know that all of life flows with us in such a way
that our lives would work effortlessly rather than be full of frustrations.
It is then that we will know the Peace of God which passes all understanding.
It is then that we will truly know we are loved,
that love is the place where we exist.
Become a servant to those who cannot pay you back,
and, Jesus says, you will be washing his own feet,
the One who washed the feet of his first disciples,
the King of the Kingdom of Heaven.
