Christ the King Sunday, November 23, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.

It’s Already Here

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Matthew 25:31–46

On the liturgical calendar—first developed through the centuries by the Roman Catholic church and now also followed by many mainline Protestant churches like ours—today is known as “Christ the King” or “Reign of Christ” Sunday. It’s a relatively recent addition to the church calendar, instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI to push back against the rise of nationalism and secularism. It was originally celebrated on the last Sunday of October, which placed it right before the celebration of All Saints’. But in 1970 it was moved to the last Sunday of the liturgical year, the Sunday before Advent, which is the beginning of the church calendar. In many respects it provides a fitting conclusion to the year and an introduction to the themes of Advent.

I’m intrigued by the origins of Christ the King Sunday because in our contemporary North American culture the secularism feared by the pope nearly a century ago is more pronounced than ever. You’ve heard this numerous times before, but it bears repeating: the fastest-growing religious group in the United States is the segment of our population that claims no religious affiliation (the “nones”). Belief in God may or may not be waning, but the thin line between those who participate in institutional religion and those who do not is quickly vanishing. People who do on a regular basis, what we are doing right now, are part of a shrinking minority of the American population. We are Christians living in an increasingly post-Christian world.

Yet I wonder if Christ the King Sunday, as conceived by Pius XI, is in fact the most effective response to this cultural development. In the face of secularism, the so-called “rise of the nones,” and other familiar aspects of post-Christendom, it seems reactionary and even a little desperate to double down on the images of Christ that most supported the centuries of established Christendom that contemporary Western culture is actively rejecting. In Europe, church and state have been legally intertwined and in the United States Christianity and American nationalism have been culturally linked, and it is precisely this comingling of religion and power—political and cultural—that has been unraveling for the past half century or more.

I’m sure the fact that I’ve been raised in the midst of this post-Christendom revolution has influenced my own personal ambiguity about Christ the King Sunday. I must confess that I find the images of Christ enthroned in heaven and reigning with ultimate power to be less and less compelling as I try to reconcile the faith I have inherited with the faith that is emerging in our contemporary cultural matrix. After all, a mistrust of monarchs, emperors, and dictators is an integral part of our American DNA. Add to this the widespread mistrust of institutions and power that has shaped our cultural discourse since the 1960s, and for many of us a return to Christ exalted in glory and power evokes more suspicion than awe.

Over the past several years I have also felt an increasing dissonance between the image of Jesus as a humble servant trying to reform his faith community from the inside out and the image of Christ as the all powerful king of the universe enthroned at the right hand of God Almighty. It seems to me that the church has made Jesus into the very thing he avoided in his ministry among us and worships him in a way he may never have expected or asked for. Truth be told, I tend to think that worshiping God as an enthroned king—as portrayed throughout the Old and New Testaments—is a culturally conditioned metaphor that made sense for ancient Israel but makes less sense for us today in our very different cultural context. Extrapolating this kind of regal worship to our following of Christ makes even less sense to me, given the radically different ways Jesus seems to have understood power, service, and sacrifice.

But in the midst of these post-Enlightenment, postmodern, post-Christendom wonderings, I’m willing to be surprised by God. For this reason I am profoundly grateful for Christ the King Sunday, because it causes me—causes all of us—to confront these images and reflect on what they might mean for us today. Christ the King is an integral aspect of our received Christian tradition, and we shouldn’t just drop it because we don’t see things the way our Christian forebears did.

In fact, it is the element of surprise that I find most compelling about our scripture reading today.

This is a perfectly appropriate passage for Christ the King Sunday, perhaps one of the most memorable apocalyptic scenes in the New Testament. We find Christ identified by the messianic title “Son of Man,” seated on his heavenly throne and bringing judgment upon humanity. Separating sheep from goats is a way of saying that he is separating the righteous from the wicked, those who will spend eternity with God in heaven and those who will suffer for eternity in hell.

Let me pause here for a moment and acknowledge that many of us aren’t sure what to do with this heaven and hell language. Much of what I think of as “pop Christianity” is based on this familiar heaven and hell paradigm. According to this way of thinking about Christianity, salvation means being spared from eternal punishment and gifted with eternal life in God’s presence.

But many today question whether this is the best way to understand our relationship with God. For many, this way of telling the Christian story no longer resonates. And it happens to be the case that this understanding of what happens after we die or at the end of time is not found in every part of the Bible. The writers of the Old Testament had a very different vision of the afterlife, and this heaven and hell worldview is something that developed between the last writings of the Old Testament and the time of Jesus. So there is certainly some fluidity when it comes to what God’s people have thought about such things.

Wrestling this to the ground and thinking through alternative ways of telling our story is probably a whole other sermon, so suffice it to say for now that if you find this part of the story troubling, you’re not alone. Bracket it for now, and don’t let it be a stumbling block.

Because, again, what I find most compelling about this reading today is the element of surprise. Both the sheep and the goats—both those who acted righteously by helping others and those who acted wickedly by ignoring those in need—both groups were surprised to discover that Christ was there all along. “Just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me. Just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”

I’ve often thought of this in terms of opportunity. We should take the opportunity to serve others, because in doing so we serve Christ himself. And conversely, if we fail to serve others, it’s as if we fail to serve Christ himself.

Now, this has a tendency to lead us to think of our relationship with God and with other people in terms of guilt and fear. Along with the promise of reward, these are in fact the tools of monarchs and dictators, the carrot and stick with which those in power control their subjects.

While this story may have been told in order to create such fear in the hearts and minds of those who hear it, clearly the sheep and the goats of the parable were given no such warning. They seem utterly surprised to discover that because they helped others they will inherit God’s kingdom and equally surprised that by not helping others they set themselves on an irreversible path to eternal punishment.

Finding myself in that moment of surprise is how this parable speaks to me today. Perhaps the same is true for you.

Like the people for whom Jesus first told this story, I often don’t know what to think about God and God’s relationship with the world. Like the plethora of Jewish and pagan sects and theologies competing for the hearts and minds of Jesus’ first-century audience, there are a variety of philosophies, religions, and non-religions competing for the hearts and minds of contemporary spiritual seekers. It’s easy to get caught up in interfaith and intra-faith squabbles and debates. It’s tempting to let historical and critical questions about what really happened in biblical times and in the early years of the church undo our faith. It’s not uncommon for doubt to distract us from experiencing God’s presence in our daily lives.

Perhaps what Jesus here describes in fantastical terms as a final judgment is an invitation to see things in a radically new way, because what happens in this moment of judgment isn’t what seals the fate of the sheep and the goats. Rather, it’s what they did in their lives before the judgment. What seems to be most important isn’t that they are brought before Christ the King in final judgment, but how they treated Christ the King throughout life, because it turns out he was always there. God was always there.

What a shocker! What a twist ending! Whether you believe certain doctrines or not, God is there. Whether you love your neighbor as yourself or treat others like enemies, God is there. Whether you live for yourself or live for others, God is there. Whether you care for creation or exploit the natural resources with which we have been entrusted, God is there. Whether you live with certainty or wrestle with doubt, God is there. Whether you’re glad for the collapse of Christendom or long for the “good old days” of Christian hegemony, God is there. Whether you imagine Christ as King or find that image hard to maintain, God is there. God was always there.

God is always here.

Next Sunday marks the first week of Advent. In the rhythm of our liturgical calendar, Advent is a time of waiting. For some, it is a rehearsing of the way our ancestors in faith waited for the messiah and the turning of a new age. For others, it is about waiting for Christ to return and usher in the end of days. Perhaps for all of us, however we describe it, Advent is about waiting for God’s kingdom.

Yet I have often wondered if our Advent theme of waiting has it backwards. Perhaps it’s not about us waiting for God’s kingdom at all. What if God is waiting for us? What if God is waiting for us to recognize that the kingdom is already within us, that all we need to do is change our hearts and lives and be a part of what God is already doing in the world? What if it’s already here and we simply haven’t noticed it?

Like the sheep and the goats of Jesus’ apocalyptic vision, perhaps now is the time for us to be surprised by God—not on some far-off day of judgment, but right here and right now as we hear this story and find ourselves in it.

Friends, it’s already here. What are we waiting for?

Amen.