Solemnity of the Kingship of Jesus

For the past 40-50 years we have been aware of a tendency to drop King from our language of God's Basilea, or Jesus' sovereignty in and over our world. A number of reasons for this change have been given: it smacks of patriarchy and is insufficiently sensitive to the egalitarian, familial nature of the order Jesus was bringing to be, we don't have Kings anymore and people don't and cannot relate to this imagery --- reasons like that. Add to this the sense that some first-rate theologians assert that a separate Solemnity dedicated to the Kingship of Christ detracts from the Ascension where Christ truly became King of heaven and earth, (Cf. NT Wright, Surprised by Hope) and we may all wonder about the importance of such a Feast.

But the results of the recent national Election in the US and the exponential growth of a brand of "Nationalism" that hijacks the name, "Christian," argue that we need to recover an authentic sense of Jesus as King and the profoundly countercultural nature of the Kingdom over which he reigns. The desire for a King so Israel could be like other countries (as well as clobber them when necessary), despite the warnings we hear in the OT, is deeply embedded in us as a dimension of our sinful, freedom-hating, license-loving nature.  Recall that Samuel warned his People,

11“These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. 15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men[a] and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.

 Every line of Samuel's warning reiterates the selfishness of any King the Israelites would choose and stresses the fact that they would be diminished by this choice even to the degree of becoming his slaves. They would not be served or protected and enriched. On the contrary, a King would take all he needed or wanted for his own sake. Samuel is very clear that the people would be exploited and harmed by such a King. Even more importantly, perhaps, such a one, or the dreams of such a one, would and had already activated their tendencies to idolatry. None of this was an expression of exaggerated alarmism on Samuel's part, nor was the desire for a king on the part of the Judeans particularly surprising. Like us, these were sinful people looking to be free from worry, pain, threat, and struggle. They wanted to see their own nation as the strongest, most favored by God, the nation capable of destroying its enemies, and, perhaps most of all, they wanted and needed to be the beloved of a God who could and would do all of these things.

This yearning and need of the human heart to give itself over entirely to the lordship of someone or something is the point of the parable in Luke where a house is swept clean of a demon (that is, it is prepared for residency by someone worthy of it) and left empty. This is at once the human heart made for God and meant to be a Temple or Tabernacle of the Holy Spirit, and it is the place where idolatry is born instead. It will not and cannot remain empty. Thus, in Luke's account, the empty house is reoccupied, but now, by numerous demons, and it ends up in a worse condition than it was originally.  In terms of this contemporary world, Pius XI recognized the truth of what Luke had originally seen so clearly. He watched as Fascism overtook numerous countries and billions of hearts, and in response, Pius created the Solemnity of the Kingship of Jesus Christ, the Feast of Christ the King of the Universe. Pius knew a heart could not wholly give itself over to two different Lordships, nor could the tabernacle of our hearts remain empty. And so, he offered us a chance to truly reaffirm the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the One whose Kingship over heaven and earth was realized (made real) in his ascension.

Samuel outlined a picture of bondage, bondage to this world and its rulers, its values, desires, and false hope. he outlined a picture where people turned to what was not of God to do what only God could do for them. He outlined a picture of idolatry.  When Jesus came, he announced another Kingdom was at hand within this world --- within this world but not of it, a Kingdom where God comes to truly dwell with us and in doing so, transforms this world utterly with his presence.  In Christ God takes on the whole of our existence including sin and death; as a result of Jesus' resurrection and ascension, these become not signs of godlessness, but Sacraments of God's presence within a world which is not yet entirely God's own. And so, today we have significant choices, choices similar but not the same as those faced by the Israelites, or by Pilate in today's Gospel, namely, the choice between worship and idolatry. 

We look at the Scriptures and understand that this is always the choice between a Kingdom characterized by truth and one dominated by falsehood, between the Kingship of Jesus, the suffering servant, or Kingship exercised by one with no desire to serve but only to rule, and no desire to alleviate suffering or free from bondage, but only to act out vengeance in the exercise of power and to reap the spoils of all of that. This is what Samuel warned the Israelites about all those years ago. It is the choice highlighted in the dialogue between Jesus and Pilate in today's Gospel. And this month, half of our country chose the latter. Like the Israelites they wanted a very this-worldly ruler, a strongman incapable of compassion, self-denial or service of the other. It was profoundly disappointing.  

In the face of a country given over to idolatry emblazoned with the false banner of "Christian Nationalism", today we celebrate a more radical choice; we choose the Kingdom of God; we choose to demonstrate with our lives that in the face of the powers of this world, God's Kingdom of truth, love, humility, and genuine freedom is real, though as yet, only partially realized right here and right now. And so, we choose to work for that Kingdom with all of the hope and love we can muster in the power of the Holy Spirit. For the time being, petty tyrants will have their day, but Jesus is Lord and King of all Creation, and much of our present and the whole of the future belong -- or will belong -- to him.

Proclaiming the Feast of Christ the King: On Becoming the persons we are Called to Be

 Every year when we reach this last feast of the liturgical year I ask myself if Christ is more sovereign in my life than in past years. Have I grown in my openness to allowing Christ to be King or Ruler in my own life? Have I let go of the practices and attitudes that resist Jesus' sovereignty or the holy-making power of the mercy and love of the God Jesus calls Abba? A few years ago (about 5 and 1/2 years actually) I began writing about a process of inner growth and healing, a process of personal formation I had begun with my own director and I have commented on that a few times during these last years. The past year has been intense and of a somewhat different quality than the previous 4+ years; in October it was marked by a miracle --- yes, a literal miracle (there is no hyperbole or figurative language involved in that label) --- and throughout the year I experienced Jesus' presence in other ways that changed me, healed me, and too, challenged me to grow and mature in his love and friendship. The work I had undertaken proved to be powerful, and powerfully fruitful, and while the process continues (as a Sister friend recently reminded me, formation never ends!), its natural rhythm has led rather "neatly" (not that I really find anything about this work "neat") to this year's celebration of the feast of Christ the King, and a new liturgical year focusing on new beginnings, new life, and especially on a God who brings life out of barrenness!

One of the things I write about a lot in this blog is the way the phrase "stricter separation from the world" does not mean simply closing the hermitage door on the world around us. Instead it means changing one's heart, allowing our hearts to be loved into a wholeness that sees the world around us with the eyes of God rather than with the eyes of neediness, greed, acquisitiveness, and fear. To enter a hermitage or convent, for instance, without undergoing a significant metanoia of our own heart, is to make of the hermitage or convent an outpost of that world we shut the door on; to shut the door on "the world" in this way is to shut it up inside ourselves -- potentially a truly miserable-making situation for a hermit living physical solitude and external silence!! If our hearts are full of the woundedness and delusions regarding what is true, and which "the world" can cause, to live in silence and solitude within a hermitage can (will!) allow the screams of anguish one has distracted oneself from (or that one has become!), to come up freshly with increasing intensity and dominate one's personal reality. (Folks will know something of this experience because of the COVID-19 pandemic's need for social distancing and even outright "lockdown.")

But the world of the hermitage also provides the graced place and freedom to work with and in Christ to heal one's woundedness and to do battle (!) with the demons of one's own heart. This is the struggle to achieve what canon 603 calls "the silence of solitude" and requires of our lives as the charism and goal of diocesan eremitical life; it is also the gift a hermit will bring to her community whenever her vocation is lived rightly and well. I was very fortunate, the last few years especially, to have a director who either travelled to my hermitage every week or met with me by ZOOM so that we could work together with the frequency and personal accompaniment the work demanded. (It was a gift simply to find we could do this work via ZOOM!!!) 

I was aware that when the Church professed me under c.603 I had been given permission, indeed I had been commissioned to work with God in Christ to become the person he had made and called me to become! What other vocation allows for the space and time to attend to a call to holiness/wholeness in quite the same way as eremitical life? So, while I had never really anticipated doing the work I was doing, and despite some real risk that it could even mean I would need to consider leaving eremitical life for something else, the effectiveness of this work actually underscored my vocation rather than contradicting it. This year that means that I have come to a place where "stricter separation from the world'' means "greater adherence to the incredible life and potential of a God-given Self." It means "allowing God to empower and complete me" so I can be entirely myself and thus too, a clear expression of "God with us." 

And so, this year, as I review what has been during this past year, I am looking at a card my pastor gave me more than a year ago for my birthday. On the front it has a quote from e. e. cummings: [[It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.]] And that is certainly true; I have looked at that card several times a day this last 15 months, and been reminded of its deep truth. The world apart from God misshapes and distorts us each in all kinds of ways and still we are called to mature into the ones only God can fully envision, create, and complete. He is the potter, after all, and empowered by God's Spirit of Holiness we must find ways to allow ourselves to be clay --- God's own clay. This kind of growth and healing takes the grace of God in Christ who summons, accompanies, heals, transforms, and perfects us with his love and presence; often mediated by others who work diligently with us, it is this that empowers us to become the persons we are called to be. Letting the deepest, God-given truth in us --- the imago dei/imago Christi we are most truly --- live as abundantly as God wills it to is the work of a lifetime --- and the work of the God in Christ we are called to allow to be sovereign.

In some ways this piece feels to me like it is "all over the place" --- probably because there is so much to say in a brief space, along with the need to be discreet (and especially reverent) about some of it. But I need to return to writing regularly on this blog; I am hoping this is an opening piece which will allow me to do that. Sharing the spirit of this day then, I sincerely invite readers to regard your own lives and ask yourselves if Jesus is more truly King or Ruler in/of your life on this Feast day than he was at the beginning of Advent last year? Are you more fully alive? More true? More fruitful? Do you regard "the world" around you as something to be despised,  or do you view it more rightly as something to be loved because you see it with the eyes of God and engage creatively with it according to your calling? 

Human perfection is a matter of being in the process of coming to committed maturity (or responsible freedom!!) and fullness of life; it is about being on the path to that. Are you more perfect today than you were last year?  More complete or whole (because this truly indicates the sovereignty of God in your life)? Do you know (and so, accept) your own innate poverty and the mercy of God more fully? Are you more yourself, more moved by truth, generosity, courage, and compassion? Are you less tolerant of untruth in all of its various, subtle and not-so-subtle forms even as you love better those somehow wed to untruth? If, and to the extent you are any of these things, you know what it is to acclaim -- and proclaim with your life -- Christ as King/Ruler of creation. Alleluia, Alleluia! Let us celebrate this truth together!!