Christ the King Homily

Christ the King

Ceasar was great administrator and so was a king, Asoka was mighty warrior and so was a king, Akbar along with his consulters tried for religious harmony and so was a great king and here is a man who was born of a peasant woman, had lived only 33 yrs, never held an office, never owned a home, never had a family, never went to college, never travelled two hundred miles from the place where He was born, never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness, never had a kingdom to rule, abandoned by his own, and finally nailed on the cross. None of the characters of a king was found in this person called Jesus. Then in what manner can we call him a king? Or is Jesus a king at all? In fact that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the Kings that ever reigned put together have not affected the life of man on earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life – Jesus. Because, He is a king who rules the hearts and His kingdom has no boundary.

Any one who wants to be a king must have the qualities of a shepherd. And today’s liturgy of the word gives us the example of a true shepherd. In Ez 34:11-20 we see that even amidst trails and tribulations Yahweh protected the people of Israel through His mighty deeds as a shepherd guards his sheep. In Ps 23 we hear the sinful David singing, “The Lord is my shepherd… He restores my soul, He leads me in the right paths.” So, even when they were unfaithful and went astray, He brought them back through the judges, prophets and kings. Although God was present in them by His words and deeds, the thought He is far away grew in them so much that they became inhuman. As a result, we notice in Mt 21:37 “finally He had t sent His Son to them, saying, they will respect My Son” – because respecting the other is the very nature of human, for it is the pre and the post existence of the other make me know and be known as a human. So, the plan of incarnation is not to add one more number in humanity but to bring humanness in the existing inhumanity, just like the salt of the earth. It is therefore Mt says in 1:23, “they shall name Him Emmanuel, which means God is with us”. The Son of God became the Son of Man so that sons of men may become sons of God. But the life that we led, demanded so much as Paul quotes (Phil 2:8) “He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death even death on a cross”. And so Jesus was exalted above all kings of the nations. To uphold this title from human beings he had to accept the death on the cross.

It is true that many in the past have been loved intensely – Socrates by his disciples, Julius Caesar by his legionaries, Nepoleon Bonaparte by his soldiers. But today those men belong permanently to the past but not Jesus. He is still loved, honoured and adored by millions and always will be, because He ruled the hearts with the weapon of love.

We have a king. But who can be the subject of this king or His kingdom? The one who fulfils the demands of the king. The demand of Jesus is LOVE as the Father has loved me so I love you, love one another. This is the perfection of love, because the love between the Father and the Son is the Spirit, the personification of LOVE. So any one who is ruled by this LOVE, (the spirit) cannot but do the things that result in the good of the other, of which s/he will not be conscious of, because the otherness in her/him is ruled out.

So, it is not enough to avoid doing evil. We must constantly and consciously opt for and do good. Had we observed today’s Gospel we would have noticed that the blessed are praised not for attitudes but for the simplest actions. There are no records of great heroism, no marvellous triumphs over disasters. The requirements are simple and not beyond the capacity of any human being. There is no training required, no academic qualification necessary. The actions are the simple response of those who pay attention to what happens around them. Others are not accused of violent crimes, but of failure to act on the human need they saw in front of them. And the shared problem of the blessed and the cursed is one but not identical, distinct but not different, that is “when did we see you?” Both saw the same reality but differed in their perceptions, one saw himself in the problem and the other saw the other as the problem.

My brothers and sisters, service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. ‘No person was ever honoured for what he received. Honour has been the reward for what he gave’, says Calvin Codidge. The fact is, that we have no problem recognizing Christ in the Church. But when we meet him out on the streets, where he is sometimes sunk in poverty and sorrow, we are reluctant even to bid him the time of the day. We never know exactly, who it is we are meeting in the person of our neighbour. But what is important is that we see in that person a needy human being, and that we do our best to meet his need. For those with faith, no matter how stranger, will find in the other Christ who lies hidden, because Christ always identified Himself with the least, the last and the lost, for human vulnerability is His vulnerability. According to this vision, if an alien comes from outer space and asks us where Jesus lived, will we be able to open the doors of Basilicas, theologates, convents and our hearts and show him Jesus. It seems all their doors had an eternal shut, shut with material fulfilment, intellectual vanity, psychological defences and spiritual arrogance.

Therefore, God need not to judge men for they will judge themselves through their lives. The object of our hope is not life after death, but life before death. God loves us enough to make us free with true freedom – including the freedom to say NO to him openly. And so, hell, as an absolute refusal of love, exists only for the one who creates it for oneself. And it is divinely impossible for God to cooperate actively in this deviation.

Finally, when Jesus realized that the appointed time was fast approaching, He felt the need of giving up the accidental body that He took to fulfil the intention of His Father, He gave it as an ultimate symbol of ‘a life lived for others’, which is the Holy Eucharist, in order that he may be eternally present with us. When we eat the animal, it becomes ‘we’, when we eat Eucharist we become Christ. So Christ’s action becomes our action. Well let me ask you a question, is it the first time we celebrate the Eucharist? This may be one among ten thousands. Day after day we partake in this Holy Qurbana, have our lives changed? Today’s Gospel challenges us to see the broken body of Christ in the brokenness and the woundedness of those we see around us. To pay attention to them is to pay attention to the broken body of Christ. Unfortunately, there is a gap or a space between stimulus and response and the key to growth and happiness is how we use that space. Let’s then carry Christ’s spirit into our very life that our life shall be like that of the one who walked the talk.

AMEN