It was 1925. Pope Pius XI was troubled by the political climate he saw around him. Dictators, such as Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin were exerting alarming authoritarian power in Europe. Concerned about rising nationalism, as well as the decreasing authority of the Church, Pius introduced a new day onto the Church calendar, the Feast of Christ the King. By doing this, he was hoping, in part, that the nations of the world would see that the Church has freedom from the state.
Fast forward to a recent book by Dean G. Stroud describing a certain leader and his rise to power:
He seems to have thought about how Christians would view him . . . He certainly did not hesitate to reference God and to suggest divine support of his [agenda] . . . Getting off on the right foot with Christians was certainly an early priority.
Further on, the author writes:
Surely if we have learned anything at all about [this leader], it is that nothing he ever said could be taken at face value. We must test his every word against what actually took place. These pious words . . . have no basis in reality. [It] is just another example of propaganda.

The author is writing about Adolf Hitler. The book, called Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow, is about the way Hitler used Christianity to give religious legitimacy to Nazi ideology, and includes 13 sermons by pastors who courageously spoke out against the Reich. Despite what you might suspect, the author did not write this as a comparison to our current administration. It was written in 2013.
But given Evangelical Christian support for this presidency and the kind of Christianity it espouses, it is chilling. Especially since Paula White, the president’s spiritual advisor, is among those claiming the president was divinely ordained, anointed by God. She has also said that opposition to the president is opposition to God. I don’t care what your political persuasion is or who you voted for. But as Christians, we should be alarmed at language like that.
(See Preaching in Trump’s Shadow by Leah D. Schade)
But let’s go back to Pope Pius and his way of resisting the troubling politics of his day. I’d venture a guess that Christ the King Sunday hasn’t been a particularly meaningful day on your calendar. Maybe you recognize it as the last Sunday in the church year, the Sunday before Advent. And I’ll confess that I’ve often looked at this day as an archaic remnant of a bygone time. Looking back, most sermons I can remember giving began: “Now I know we live in a democracy, so it might be hard to get the idea of being subject to a king.”
Of course, we can read about it in the Bible. The reading from Jeremiah is a rant against a king, probably Zedekiah, the last of King David’s dynasty. It was Zedekiah’s actions that had brought about invasion, siege, destruction, and finally exile to Babylon, so his popularity rating was zilch. 
I imagine the prophet Samuel laughing from the Great Beyond. Because Samuel had long ago tried to talk the people out of their desire to have a king at all. He warned them:
He’ll take your sons and make soldiers of them. He’ll put some to forced labor on his farms, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots for him to ride in luxury. He’ll take your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and give them to his friends. He’ll tax your harvests to support his extensive bureaucracy. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you’ll cry in desperation because of this king you want so much. And so it was.
But what’s really important about this warning is that is an expression of the tension between prophet and ruler. Remember: the prophets of ancient Israel weren’t predictors of the future or foretellers of Jesus; they were critics of the government, thorns in the side of kings, emperors, and other officials of both church and state. Which is still the role of prophets today.
Which brings me back to Pope Pius and Christ the King. Even though the original intent was to confront authoritarianism, there are some problems. As you’ve gotten to know me, you may have learned that inclusive language is very important to me and whenever I’m here I ask if we can we use The Inclusive Bible for our readings. I’m a firm believer that language matters in the face of oppressive regimes, and that includes the words we use in church. In fact, I was part of a panel at the Parliament of the World’s Religions last year on “Dismantling the Religious Roots of Patriarchy.” And #1 on my list of action items was: Use inclusive language for humanity and expansive language for God – which, by the way, was incorporated into the ELCA’s latest social statement, “Faith, Sexism, and Justice.”
So I’ve always resisted using ‘king’ language because of the gender issue. But there are other problems (I know, this is more than you ever wanted to know about Christ the King, but bear with me, I’m going to get to the good news).
Many churches have switched over to the gender-neutral title: Reign of Christ. But that doesn‘t solve it either. Patriarchy isn’t just a gender issue. It’s about hierarchies of power, of one group over another: white over black, straight over gay, privileged over poor, etc.

And in light of our growing awareness of these issues, we’ve also begun to question our old understanding of a God who is ‘up there’ somewhere reigning ‘over us’ – embracing instead the realization of the presence of God all around us and within us.
Words convey meaning about all kinds of things, not the least of which is what we believe about God and about ourselves. So it’s not just the matter of cleaning up language pertaining to humanity. It’s also about evaluating our language about God – paying attention to imagery that is exclusively male, as well as hierarchical and triumphalistic. Christ the King Sunday is a perfect storm of these concerns – and some have chosen to ditch it altogether.
I’m not big on throwing out words and images just because they’re not working for us anymore, at least not throwing them out without an attempt at transforming them. I have to admit, results have been mixed. Some years ago, in an attempt to highlight the creative power of Christ throughout the universe, we called it the ‘Culmination of All Things in Christ.’ But one clever wag thought it made Christ sound like the Terminator (imagine ‘Christ the Culminator’ with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent), so that was the end of that. Then we tried the ‘Cosmic Christ,’ ‘Christ the Alpha and Omega,’ and finally settled on ‘Christ, the Anointed.’
So it’s a work in progress. But an important one as we continue to navigate the language of the church of the 21st century in the midst of the issues of our day. Therefore, along with ‘king,’ there is also the question of ‘kingdom.’ ‘Basileia tou Theou’ (Greek for Kingdom of God) was the main preaching point of Jesus’ teaching: the kingdom of God is like this; the kingdom of God has come near; the kingdom of God is within you. But ‘basileia’ is being interpreted in some interesting ways these days: reign, realm, even regime of God. Some New Testament scholars are even calling it the ’empire’ of God – because Jesus’ main agenda addresses his major antagonist, the ’empire of Rome.’
Others aren’t so enamored. Theologian John Cobb, who describes ‘basiliea tou theou’ as a counter-culture based on the values that were rejected by the political, economic, and religious establishments of Jesus’ day, prefers to call it the ‘divine commonwealth.’ The Inclusive Bible calls it the kin-dom of God.
As much as I can appreciate the rationale behind ’empire of God,’ I have a hard time translating that to Christ the Emperor. I’m much more attracted to ‘kin-dom’ or ‘divine
commonwealth’ because they get us away from feudal or empire language and broaden out into a more cosmic, interconnected vision – like that of the ‘divine milieu’ of early 20th century scientist-priest Teilhard de Chardin.
In this ‘divine milieu,’ Christ is described at various times as the Total Christ, the Cosmic Christ, the Whole Christ, the Universal Christ or the Mystical Body of Christ. For Teilhard, Christ isn’t just Jesus of Nazareth risen from the dead, but rather a huge, continually evolving Being as big as the universe. In this colossal, almost unimaginable Being each of us lives and develops, like living cells in a huge organism.
With the help of all the human sciences as well as the scriptures, Teilhard shows how we – the cells and members of the Body of Christ – can participate in and nurture the life of the Total Christ. He shows how, thanks to the continuing discoveries of science, we can begin to glimpse where that great Being is headed and how we can help promote its fulfillment. In a spirituality like this, the power of God is not a coercive power like that of a king, but a persuasive power that beckons us forward into the way of Christ, whose task it is to transform this fragmented world, through love.
Now, if that sounds too far out, remember that even in a spirituality of the divine milieu, the cosmos includes all the mundane, down-to-earth stuff we wrestle with each day, including the work of peace and justice. We never sit back and expect God to come and fix things for us. In the words of St. Theresa of Avila:
Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks with compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands through which Christ blesses the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are Christ’s body.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Which then brings us back around to the call to be prophetic witnesses. For as Pope Pius worried about the political climate of his day, so we worry about ours. The assaults on human rights, constitutional law, and Mother Earth herself are seemingly endless and threaten to overwhelm us. But the words of the prophets are still being written on subway walls and tenement halls, as Simon and Garfunkel sang 50 years ago. But now also on protest signs, Twitter feeds, email blasts, and Facebook walls. And they are calling on us to join our voices, to join forces. For example, a recent message from Faithful America said:
“Every church that is faithful to Jesus Christ must now become a sanctuary for those coping with violence and degradation.”
How do we do that? How do we translate our understanding of the Cosmic Christ, Christ the Alpha and the Omega into action in the world. I’ve come to one conclusion, one word: compassion. Maybe you think that’s too simplistic and unrealistic. But more than two million people around the world have endorsed The Charter for Compassion, which says:
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.
This is the ethic of the divine milieu, the
kin-dom of God. This vast universe that is the body of Christ is alive and we are part of it, growing and evolving in awareness and faith. And while such an immense reality may seem too big to include our concerns, our own individual concerns or the struggles of immigrants or the conflicts within nations, the truth is that in this commonwealth, each cell matters, each person matters, each hope, fear, dream, joy matters. This is the message we take with us on this final Sunday of the church year.
As we stand on the cusp of a new church year, ready to enter the Advent season of waiting and expectation, we do not succumb to discouragement. Because as we go out as prophetic witnesses to the peace and justice of the kin-dom, we can know that we are loved by a Love unbounded by space and time or by titles and political systems. Bigger than any king or queen or president, power or principality. This is the reality to which we cling and from which we take heart – and action. In the name of Christ, the true anointed one.
Amen
Jeremiah 23:1-6
In every age political and religious leaders have often created difficulties for those for whom they had responsibility. This text makes abundantly clear that ancient Israel was no exception. It is likely that these oracles were pronounced against the advisers of King Zedekiah of Judah (597-586 BCE). Placed on the throne as a vassal of the Babylonians, he was the last of the Davidic dynasty to reign. His rebellion against his overlords brought about the invasion of the kingdom, the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and the exile of the king and the nation’s leading citizens to Babylon.
“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep in my pasture!” declares Yhwh. “Thus says Yhwh, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who are tending my people: You have scattered my flock and driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds, declares Yhwh. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have dispersed them, and will bring them back to their own pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply. I will also raise up shepherds who will look after them and pasture them. They will no longer be afraid or terrified nor will any by missing, declares Yhwh.
Behold, the days are coming, declares Yhwh,
when I will raise up for the house of David
a righteous branch,
who will reign as a true ruler and act wisely,
and do what is just and right in the land.
In those days, Judah will be saved,
and Israel will dwell securely.
This is the Name on which they will call:
‘Yhwh, Our Justice.’”
Colossians 1: 15-17
The Supremacy of Christ
Christ is the image of the unseen God, and the firstborn of all creation;
for in Christ were created all things in heaven and on earth,
everything visible and invisible.
Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignty, Powers—
all things were created through Christ and for Christ.
Before anything was created, Christ existed, and all things hold together in Christ.
Luke 1:68-79
Known to Christian tradition as The Benedictus, this psalm may well have had Jewish origins long before the birth of Jesus. It is composed of a series of familiar Old Testament phrases taken chiefly from the Psalms. It became an early Christian hymn and was incorporated into Luke’s Gospel as part of the poetic narrative of the Messiah’s birth.
“Blessed are you, the Most High God of Israel-
for you have visited and redeemed your people.
You have raised up a mighty savior for us
of the house of David,
as you promised through the mouths of your holy ones,
the prophets of ancient times:
salvation from our enemies
and from the hands of all our foes.
You have shown mercy to our ancestors
by remembering the holy Covenant
you made with them,
the oath you swore to Sarah and Abraham,
granting that we,
delivered from the hands of our enemies,
might serve you without fear,
in holiness and justice,
in your presence all our days.
And you, my child, will be called
the prophet of the Most High,
for you’ll go before our God
to prepare the way for the Promised One,
giving the people the knowledge of salvation
through forgiveness of their sins.
Such is the tender mercy of our God,
who from on high
will bring the Rising Sun to visit us,
to give light to those who live
in darkness and the shadow of death
and to guide our feet
into the way of peace.”
