God’s Loyalty

Homily for November 20, 2016 (Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe)

2 Samuel 5:1-3; Psalm 122; Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43

Today’s solemnity seems rather anachronistic.  While there are still a few kings and queens in our world, most have largely ceremonial roles.  Some spend more time in the gossip columns than in the “hard” news.  For most of us, monarchy is a relic of centuries past. 

Our celebration makes more sense once we consider the historical context in which it was established.  As our church calendar goes, the Solemnity of Christ the King is a relatively recent innovation.  When Pope Pius XI established it in his 1925 encyclical Quas Palmas, Europe was still recovering from the ravages of World War I.  Many parts of the world were experiencing further convulsions from communist, socialist and anarchist movements, many of which were atheistic and/or violent.  The seeds of fascist and imperialist movements had been planted and were growing in places like Germany, Italy and Japan.  They would malignantly bloom into World War II and a host of atrocities.  Pius XI saw a world and particularly a Europe that were rapidly moving away from God.  In his own way, he wanted to press the “reset” button. 

As it did over 90 years ago, this celebration confronts us with some very fundamental questions:   Whom or what will we allow to rule our lives?  Where are our ultimate loyalties?  What are the values that guide our decisions in our homes, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, boardrooms and the corridors of power in our state and national capitols? 

While human loyalty to God has waxed and waned over the centuries, God’s loyalty to God’s people has been constant.  The Preface to one of our Eucharistic Prayers for Reconciliation beautifully testifies:  “Never did you turn away from us, and, though time and again we have broken your covenant, you have bound the human family to yourself through Jesus your Son, our Redeemer, with a new bond of love so tight that it can never be undone.”

We see that love unfold in our first reading from 2 Samuel 5, which recalls the anointing of David as King of Israel, one who would be less a ruler than a shepherd who would lead and guide the people in God’s ways.  As God’s Son and a descendant of David, Jesus would be the ultimate embodiment of a shepherd-king.  In his humanity, he was as the people of Israel acclaimed about David “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.”  In his divinity, he was in the words of the Letter to the Colossians “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…all things were created through him and for him…in him all things hold together.”

What a contrast between those exalted words and the humiliated, beaten down, criminalized and condemned king we witness in our Gospel passage! The Roman authorities wrote the inscription posted over him—“This is the King of the Jews”—to be an indictment, a statement of mockery and contempt, and a warning.  In what a psychologist today might call expressions of internalized oppression, the Jewish rulers, the soldiers and even one of the men crucified next to Jesus all amplified that message.  They could not see who was really before them. 

Yet there was one man, another experiencing the same agonies of execution as Jesus, who was able to see something and someone else; and he entrusted himself to his shepherd and king. Today we are called to do the same—and to live, work and love in that same faith. +