Christ the King Year C

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Papal encyclical that put the feast of Christ the King into our liturgical calendar. Pope Pius XI’s encyclical aimed to encourage the Christian faith to be expressed and practised in both private and public arenas. The idea of not just naming, but honouring Christ as King was central to his message. That message, in 1925, came at least in part as a response to the rise of fascism in Europe. He saw the ambition and unhealthy values of Mussolini and Hitler and was increasingly worried. This is how he introduced the encyclical:

We referred to the chief causes of the difficulties under which mankind was laboring. And We remember saying that these manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations.

As long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of lasting peace. I find those words chilling, not least because they are no less relevant today than they were 100 years ago. In the world as it is today, we are in urgent need of the change that Pius XI longed to see in his lifetime.

At the heart of this is a question about the nature of authority. And how that authority is exercised. This feast day is about modelling healthy leadership; about those who are in a significant position within society and encouraging them to use that position for the good of the many, not the few. It’s about using the power invested in a particular role in a way that reflects and honours Gospel values. So if we recognize Christ as our King, as the supreme leader of each and every one of us, what does that mean for us both as individuals and as a church? That seems like a significant question on the day when we will hold our Cathedral AGM. A day when we will look back but, more importantly, will dare to look forward and to dream about what might be and who and what we might become.
You’ve received the Annual Report and you have been able to see what we’ve achieved over the past year. And perhaps to notice the gaps and see what we didn’t manage to achieve. It would be all too easy to get caught in discussion on that. Of course there are ways in which we could have done better. Perhaps there are things we did that would have been better left undone. But I hope that what underpins what you read is the ambition to make a difference. Pius XI was fundamentally ambitious for the church. His big picture ambition was for world peace; at the same time his small picture ambition was for change in the lives of individuals. And he recognized that those ambitions need to go hand in glove. Change begins with us.

As a church, if we are serious about the ambition behind this feast of Christ the King, we need to consider some questions about how that impacts on what kind of church we aspire to be. Across the SEC and especially here in Edinburgh, there is a range of expressions of church. A real pick and mix is on offer – choose your flavour and you will be able to find it somewhere.
So what about our particular expression of church. Who are we and why do we exist? As a Cathedral church we are committed to maintaining the traditions of our worship. To offering a very distinctive and particular way of being church within a particular place. But being church is, of course, about much more than how and where we worship. The narrative of Christ the King immediately takes us away from thinking about physical building and what happens there, and points us towards thinking about how we build, and maintain, Christian community. And what values that community will then attempt to reflect and live by.

There is some help for us in today’s reading from the letter to the Colossians. Verses 15-20 are often described as a hymn to Christ. They may be a version of a hymn that was used within the liturgy at Colossae in the early days of the church. At verse 16 we read ‘all things have been created through him and for him’. Christ is at the centre of all that is and all that might be.
The writer of the Epistle is directing our focus onto Christ. He is the beginning and the end. If we keep our eye on him, we will be guided in the right direction. If we keep our eye on him, we will inevitably find ourselves expressing and practicing our faith in both the private and public arenas.

We are called to follow Christ our King, to follow him into his kingdom. Now we know that the eternal kingdom is a place that we will reach one day, but not now. The criminal on the cross knew about that – Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. We are not yet called to that kingdom, but to the kingdom of God that we pray to see and inhabit in this life. The Kingdom of God isn’t a destination, but it can be a lived reality. The kingdom of God exists, sometimes fleetingly, in the moments of grace that we share with others. The kingdom of God exists and has life in the times when we can make a difference. The kingdom of God grows when we begin to grow the depth and relevance of the ways that we relate to one another. It is central to the times when we actively seek to find peace in our hearts and our minds.
And we are tasked with bringing God’s kingdom to life. Tasked with keeping our focus on the one who leads by example, the one who teaches us to be courageous. That same one who made himself vulnerable, who was the servant king. His kingdom is the one we are called into. Not at some point in the future, but right here and now. His kingdom isn’t in a distant land, it’s in our midst. And we are invited to join him there. Not yet to join him in paradise but to join the risen and resurrected Lord in the messiness of our space and time and lives.

If we can find our way to move towards that goal, we might find that our expression of church begins to change. Not because someone has imposed a model on us, but because new ways of being church will organically emerge.