Musical Prelude and Service

Colossians 1:11-20
I had written my sermon and printed it. Then this morning I read something that inspired further
thoughts on God’s view of kingship and my general ambivalence toward this day; often named Christ
the King Sunday.
In particular, I considered the story in Hebrew scripture of Samuel anointing Saul as the first King of
Israel. At first Samuel refuses to anoint a king despite the urging of the Israelites. God, he tells them,
does not desire a king for his people. It is not good to place so much power in one person. But the
people look at their neighbours, and see the wealth, the power and their might and jealously desire
the same things. This debate goes back and forth and so eventually Samuel relents and anoints Saul.
Eventually, Israel follows the direction of the kingdoms around them leading to injustice, inequality,
and exploitation.
Reign of Christ Sunday tends to be a head scratcher for me. What exactly are we saying with this?
When we speak of a reign, it is generally in the context of a monarch, a king or queen, a ruler of
some sort. And that makes sense. An alternate name for this Sunday is Christ the King Sunday.
But is that how we view or how God wishes us to see the divine? Is this the ideal vision of God’s
world? A pyramid of power with one individual or small group at the apex, with privilege and power
filtering down from on high. Or does God have a different vision for creation and for our relationship
with God and the world; one based on mutuality and equality?
This is also the last Sunday before we enter Advent, which is liturgically, the beginning of the new
year. So, all we have been reflecting on and celebrating for the past year, concludes with Reign of
Christ Sunday.
It seems to me this is our way of stating clearly that we live in God’s world. That we are a part of
God’s world and have chosen to follow Jesus the Christ. And we take time to stop and reflect on what
that means. Now, here’s the thing – essentially, we do that to one extent or another every Sunday.
We find variations on that theme. We sometimes inch a little bit more into the significance of the
resurrection, or the importance of gratitude, or the hope we find in putting our faith in God.
But at the heart of all of this, is the recognition that we are a part of God’s creation.
“He is the image of the invisible God; the first born of all creation.”
Scholars view these lines as a quotation from an ancient hymn. As are the lines that follow. That is
an indication of the general early theology of the earliest Christians. For in him all things in heaven
and on earth were created. Things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or
powers – all things have been created through him and for him.
He is the image of the invisible God.
Jesus reveals God to us. God is not a collection of words on a page. God is not a collection of rules or
commands. We find God when we reflect on the life, the teaching, the actions and the death and
resurrection of Jesus. Yes, our primary source of who Jesus was and what Jesus taught us is
scripture. Yes, when we take time to read or listen to words of scripture; when we follow that up with
prayer, reflection, and discussion, we can find God speaking to us in those words and those stories.
But it is in Jesus the Christ that we see God revealed to us.
Jesus points us towards God. Jesus reveals to us the love of God. The uncompromising and steadfast
love that God holds for all of creation. The creation of which we are a part. When we see the world,
of which we are a part, as a whole; guided and directed, through and in Christ, we need to stop and
ask ourselves, does this influence how we relate to and move in God’s world? Can we be moved to
recognize that we are part of something far larger than our individual selves?
Our society spends a great deal of time dancing around the issues of personal versus public.
Where do we set the boundary between what is of personal or individual significance and where we
are part of and responsible to the public; or perhaps, what is better stated as the community.
How we identify ourselves has shifted radically over the decades, centuries, millennia. In general –
and I am wary of painting with too wide a brush on this – but in general we tend towards a sense of
individuality. We might see ourselves as belonging to a community, or a series of ever widening
circles of community. A family, a neighbourhood, a community of faith, a town or city, etc., etc.
But at the centre of that; at the heart of that series of circles is you, or me, as an individual. We are
willing to work within those various communities, but at some point, we hold back, we see ourselves
as separate and distinct.
We are autonomous, distinct, independent. Or so we want to believe. Society tends to celebrate or
praise those who champion this vision of strength, self-reliance and power.
We have been evolving socially towards this view of the world for some time now, but it is still
historically speaking, relatively new.
In contrast, if we consider the time of the writing of scripture, that sense of individuality, or personal
sovereignty was not nearly as strong as it is today. People identified as part of a family; a much
larger and extended family; a community and a kingdom or empire. In general, communities of faith
were the communities. Public worship was part of the environment. There was little or no distinction
between church and state.
This is not, let me be clear, a yearning to return to the wonderful ways of the past. But I do believe it
is important to put some things into context. It is also important to keep in mind that an empire as
vast as the Roman Empire engulfed a wide and varied number of religions and traditions.
They tended to absorb them all into one public religion that allowed for all these different Gods.
As long as it also included worship of the emperor as one of those Gods.
Judaism and Christianity declared there was one God who ruled over all. There was no room for
other gods. Certainly not the emperor.
It is important to note that Christ the King Sunday, or as we name it Reign of Christ Sunday was
added to the liturgical calendar in 1925 by Pope Pius XI with some support and agreement from the
patriarchs of the eastern church. It was a response to what he saw as some worrying trends in the
modern world. A move towards secularism, but also the rise of a number of authoritarian
movements, such as Lenin and Stalin in the Soviet Union, as well as what became fascism in Italy
and Germany and Imperial Japan. It should be noted that those same movements also had
proponents in England, the US and here in Canada, although they did not gain power.
The message of Reign of Christ Sunday is essentially; who are we ultimately responsible to?
Is it to an earthly ruler? A president or monarch? Is it to ourselves? Or are we ultimately responsible
to God, who connects us all in a web of mutuality with Jesus the Christ as the head, or the source of
all life? Jesus, who was prepared to preach and live out a message of love and compassion; to insist
that we could create a world of mercy, peace, and justice if we were really willing to love one
another as God loves us. He was prepared to live this message all the way to the cross; even as the
rulers of that age turned to cruelty and violence to silence him.
Where do we look for guidance and direction? Where do we put our faith, our loyalty?
That is the question and the challenge at the heart of this Sunday.
We will say God. We proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen is our judge and our hope. But how do we
live that? How does that influence how we experience the world? If we are living as part of the Reign
of Christ, how do we truly live that out so that we can look at the world around us and proclaim,
thanks be to God?
Rev. Warner Bloomfield

Music provided with permission through licensing with CCLI License number
2701258 and One License # A-731789