"For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me." -Matthew 25: 35-36
One of my favorite
philosophers is Homer…Simpson. This
eternally middle aged man from Springfield is full of nuggets of wisdom…and
donuts. One of my favorite teachings of
Homer occurred during a time when he inexplicably found himself floating down a
river in a cheery-picker. With no visible
way out and his daughter Lisa calling for him as she ran along the shore, Homer
clasped his hands and looked up to heaven.
“I’m not normally a praying man,” he confessed, “but if you’re up there,
please, save me, Superman!”
Homer "praying"
I think that the
words of a man far wiser than me are appropriate for this final week of the church year. Yesterday marked the last Sunday after Pentecost, the last
Sunday in what we often call Ordinary Time, which is also referred to as Christ the
King Sunday, or, in some churches, Reign of Christ Sunday. The historic reason for such a day is that
this is the last Sunday of our church calendar, and so we exit the year with a
reminder of Christ’s kingship over all of creation, over time and space,
forever and ever, world without end.
But what do you
think of when you think of the kingship of Jesus Christ? What images pop in your head? What exactly does it mean for us to have
Jesus as our king, and what does it mean for Jesus to be our king?
For some, I’ve
noticed, it’s like Homer, who clasps his hands in his hour of need, looks up to
heaven, and calls out for Superman. After
all, isn’t that what a king is suppose to do?
Isn’t a king suppose to save his people, rescue them, protect them from
the enemy?
It’s easy to think
that way. But if we really listen to
Jesus as he tells this parable in Matthew’s gospel we hear a very different
definition of kingship. In this parable,
which is meant to invoke images of the final judgment, the king—Jesus—tells those
gathered before him that he was hungry,
thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, and in prison. And those who fed him, gave him something to
drink, welcomed him, clothed him, took care of him, and visited him are blessed,
and those who did no such thing are not so blessed.
Does this sound
like any king you know? Does this sound
like the soverign that rules over the universe?
Hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, in prison? Doesn’t sound like any king I know or can
think of? And that’s the same reaction
the king’s assembled subjects have in the parable. When did we see you in those states, they
ask. When could we have possibly offered
you help? You! Our king!
For them the idea of seeing a king in any of those states, all
vulnerable, all wounded and weak, is antithetical to the very idea of
sovereignty, of what a ruler should look like.
The king’s response: you saw me
in those states when you saw anyone else in those states. When you helped them, you helped me.
And here is what
makes our Lord Jesus Christ unlike any sovereign that has ever ruled and will
ever rule. This is what makes the Gospel
so radical. The very principles of
nearly every single civilization that has ever existed are turned on their
respective heads in the person of this Jesus.
Kings are seated on thrones in palaces, they eat at banquets and are
clothed in splendor. Not this
Jesus. Not this king. He rules from the gutters. His clothing is tattered. He covers himself with a newspaper when he sleeps on the park bench. He reaches his
hand out to us and asks us to help him.
This, brothers & sisters, is our lord Jesus, our king. And we encounter him every single day.
"Homeless Jesus"
Our king is not
some kind of Divine You Up There, distant and unknowable. Our sovereign is not like Zeus, Poseidon, or
any other deity that came before, sitting on a cloud far above us pitiful
humans. Our Lord is not a superhero who
swoops in and rescues us from the muck that we get ourselves into. The power and the majesty of Jesus Christ is
that his kingship is about relationship, relationship with the people that he
loves so much. Because it is in such
relationships that we see him, that we praise him.
Do you want to see
the face of Jesus? Go outside and walk
around until you come to a “street person.”
Look that person in the eyes.
That’s Jesus. Our king and sovereign Lord is known to us in the sorts and conditions of every human being,
especially those that are so very easy for us to forget and ignore. To serve them, to respect their dignity, to
love them is to bring our king the kind of praise and worship that he deserves. It is the kind of praise and worship that he
commands of us. King of Glory. King of Peace. We WILL praise thee.
