The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (November 22nd, 2020)

In the eight chapter of the Old Testament first book of Samuel, a decision is made that will have far reaching consequences for the Israelites.

The decision is for a king- and not just any king, but a king “like the other nations”.

The leaders of the Israelites confront the prophet Samuel, and insist that he, acting on behalf of God, establish the Israelites as a nation with a king as their leader.

This decision will lead to the establishment of a monarchy, and then a dynasty, that will rule the Israelites for centuries- and rule not just for good, but for the most part, for grief.

The decision for a king “like the other nations” was not just a pragmatic, political decision, but an audacious demand on God- it was telling God what to do (give us a king) but more than this, it was a qualification, if not outright refusal, of God’s rule. It was saying, rather than you Lord, we would have a king, not like you, but like the other nations.

Samuel, to his credit, reminds the people what the kings of “other nations” are like and the kind of power they exercise and the demands that they make.  Worldly kings, kings “like the other nations” are more often than not, tyrants, for the greatest corrupting influence on the human soul is power.

Would the Israelites not be better off with God as their king?  The answer of the Israelites to this question, their decision, would have far reaching consequences.

This back story is necessary to understand the Church’s first scripture for today, an excerpt from the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel. 

Ezekiel proclaimed the Lord’s truth in the last days of the Kingdom of David, with the enemies of the Israelites gathered on the horizon, he knew the king would fall, and with that king, all of Israel.  A “king like the other nations” had brought the Israelites power, wealth and honor, but along with those benefits, it had rotted the Israelite soul, making them vulnerable to sin and the devil- and what would follow from this would be death- a great catastrophe which would bring not only the king, but the Israelites to ruin.

How had this happened?

Ezekiel likens the kings and the elites who governed the people as shepherds and they proved for the most part to be bad shepherds- who had time and time again endangered their flocks instead of protecting them. 

Their appreciation for the flock was not out of care and concern, but because the flock could be used by them as a means of increasing their power and wealth.  The sheep had little intrinsic value to the rulers of the Israelites, but instead, were valued for what they would produce for the king- wool, meat and hide. They there to be used by the powerful, not served and protected.

All this had aroused the judgement and wrath of God, for the Israelites did not belong to the kings and the elites, but to God.  And God was now acting to bring the worldly king and his worldly kingdom to an end.

And because of a decision, made generations prior, all of Israel would suffer.

This is all very terrifying, too much to bear, if not for the vision of the prophet Ezekiel who foresaw that in the wake of this self-imposed catastrophe, the Israelites would witness God’s actions, not just in judgement and wrath, but in an offer of surprising grace.  What would this surprising grace be?

God would come into the world and reveal himself as the one, true King- not only of the Israelites, but of the whole world, indeed, of all creation.

We Christians believe that this revelation of the one, true King is God in Christ.

It is Christ who sets right a wrong decision, a wrong decision made by the Israelites centuries ago and a wrong decision made time and time again throughout human history- preferring worldly power to rule us, rather than the rule of God.  Of placing worldly power over and above God’s power, and making of our politics, economics, and culture, not powers that are meant to serve what is good and true, but powers that displace God and become our false gods.

Politics, economics, and culture can, if rightly ordered, help us, but they cannot save us.

For the Christian, Christ the King, stands athwart all the temptations to make idols of worldly powers, to make idols of the desires that want to rule us- wealth, pleasure, power and honors- powers that we would make our kings, powers that we so quickly and easily make into our gods.  These idols make great promises, and indeed, deliver on those promises (at least for a time) but these gods are cruel and fickle, and they will fail us.

What does Christ the King want from us?  What does he demand of his subjects?

These questions are answered by Christ himself in his Gospel for today.

In today’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus invites us to imagine the last day, a day of judgement, over which he will preside as the true and only king.  He uses this dramatic scene as a means of telling us what he wants from us, what he wants us to do, and how it is that our response to his expectations reveals our decision as to whether or not we have accepted him as our king.

His demand you see, is the demand of love, of charity, of kindness.  And these qualities are not meant simply to be directed towards him, but to those whom he loves and whom he serves.

Those who have the least, those that few people care about, those who have the most need, those that are despised or feared.  Those who are most important to Christ the King are the ones whom the world tends to treat as least in importance.

Our love and service to the least of these will prove or disprove our allegiance to the one, true King.

He doesn’t demand from us pomp and pretense, but love and service.  And this love and service is not something we can delegate to others, but demands from each of us a personal decision, personal action, and personal sacrifice.

When we meet Christ face to face, we will not be able to get away with the excuse that we had trusted that somebody else was doing for us what we were supposed to be doing ourselves.

One last thing:

Today’s Gospel comes to a harrowing, indeed terrifying conclusion.  There is something of grave importance at stake in our decision for or against God in Christ.  Remember, the one who speaks to us in this Gospel is not merely a prophet, or a philosopher or a politician, but God himself.

His words should shake us up.  They are meant to.

One of the great deformations of Christian faith in our time is a lack of accountability and urgency when it comes to the demands of God in Christ. 

Today’s Gospel should wrest us away from this illusion.  Our decisions matter and they matter right now. 

Who is your king? 

We learn from the Israelites, indeed, from the Lord Jesus himself, that how we answer that question has consequences for not only the generations that follow us, but even into eternity.

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (November 15th, 2020)

I invite everyone here tonight to focus their attention on today’s Gospel- an excerpt from the testimony of St. Matthew.

In today’s Gospel the Lord Jesus offers to us a parable, that is a method of teaching and it is meant to convey an important truth that is “encased” in the literal details of the story. 

Let’s consider the details.

The Lord Jesus tells us of a man (a wealthy man) who entrusted his servants to care for his wealth while he was away on a journey.  The man apportioned his wealth in different amounts to his servants “each according to his ability”.  This means that he expected his servants to do something with the money, to invest it- to increase his wealth.  The implication here is that his servants would be accountable to him upon his return for how they managed his wealth.

The fact he did not give them all the same amount, but instead apportioned his wealth to “each according to his ability” meant he was aware of each person’s gifts and limitations. He was not going to set any on them up for failure and minimized risk to himself and his servants, by scaling the amount each was given.

He is manifesting his trust in them and asking them to trust him.

In other words, he was setting them up for success.

Now, listen to this- the Gospel refers to the wealth of the man as “talents”- by this is not meant something that a person is good at, but it is a unit of measurement by which the value of gold or silver was evaluated.  Some estimate that a single talent of gold would be worth an estimated 16 to 20 years of labor.

A contemporary valuation of one talent of gold estimates its value as the equivalent of $1,416,000. 57.  The Lord Jesus is referring to an extraordinary amount of money and highlighting the extraordinary amount of trust that the man is placing in his servants.

So, what happened to the man’s money?

His trust and confidence paid off big in regards two of his servants- in fact, they created windfall of profit for the man.  And then one servant blew it.

Overcome with fear at the risk of losing the money and fear of his master’s wrath if he failed, he buried the money in the ground.  He did nothing of value with the money!

Needless to say, the man was not pleased with his servant and this servant ended up losing more than the money, he lost his whole livelihood.  Fear cost him everything.

He was given much, asked to do something to increase what he had been given, he was set up for success and instead of doing what he was asked to do, he doubled down in avoidance of risk, and his fear ended up costing him everything.

So, what does this story mean?   What’s the lesson?

It’s about what we have been given in Christ and what we DO with what we have been given.

The “talents” or wealth is not referring, as I mentioned earlier, to things you are good at.  The “talents” are a symbol of what has been bestowed on us in Christ- what he gives us.  What does he give us?  His divine life!  His own identity as a child of God!  This is what we receive from him in the Sacraments of the Church.  This is what his Incarnation, his death, his Resurrection are all about- he is giving us something of inestimable value.  His life!  His divine life!

And he wants us to do something with this gift. He even creates the conditions for the possibility of success by taking into consideration our innate capacities, our intelligence, our will, our limitations and he qualifies his expectations in accord with those factors.  He doesn’t set us up to fail.

So, what are we going to do with what Christ gives us?

The way we answer that question will manifest itself in the substance of our spiritual lives and test our own sincerity as his disciples.

Too many Christians receive Christ’s great gift and do little or nothing with what he gives us.  We take no risks.  And we bury it.  The gift doesn’t grow in us or in anyone else.  Out of fear or indolence or inconvenience we do nothing.  The original gift remains intact, but Christ the Lord doesn’t want us to lowball our expectations, he wants us to be bold and take risks.

This is what the saints do.  The saints grow Christ’s gift through a reckless abandon of faith, hope and love. That’s how they make the gift increase.  Faith, hope and love are risks and they make demands on us, they are scary- but they are also the only way the divine life in Christ in us (his gift) will grow.

The lesson is this- we have all been given something of tremendous value and importance in our relationship with God in Christ. Take risks and do something with that gift.

One more thing.

The ending of this parable is something all of us should consider very carefully. 

Why?

One of the great deformations of Christianity in our times is the evacuation of consequences from the revelation of Christ.  Many Christians have lost a sense of accountability for their identity as a disciple of the Lord Jesus and are either indifferent to or just ignore this harsh reality: that the Lord Jesus positions his revelation as demanding a decision from us- a decision for which we will be held accountable. There are consequences for our refusals, refusals to love and refusals to serve.

Today’s parable from the Lord Jesus culminates in consequences. A positive outcome for those who did what he asked. A negative outcome for those who did not. Now you don’t have to just project this into a threat of eternal damnation to get what the Lord Jesus is warning us about.

Our refusals of God in Christ wreak havock in our own lives and in the lives of others.

When the gift of God in Christ diminishes in us, and it diminishes in the Church, sin and death and the devil increase in us and in the world. When faith, hope and love in us falter, when the Gospel is no longer worth the risk, we all find ourselves in that terrifying darkness where there is “wailing and grinding of teeth”.  We don’t have to wait for hell to happen later because we all get hell right now.

There is an urgency in today’s Gospel that all Christians must take to heart and bear in mind always.  We have been given the gift of God in Christ.  God in Christ wants that gift to grow in us and in the world.  This means we have to do something with what Christ has given us and what we do is worth the risk.