Anyone who has been a longtime reader of this blog, and I don't think there are that many of you out there anymore, will likely recognize some of what's here. For the first time in my priestly career, I am doing a "rerun" of the sermon I preached on this text six years ago when I was a seminarian at St. Monica and St. James Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
The president was the same man currently occupying the Oval Office. And, sadly, the words I chose six years ago are still very relevant...possibly even more so...than they were in 2019.
I made a few adjustments, added a slightly new beginning, but this is that same sermon. How sad...yet fortunate since I've been down with a nasty head cold...that it remained "fresh."
See what you think.
Text: Luke 23:33-43
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The Church has been calling this last
Sunday after Pentecost “Christ the King Sunday” since the early part of the 20th century.
Pope Pius XI introduced this idea at the
end of World War I…as a counter to growing secularism…and the turmoil in
post-war Europe.
The idea being that while governments
rise and fall…Christ’s reign is forever.
Yet nothing about this situation described
in our Gospel seems fitting for a king.
Let’s consider this scene for a moment.
The man Jesus hangs bloodied and bruised
between two criminals.
“Leaders” are shouting at him. And in
their taunting, they are calling into question his healing works and
undermining faith in his teachings:
“You saved others; save yourself!”
Soldiers are also getting in on the act.
They’re making fun of him and laughing
as they take articles of his clothing like they are party favors at this
execution.
And then there are “the people” who
stand by watching.
We don’t know who they are.
We aren’t given details about them.
We can imagine that if they are fellow
Jews living in this Roman-occupied state… they might be angry…feeling dejected
and hopeless in the face of tyranny…and quite probably afraid. That was the
purpose of crucifixion: to instill fear into the hearts of anyone who might
dare to stand up to the authority.
Terrorizing people who are powerless is
a favorite tactic of bullies and authoritarians.
It’s the way to keep people anxious…uneasy…compliant…and
silent.
What kind of a King dies in such a
horrible way…stripped down….his arms outstretched and pinned high above his
chest and his head bloodied?
How can a king be hung up on hard wood
like a common criminal?
For those who claim earthly power, both
then and now,
Jesus is a joke.
Encouraging an ethic of love,
loving the stranger as your
neighbor,
forgiving the wayward one who comes home
and says, “I’m a screw up and am not worthy,”
healing people struggling with all kinds
of demons;
that’s not how a powerful person lives
their life.
By earthly standards…such caring and
compassionate behavior shows weakness and vulnerability.
Jesus is the embodiment of a person full
of empathy…an emotion that some today deride as “toxic.”
But then isn’t it interesting that even
though there are three people being crucified, only Jesus draws out the ire of
the powerful.
There is something about Jesus that
makes them so bitter that they make a spectacle of his death.
Something about him has a strange
pull on them.
He seems to be such a threat to their
comfort at the top that they feel they must not only inflict punishment and
shame on him; they have to kill him to prove to themselves and others that they
are the strong ones here.
Perhaps deep inside their hearts they
are also afraid.
Maybe they sense that he is stronger
than them and his strength might expose their own weakness.
That is the paradox of being a bully,
isn’t it?
It’s because they are weak…that the
bullies and tyrants of the world act out in destructive ways to mask their own
vulnerability.
It’s why they feel the need to attack
and mock others.
In this whole scene there is only one
person who sees through all the horror and the mayhem and can fix upon the
truth of Jesus.
And it’s not a soldier.
Not a leader.
It’s one of the criminals, another
rejected member of society.
In his own dying moments, this condemned
convict looks to Jesus, and in his suffering, he pleads: “Jesus remember me
when you come into your kingdom.”
This man knows that Jesus is innocent.
And in his request to be remembered into
Jesus’ kingdom he is signaling to us that he has seen below the skin level of
Jesus and is perceiving something more.
He is seeing God made incarnate in the
flesh.
This man understands that this one…hanging
next to him…and experiencing the same torture…is the one who came into the
world to
“preach the gospel to the poor,
heal the brokenhearted,
free the captives,
give sight to the blind,
and liberate the oppressed.”
It takes one who is among the broken…one
who has been brought low himself…to know the divinity of Christ shining through
that bruised and battered skin.
It is one without earthly power who can
perceive the real power hanging in agony with him.
Here again we see the wonderful and
un-worldly way that God’s grace works.
Because it is not the prestigious and
powerful or the bullies and tyrants who recognize Jesus.
It’s the one who’s been banished to die.
The one who might otherwise have been
intimidated into silence.
The one who…realizing that he has done
wrong…begs Jesus: remember me.
Remember me when you come into your
kingdom.
What this man sees in Jesus is what so
many who have ever found themselves on the margins of society throughout
history have seen in the Christ.
This is the king who can maintain
compassion in the face of violent opposition.
A king who can resist anger and can keep
loving all the way to the end.
A king being unjustly crucified by a
corrupt system and yet can still maintain dignity enough to promise Paradise to
the repentant criminal.
If social media had existed in the First
Century…Jesus would have been vilified by all those hiding behind their
avatars.
Because he is type of king whose power
of love and true righteous justice intimidates and topples the bullies who feed
on fear and hatred.
We proclaim Christ as King because…in
his dying and then his rising again… Jesus makes a pledge to one on the lowest
rung of society that he will restore and liberate him from his worst self…and
deliver him from his separation from God.
If Jesus can say this to a criminal…how
much more so do his words apply to us?
How much more is he bringing us into his
mission to face the injustices of our time which keep people in poverty…keep
them captive to their fears and addictions…and press down upon those who yearn
to breathe free?
This promise of being “re-membered” into
God’s kingdom is renewed each time we come to this Eucharistic table and
receive the body and blood of Christ.
We are being renewed and reinvigorated
with a life force…grounded in love…to resist the powers of this world that want
to break us.
When we take in Christ we are being
given the strength to meet the needs of our community in the mission of God to
love those who are lost…alone…or afraid.
It is through us and our resilience to
live into that love that we wear the crowns of our royal priesthood.
And it is in this way…working through
us… that Christ reigns as a true king on earth as in heaven.
In the name of our One Holy and
Undivided Trinity.
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