My friends, I have suggested to us in the past that this Church feast which officially ends each Church Year is all wrong, proclaiming Jesus as “King,” and I say that because it does not speak to the reality of who Jesus of Nazareth truly was. Let’s jump right to the gospel from John that I just proclaimed to see the truth of this.
Pilate, not a Jew, as was Jesus, asks him if he is, “King of the Jews.” Jesus’ response seems to come from a man exasperated once again that the message of his life has been misconstrued. It is almost as if he is saying, “If you want to think of me, as a king, so be it, as I can’t seem to convince you otherwise.” But then, Jesus gives us the clarification; “I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth,” [and] “everyone who seeks truth hears my voice.”
And we do have to give Pilate credit, because if we read further in the Scripture story, we see that he asks Jesus, “And what is the truth?” We see that Jesus isn’t going to answer Pilate’s question because his whole life had already given the answer; and it is for that reason, “speaking the truth” about the injustice in his world, that Jesus will undergo death, not because we are “sinful” and need redemption, but simply, simply, because we are loved. And friends, if we truly attempt to follow Jesus, we should expect like treatment, because Jesus was a “truth-teller,” and such as he was, isn’t always appreciated. In the times in which we live, we should celebrate that the “truth” was a great part of Jesus’ life.
So what is this “truth” that Jesus’ life is all about? Looking at all that he said and did in his short, public life, the truth was really about God loving us so much so as to become one of us, something we will be celebrating very soon. Paul states in Philippians 2, “His state was divine, yet he did not cling to that, but humbled himself and became like humans are.” And we know that his most remarkable life was all about showing his human sisters and brothers, the way to live and to love, which is really the “truth” that Pilate was asking for but didn’t realize at the time.
So if that was God’s intent, to be one of us, and with us, why did the Church inaugurate this feast that really removes Jesus, putting him on a pedestal away from us, rather than with us? Upon checking, we see that this feast is only a little less than a hundred years old, being proclaimed by Pius XI in 1925. It was a time in our Catholic history when Church fathers feared that God wasn’t being given due respect, so it seemed to them appropriate to inaugurate such a feast. Too bad they didn’t look back to Jesus’ words to see what God truly wanted from and with humans—not a top-down relationship, king to subjects, as is spoken of in the readings from Daniel and Revelations today, but a “one-with” relationship, friend to friend. So, it is for that reason that I suggest the name of this feast be changed to Jesus, the Christ, Our Brother and Friend.
I think my friends, as in all of Scripture, we need to find a balance—we can look at readings like our first two today that speak of “sovereignty” and “dominion,” but must always take what we find there and “stand it up,” so to speak, alongside Jesus’ words, and truly see how he was asking the people in his time, along with us, to see a bigger picture.
“Kings” were known to “lord it over others,”—the main reason why we try, when at all possible, not to use the word “Lord” for God. As you are aware, in the Priests for Equality texts that we use here, “Adonai” is used instead of “Lord,” and in searching out that meaning, it basically means, “Lord,” but by not using it, I think we call attention to the fact that our God never wanted, nor did Jesus teach, that, “our God, his Abba, or Loving Parent,” wanted to, “lord it over us,” but to, as said above, “be one with us!”
I believe that when the hierarchical Church makes our God a “King,” one “over us,” rather than “one-with-us,” Emmanuel, it gives them permission to do the same, which is basically, “to be in control.” And for those who choose to accept this dominion, they find themselves often, in the condition of having no voice, and no choice beyond what is laid down from on high. And additionally, those who “control the show” also have control over the final gift—heaven.
Unfortunately, control over the “end of time” is only a piece of viewing God and “His” priests as “keepers of the truth.” If the king and his priests decide that the world is “black and white,” with no “gray” areas, then our world has no safe place for women, children, the LGBTQ+ community, and really anyone who presents differently from the accepted status quo.
Our brother Jesus came with a new message—one that many accepted and applauded—the poor and disadvantaged especially—those who held the reigns of power, of course, weren’t approving nor applauding his words and actions, because they called them to be much more than they were. And for some of those in power, it simply was too much, thus Jesus needed to be silenced. He died, not to save us “from our sins,” but to save us “for love.”
And because of that, it is right, and fitting that we rename this feast so as to lift up Jesus’ truth among us—that he was our human brother, walking the same path we do through life, and thus our friend for that journey, becoming the Way, the Truth, and the Life for us to follow. Wouldn’t it be wonderful in this time of so much upheaval in our Church and State, so much confusion and lack of truth, if our Church could step up and say that as we end one year and prepare for a new one, that we are going to choose to truly follow our brother Jesus, and become more loving, merciful, compassionate, and just—treating others as Jesus most often treated others, showing us the way? The little bud of hope that I am nurturing within myself longs for that day, when as Teilhard de Chardin said so well, “we harness for God the energies of love,”
Advent, that time of expectant waiting for the Incarnation of One who attempted that “harnessing of love,” as no one before or since has done, is a time of great joy! Our liturgical color is royal blue, for both our sister Mary and the product of her womb.
So friends, as we look forward to next week and the beginning of the holy season of Advent, let us “be about joy,” not suffering as the hierarchical Church would have us do, signified by its pre-Vatican II use of the color purple, as in Lent—let us be about joy, represented by the color, blue.
Earlier I mentioned Teilhard de Chardin’s request that we “harness for God the energies of love,” –the conclusion of his request, as you probably remember says, “and on that day, when we harness for God, the energies of love, for the second time, in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire!” Wow! –a reason for great joy! Yes? Yes! –Amen!
All Are One Church 
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