Christ the King - Homily 4

Homily 4 - 2016

The Feast of Christ the King is something of a two-edged sword. It was instituted only in 1925 at a time when the Church felt itself oppressed and threatened by aggressive secular powers – Nazism, Fascism and Communism. The hope was that it would encourage Catholics to remain faithful to Christ even under pressure. The Church was not used to having little or no secular power. Since the time of Constantine, it had had a close relationship with world powers, at least in Europe, and had regularly tended to use that power to further its interests.

Jesus had been wary of secular power. He never used the title, Christ or Messiah or King, of himself, though occasionally the Gospel writers, and other Gospel characters, spoke of him in that vein. Indeed, when the apostle Peter had used the title Christ to describe his understanding of Jesus [at least in Mark’s Gospel], Jesus responded very lukewarmly; and immediately began to talk instead about his inevitable passion and death. If Jesus was to be called the Christ, he insisted it be on his terms – and in his terms he radically overturned the accepted expectations of kingship. Jesus’ understanding of power was not of coercive power but of the power of personal integrity, the power of love. He was not interested in power that could enforce conformity but only in the power that enabled growth in personal freedom and in love. And he was prepared to pay the price of what looked to the unconverted to be sheer powerlessness. He learnt that sense of power from his deep relationship with his Father. His call to the world was always to personal conversion and inner transformation.

Today’s Gospel passage is a clear case in point. The leaders, the soldiers, Pilate who had ordered the inscription of his crime to be nailed above his head, and one of the criminals crucified with him, all understood messianic power as coercive power, perhaps even bordering on the magic. They could not conceive of any other power. Only the second of the criminals, somehow impressed by the obvious integrity and inner authority of Jesus, saw through to the heart of Jesus and understood what he was about. To him, the converted one, the one who opened his heart and mind to the truth of Jesus, was Jesus able to assure salvation and promise that he would be with him in Paradise that day.

Jesus calls his disciples today to the same insight and integrity. He sends us on mission, on his mission. We would like at times to have the capacity to insist that our secular policy-makers and judges enforce on our fellow citizens what we regard as proper moral behavior. There was a time, perhaps, when we did have clout; but now our bishops seem to have lost any moral credibility they may once have possessed. And we no longer have the power of numbers, the so-called “Catholic vote”. If we wish to influence our fellow citizens, we have only the power of our integrity, our obvious concern for the good of all and of our example. If we want others to change, we need constantly to look to our personal and communal growth as human persons and as followers of Christ.

Pope Francis laments that we have increasingly lost the capacity to weep when confronted with the suffering of others. Did we ever have it? Or was it the enlightened leadership of the occasional statesman that ensured that some of our policies and laws were truly compassionate – with little real conversion having happened among the average citizens. Whatever about that, the task certainly confronts us now. We all need change, conversion. We all need to learn to listen respectfully to others, particularly to those we disagree with. We need to engage at some real level. We need the courage to share our values – not aggressively, but intelligently and compassionately, inspired honestly by Jesus’ vision of truth and life, of justice, love and peace.