Playing our part in the Reign of Christ
This Sunday, we threw a "Happy New Year" party during the Children's talk, to celebrate the end of one church year and the beginning of another with the first week of Advent soon upon us. We said that while many of our Hollywood blockbusters, sci-fi flicks, and sports playoffs often end with a winner-loser scenario, with the old being tossed to make way for the new, or with the "bad guys" being done away with, the stories we love the most are often those in which the lost are found, the darkness transformed to light, or the shabby loved into new life (Velveteen Rabbit, anyone?)
The Reign of Christ doesn't come when Jesus triumphantly descends to us, but when we lift our hearts and our lives to him. We talked about what that could look like, and were inspired in our thinking by the short video offered below (Thank you, Archbishop John and others for contributing!)
This sermon came later, during which we took a break to write our thoughts about what the reign of Christ on Earth looks like in.
I wonder if our talk with the young people earlier in the service encouraged you to think anew about this celebration of Christ the King, or the Reign of Christ.
It’s a liturgical festival that perhaps we are all still coming to grips with. When we think of the Reign of Christ, I think it is easy to conflate it with thoughts about the Second Coming of Christ, that Christian tradition stating that Christ will make a triumphal return in the end times. Islamic belief also, by the way, anticipates the return of the prophet Jesus to restore justice and defeat the false Messiah.
But praying for the Reign of Christ is different. And it may surprise you to know that the Church has been celebrating this occasion for exactly 100 years. That may sound like a long time to some of the younger folk with us today, but in church time that’s just the blink of an eye.
The Reign of Christ was established by Pope Pius XI in1925 to address a world alarmingly rife with tyranny and ultra-nationalism. As we continue to read dismaying news headlines about increasingly authoritarian rulers, it’s clear that a call to Christ’s reign over all the earth is needed now just as urgently. Until we collectively embrace Christ’s rule, we seem doomed to repeat the worst sins of history.
Some of the hymns we are singing, though, can perhaps nudge us into that sense of slightly arrogant triumphalism that we should be trying to escape. Most of them were written in the 17 and 1800s, several decades before the Reign of Christ feast day was ever contemplated. Instead, they point to that tradition of the second coming, the long-imagined time when Christ will come to separate the sheep and the goats and rule over all. Here are some lines from our first hymn, Lo He Comes with Clouds Descending:
Saviour, take the power and glory; Claim the kingdom for thine own:"
And from the offertory coming up…
He sits at God’s right hand
Till all his foes submit,
And bow to his command,
And fall beneath his feet.
Claiming kingdoms, demanding the submission of foes, and waiting until people fall beneath one’s feet sounds to me like the winners versus losers mentality that defines too much of our life in society. It can make for a stirring hymn tune, I readily admit, but I’m not sure if this sense of triumphalism leads us to the hard work of restoration. Our gospel reading, however - the death of Christ on the cross - reminds us that we are not to look for a Messiah who seeks power in worldly currency, but who seeks to win hearts for eternity.
Some of you will recall the wording in the Book of Common Prayer, spoken as the priest offers absolution after the General Confession. Almighty God, it begins, "who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live."
We don’t speak of wickedness too much in our services any more. But there are dark corners in all of us, and there are certainly dark corners in the world. God doesn’t want them abolishes; God wants them transformed. As we contemplate the Reign of Christ, where might we most want to see God’s light shine?
We hear some good ideas in some of the other hymns and verses in our bulletin, where you’ll find language that paints a beautiful picture of the Reign of Christ. A reign achieved not when Christ comes down in glory to us, but when we offer all our glorious human potential to Christ.
The video this morning offered some other ideas about what it looks like when Christ’s love reigns in our lives and in our communities. We heard from Emilie Smith, a diocesan priest who since August has been on pilgrimage by bus, boat, bike, train, and burro to be present at the recently wrapped-up COP30 climate conference in Brazil. Some people, like Emilie and all the passionate defenders of Creation she has met and marched with along the way, have a spectacularly global reach to their ministries. But all of us can do amazing things to bring Christ’s reign alive in our homes and our neighbourhoods.
So I am going to give you a few minutes to think about what Christ’s reign looks like to you. It might be a very personal reflection "Christ reigns when I keep my promises." It might be collective in nature: "Christ reigns when we protect the health of our rivers and oceans."
As you know, we are in our Stewardship month when we ask you to consider how you might support the ministry of St. Clement’s in the year to come. As we start our new church year with Advent, perhaps the thoughts we are capturing on these gold leaves can be our new year’s resolutions, our commitment that we will work to be channels of God’s kingdom on earth. May it be so. Amen.