Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Luc Thuku, OHC
Proper 29 A - Sunday, November 22, 2020
If you are hooked into the current craze on Netflix, The Crown, you also may have encountered some facts that show how dysfunctional, entiltled and ‘bordering evil’ this particular mornachy’s family is.
We then fought for independence and we got a president…our own man as we love to say. He was a corrupt, ruthless dictator and his successors in office have followed in his footsteps in ensuring that corruption, exploitation and intimidation are the order of the day even though we claim to be and are regarded as one of the best examples of democacy in Africa, but I believe we are a perfect example of democracy gone bad anywhere!
As I entered early adulthood, I joined religious life seeking a home and Community, but mostly to belong, and all I got until I encountered Holy Cross, was misunderstandings, wrongful judgements and hatred that I did not deserve. In midlife, I moved to an adoptive country that I loved and at some point that country chose a president who was racist, divisive, mysygonistic, sexist, corrupt, the list goes on…things the devil himself would be ashamed of being associated with! Thankfully the worst of that era will soon be in the past and the future looks a bit promising but a lot of work is needed.
You are justified to ask if I don’t believe in any form of leadership, why then Am I standing infront of you on the feast of a King, the Feast of Jesus Christ the King of the Universe? The answer to that is as simple as it is complex. This is because Leadership is as inevitable as it is necessary and the choice is what kind of leadership do I want to have and not whether I should have leadership or not!…plus here and there I have encountered very pleasant leadership although it is sadly an exception and not the norm.
A few years back in Kenya slighlty before a tighly contested presidential poll, similar to what we just had here this month or in 2016, a meme was circulated in the internet containing a picture of Jesus Christ the King and it said..”no matter who is elected president, Jesus Christ is still the King!” Never in America and in the entire world have we needed to hear those words than this present moment! Today’s feast is suggesting to us and celebrating a different kind of leadership than we are used to, Servant leadership! Today’s feast also celebrates intergrity in leadership, honesty, maturity and selflessness, qualities that are almost extinct in our contemporary leaders. I would, therefore, love to invite you to explore this style of leadership with me and hopefully you will be converted with me into moving from not believing or rather from tolerating kingship/Leadership into craving kingship/ Leadersip!
In today’s first reading that we heard from the prophesy of Ezekiel Chapter 34 verses 11 to 16, God assures us that He himself will seek his sheep, meaning us, and rescue them from where they are scattered, gather them together and feed them, and he himself will be the shepherd. He promises to seek the lost, bring back the strayed, bind up the crippled, strengthen the weak, and the fat and strong watch over…in other words, none would be neglected! God declares at the end of verse 16 that “I will feed them in justice”! All of us or at least most of us have lived through different campaign periods by the same politicians. We have heard different promises and pledges of what and how much they will do for us but I don't remember any of them promising to feed us in justice. Although most pretend that they will serve all equally they, and we, know that the major beneficiaries of their rule are their closed circles and those who think like them, not to mention their families and cronies.
Therefore, God promising a reign of justice for all must have been like music to the ears of the oppressed of the day…. and is still music to my ears and I hope to your ears as well. God goes further in verses 20 - 24 to declare that he himself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. We are mostly used to hearing from the scriptures about the judgement or separation being between sheep and goats, wheat and chaff, good and evil and our minds got accustomed to thinking of “us” versus “them”. Today's first reading is telling us that God will judge sheep against sheep. The strong sheep that pushes the weak sheep around with side and shoulder, thrusting with horns and by so doing take advantage of the weaknesses of the other which more or less we are responsible for. This judgment of God will therefore touch all of us because in God’s vocabulary, ‘’THEM’' does not exist. It is just ‘’US’'!
The Gospel passage we read today continues where the first reading left to explain to us how this judgement and justice will be dished out. It will be simple and not as elaborate and graphic as some of us would want, or were promised …remember those Sunday school teachers and preachers who say our lives will be displayed as in a video/movie for everyone to see..?
It will simply be based on what we did or failed to do to the least of our brethren, our fellow human beings, hence we will be, or are already, judging ourselves. It will be according to the simple tasks that we carry out on daily basis. Feeding others, visiting others, comforting others, being there for others, welcoming others, loving others…is that too difficult to understand? Then I will make it simpler…
”I was a Mexican kid in a cage but you kept quiet, I was turned back at the Southern border sent back to be murdered by dictators and drug cartels but you never championed for me, I was murdered in numerous black men but you kept mum, I suffered ill health for lack of insurance but you said nothing to the policy makers, I was jobless and called lazy when I sought social security but you breathed out no word about the system that creates inequality, I was a homosexual jailed in Uganda and elsewhere but you said nothing because out of sight out of mind was your approch to issues, I was earning less than my colleagues because I was a woman but you were okey with that, my name was blasphemed by rabid prosperity gospel pastors and ultra conservative priests who distorted my words and misquoted me but you said nothing because you didn't want to risk being seen as judmental, I was denied justice as a person of color but you never came to my rescue”…
The sad thing is that most of us will judge ourselves to damnation because we ignore the simple things and go for huge things while scripture and saints, especially Teresa of Calcutta, keep reminding us that God never asks us to do extraordinary things but to do ordinary things in an extraordinary manner.
In the Sundays and many of the weekdays leading up to this feastday, if you have been following the readings, be it from the liturgy of the Eucharist or the Offices, you know that many of the passages are eschatological or apocalyptic in nature. The Church does this not to scare us to submission but to remind us that all things come to an end! We are coming to the end of this toughest of liturgical years in recent history at the end of this week. We will end what is called Ordinary time as well as begin Advent being reminded that Christ has died, Christ is risen and Christ will come again. This great truth is the reason why we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King on the last day of the liturgical year. It is a reminder to us that while we do not know the day or the hour of Our Lord's retrurn, the day is coming when time will be no more. But even when that day comes, the Lordship of Christ will continue to reign supreme because he is trully the firstborn of all creation and in every way the primacy is his.
As we celebrate Christ’s kingship over the universe, his Divinity and his Lordship over all that is seen and unseen, it is fitting that we ask ourselves some most important questions. If we know him to be the king of the universe, the second person of the Trinity and our Divine Lord, have we trully made him the Lord over our own lives? Do we through obeying his words treat him each and every day as though he is our King and Lord? Do we serve him as King and worship him as Lord in the way that he deserves to be worshipped and served, and as the gospel reminded us we serve him by serving others especially the less fortunate? Is he the center of our lives as he ought to be if he is truly our King?
Let us pray as Paul urges us in the second reading this morning from (Ephesians 1:15-23) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give us a Spirit of wisdom and revelation of Him, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened so that we know the Hope to which we have been called to, and the immeasurable greatness of power in us who believe , all stemming from the power of Christ’s resurrection.
My brothers and sisters, the message today is simple; and it is this… regardless of who is in Washington or who rules in the capitals of the world, there is only one true King, Jesus Christ! As we celebrate his Kingship on this last Sunday of the liturgical year, let us recall what we said or heard as the Easter candle was lit at the Easter vigil….”Jesus Christ yesterday, today, the beginning and end, the Alpha and the Omega, all times belongs to him, and all the ages. To him be glory and power through every age forever”! Christ Conquers! Christ Reigns! Christ Rules! Amen
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