November 18, 2013
The following is a reflection on the Scripture readings for Sunday, Nov. 24, the Feast of Christ the King.
“In short there’s simply not … a more convenient spot … for happy-ever-aftering … than here in Camelot.”
We can still hear Richard Burton singing this song, from the musical Camelot that swept up world popularity in the 1960s. It referred, of course, to King Arthur’s days, ideal times of moderation and peace, and it came to refer to the aura that John Kennedy, whose killing now reaches its 50th anniversary, brought to his time. Of course, things were not peachy in Camelot, with Lancelot ogling the king’s wife, Guenevere; nor were things peachy in Kennedy’s day, given the cold war, near nuclear-extermination, the Bay of Pigs, and large political problems.
Still often people look at kings as ideal figures, as if they embodied the dreams of their people. King Arthur’s aura morphs to Princess Diana, and now William and Kate. Every presidential election in our country tries to find the American “king” just perfect for us. But our instinct for a king almost always leads to disappointment. In the first reading, David is accepted as king by his tribesmen. No mention made of the civil war that led to the toppling of the first Jewish king, Saul; and no mention made of how often Jewish kings disappointed both the Jewish people and God. How often do leaders embody not our dreams but our nightmares, the darkness inside us? Just ask the people of Toronto.
As we celebrate Jesus as king, we note the differences that God’s image of kingship holds from that which people often hold. Jesus is mocked as king, on the cross, dying the most disgraceful death ancient times devised. His power does not lie in calling down thunder and lightning, nor on exterminating his torturers, nor in jumping down from the cross as his mockers wanted. Rather, it lies in receiving the faith of a dying criminal, and bringing about in this man’s life what he never dreamed. He dies completely transformed, not as a failed criminal, but as a man destined for Paradise.
The king we celebrate transforms things not by brutal force or military might; he changes things by revealing, in the most powerful way, God’s infinite love, and the way that love can move hearts, minds and souls to spaces yet unseen. What did this crucified criminal have but a life he completely wasted? Lived in crime, soaked in sin, and ending with shame. But Jesus, leaving aside his own pain and brokenness, touched him to assure this dying man, and all of us, of God’s power in our lives if we leave open the tiniest window to God’s light.
When Paul presents Jesus, it is not the broken prophet murdered as a criminal, but rather Jesus is the pivot on which all existence hinges. “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of his own beloved Son.” Can you feel the energy in Paul’s words? A dividing line has been crossed. Powers of darkness distort and defile every human hope; the Kingdom of Jesus fulfills those hopes. Paul sees everything coming together in Jesus, creation, history, heaven, earth – it all comes together in Jesus, and, from Jesus, in us as his Church. To be Catholics is to be kingdom people, swept into the power of Christ. Our king is not made in our image, but we are re-made into his.
But must we not be clear about that power? Not a power to strut, to feel self-satisfied, to think that we can coast along—but a power to break through those logjams that keep people from hope, from peace, from life and from the fullness of love. That’s the power our king shows, and that’s the power our king gives to us to accomplish for others. It only took a moment for the thief to look at Jesus, just the tiniest recognition, and divine life took over. Can we not, in this Mass, give our king a glance, a glimpse, a moment of the deepest part of our souls? What might our king then fill us with? What grace and freedom might we find?
It’s not happy-ever-aftering as it seemed in Camelot; it’s happy here-and-now, because we are touched by God, with the power to be God’s servants, bringing hope and joy to our world.