November 21, 2022
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the Solemnity of Christ, King of the Universe (Year C) on November 20, 2022 at The Paulist Center in Boston, MA. The homily is based on the day’s readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-3; Psalm 122; Colossians 1:12-20; and Luke 23:35-43.
Today, we celebrate Christ as King of the Universe, but our gospel passage shows that Christ’s kingdom is not like any kingdom that has existed on earth. It is not a kingdom of patriarchal power or military might. Our other readings speak of leadership, but not necessarily in ways that we expect. 2 Samuel recounts David’s crowning as the greatest king of Israel, but let’s remember that God initially refused to give the Israelites an earthly king, because God knew that every earthly king is flawed. And while David was favored by God and usually strived to walk with God, let’s not forget that he was also a man of violence and adultery.
Where David tried to rise above his instincts to become a great leader, Jesus had to restrict and humble himself. Our second reading – quoting one of the oldest hymns of Christianity – reminds us that Christ is so much more than just the human Jesus of Nazareth: Christ is the totality of the second person of the Holy Trinity.
Our gospel today presents Jesus at the very moment when the world saw him as powerless. Yet even in that moment, Jesus promises reconciliation and paradise to a repentent thief.
On this last weekend of the Church year, let us celebrate that we, too, are recipients of God’s mercy.
Imagine being at the crucifixion. It is a scene of noise. The faithful women who have accompanied Jesus are sobbing as he bleeds and asphyxiates on the cross. People are mocking him, laughing at this person who was betrayed by a disciple, abandoned by his closest friends. It is a scene of chaos, as Jesus become the pawn in a political battle for survival between secular Romans and religious Judeans. Darkness covers the land. Yet amid the noise, amid the chaos, amid the darkness, Jesus Christ, in his last strained breaths, assures a repentant thief of paradise.
Ironically, the other thief also asks Jesus to save them, but he fails to recognize that Jesus actually has the power to do it. Before time began, all thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers were created in Christ and for Christ.
In his book, The Holy Longing, Ron Rolheiser refers to today’s gospel to explain the nature of the Church. He says: “Jesus dies between two criminals. Anyone at the time, looking at that scene, would not have made a distinction between who was guilty and who was innocent.” At the crucifixion, we see a reality of the world: holiness and evil exist in all places together. This reality permeates us as individuals. We are God’s children, yet each of us falls short of the holiness God invites us to share. This reality also permeates every group of people. The Catholic Church has so much to heal the sick, feed the hungry, educate the poor, and provide moral guidance, but it has also perpetuated prejudice, oppression, pedophilia, and slavery. Likewise, the United States is a land of opportunity, freedom, and justice, yet at every moment, it has lifted up some people by oppressing and exploiting others.
But something has changed in recent decades. We think less frequently of ourselves as belonging to a single whole that includes a mix of the good and the bad. Instead, we divide the whole into two diametrically opposed groups of “us” and “them.” The Paulist Fathers have resolved to address the toxic polarization in our nation and in our Church. As the Paulist General Assembly wrote in June:
Over the past 50-plus years, this form of social polarization has been escalating and creating a destructive trajectory, leading to the current landscape marked by: the feuding divisions among family members, friends, colleagues, parishes and communities; the growth and spread of anxiety, addiction, depression, fear, trauma, suicide, and increasing acts of violence; the perpetuation of an illusion that this crisis is intractable, coupled with a loss of hope (p. 8).
Here’s my take on things. It seems as if all issues have been simplified to a choice between two extremes. The vast majority of people fall in the moderate middle, but positions of moderation don’t go viral or receive airtime. Over the course of time, our resistance to this false dichotomy continually presented to us is worn down, and most people succumb to these artificial binary choices. We drift towards the extreme closer to our original position, becoming more distant from those who disagree with us. We stop chafing when we hear falsehoods and epithets hurled at the people with whom we disagree. The vitriol becomes normalized. Every issue becomes a battle, where we think it’s OK to break the rules, because winning is all that matters.
The Paulist General Assembly asks: “How do we respond to the civic and moral issues of our time (such as abortion, climate change, immigration, gender and sexuality, gun control, racism, and secularization) when toxic polarization impairs constructive dialogue?”
Here in Boston, we belong to the only Catholic community in the world with “Paulist” in its name. We surely have a special role to play in confronting toxic polarization. In some ways, I think we’re perfectly poised to do something bold. We’re an intentional community, filled with articulate, passionate people, willing to do hard things. In other ways, we may be among the worst positioned, as this community is not p[erceived as being composed of people in the moderate middle. On the political spectrum, we live in one of the most liberal cities in the country. We are among the most progressive Catholic communities in the world.
I doubt any of us enjoy the toxically polarized air we breathe today. And yet, I don’t think many of us – me included – really know the way forward yet. Right now, perhaps we’re called to sit at the foot of the cross [pause, gazing up at the crucifix], waiting for Christ, ruler of the universe, to commend the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Maybe the United States in late November 2022 isn’t that different from the original Good Friday in Jerusalem. Both are scenes of noise, chaos, and darkness. Christ is always being crucified between two thieves. None of us are Christ, and very few of us are the mocking thief. Most of us should identify most strongly with the repentent thief. No one can know for certain what combination of innocence and guilt we carry in our hearts, and we cannot know for certain what combination others carry in theirs.
The Paulist General Assembly concluded its essay on toxic polarization by writing: “There is actually hope and light glowing within this darkness. At the core of our Christian tradition is faith in the resurrection of Christ who conquered sin and death upon the cross. This single act of love remains the prism through which we are to view our missionary endeavors. It is also where we find our hope.”
And with that, we conclude our liturgical year. We begin again next weekend with Advent, the season of hope.
Maranatha! Come, Holy Spirit! Enkindle the fire of your love within each of us, so that we may love as Christ loves us.