Remember Me when You Come into Your Kingdom
Dear Friends,
This Sunday we will celebrate the Christ the King Sunday. This Feast day is a relative newcomer to our liturgical calendar, established in 1920 by Pope Pius X out of a concern for the growing secularism and the rise of fascism in Europe. Pope Pius XI's encyclical instituting the feast states, "When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony."
As I ponder Pope Pius’ words one hundred years later, we stand on the tail end of an election that challenges our notions of liberty and reflects the ongoing polarization of our country. More than ever, we need some kind of harmony to address issues of global unrest, climate change, gun violence, and social inequality that divide our country. More than ever, I wonder, where are blessings of Christ’s Kingship to be found?
In our Gospel reading for this Sunday, we are given the paradoxical image of Christ as King, not on a throne, but on a cross, in the last hours of his earthly life. Jesus, the captive who is humiliated, scoffed by leaders, gawked at by the crowd, remains the antithesis of dictators, bullies and power brokers. His reign of “real “real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony” comes by way of forgiveness, compassion and self-offering love. “Forgive them,” Jesus says of the crowds who reject his love, “For they know not what they do.”
Having heard these words, one of the two criminals who hangs alongside Jesus defends him to the other, saying “this man has done nothing wrong.” He then leans over to Jesus and requests, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
As we end this church year and move once again toward the Advent of Love, don’t we long to hear such voices as these? Don’t we long to be one of the voices crying out forgiveness and solidarity, refusing to comply with injustice, turning toward compassion and truth? For this to happen, I think, we must remember. Remember who we are, and what it is we are signing up for. Remember where this path with Jesus leads--sometimes an uphill climb, often a long reach, once in a while, a reckoning, and almost always, a surrender to a love that makes us whole.
In the coming darkness, I invite us to listen again to Jesus and the ones who call him friend. “Jesus, remember me? Re-member me. Put me back together, Jesus. Put us back together. Help us to become who we are, not divided but whole. May thy kingdom come; thy will be done.”
In Christ,
Amelie+
