HOMILY – FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING 2006

ST. ANTHONY CHURCH & FURMAN UNIVERSITY

GREENVILLE, SC – 8 & 11AM – 8:30PM

May the Lord, Christ our King, give us His peace.

Visions in the night,  a faithful witness,  testimony to the truth.

Visions in the night.  The book of Daniel speaks about a dream where the “Son of Man” is given all, a kingdom that will never be destroyed.  In the dream we all serve Him, we want to.

Have we stopped dreaming of worthy leaders?  We have had so much distress from people in leadership, lies, pedophilia, stealing, cheating, relations in oval office closets, relations with big companies making unthinkable profits.  It is no wonder that someone would at least be skeptical, but I fear total disinterest.

We all need someone to lift us, to motivate, to hold the bar high and smile as they say “you can do it.”  Whether is it about our grades, productivity, chores, it could be suffering through a difficult time, we might find ourselves stuck in an unending series of difficult times.  We need a leader to say, “Look and see the possibilities.”  Like Daniel, we dream of a leader, a good guide to bounce our future off of.  “Can we do this?”  “Yes, we can.”  Find yourself with a vision in the night - dreaming of a good leader.  What is s/he like?

A faithful witness.  The book of Revelation describes Jesus by name.  He is the faithful witness.  To what?  To the capacity of humanity.  The devil tries to steer Him off course – you don’t have to suffer! – you can take all this as your own! – just take vengence on them all for crying out loud, they reject their own, fall asleep on you in your time of need, betray and deny you!  - finish it.

You can hear that devil trying so hard to prove the Father is not God.  

We may offer offer the devil his due, we rule our own lives, but not His Son.  His Son is the faith-full witness, faithful to His Father.  Because of this,

the devil has nothing on Him.  As we explore His suffering, as we testify that He remained faithful, we find ourselves sorry for our weakness.  I want to follow you Lord.  Help me drop my lordship and be your faithful witness.

Testimony to the truth.  If I want to follow Jesus, I testify to the truth.  It is the fastest path to crucifixion.  I’ll prove it… We divide people with our selfishness.  We want poor people to stay poor.  We want pleasure over a healthy earth.  We should drive smaller, smarter cars.  We settle before we reach the goal.  We drive faster than we should.  We have enough money and resources to end poverty and many diseases but we don’t really want to.  We like war.  We are heavier and less intelligent than many other people.  You want to kill me yet?

Is that it?  Was Jesus Christ the King crucified because He was that Saturday Night Live Character “Debbie Downer?”  Wah-wah.  No, that was part of it, but it was more about replacing power and claiming to be God.  Problem was, though highly unusual and very dangerous, He was God and did have ultimate authority.  Seekers of truth find it in unusual and dangerous places.  The truth is found least often around the comfortable, brass chandeliered, bricked sidewalked venues in town, so we seekers have to look harder.  To testify to the truth we have to find it and then live it despite how odd and dangerous it feels.

God is at times an upsetting God.  When Christ is King, crucifixions are likely. To be a faithful witness today is to be sometime perceived as a troublemaker, unpatriotic, anti-establishment and worst of all – “different.”

But the Kingdom of God, where Christ is King is different than the way things go here sometimes.  And difficult as it is, we are called to introduce that other way, to sometimes stand in the way, to begin that way ourselves, everyone priests in the Kingdom.  Can folks tell that Christ is Lord of your life?  Mine?