November 26, 2023, The Day of the True King, Matthew 25:31-46 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ November 26, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

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This very last Sunday in the Church year is the day we call “Christ the King Sunday.” We recognize and celebrate today what Paul wrote to the Ephesians, that Jesus, risen and glorified, is seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, that he is above every name that is named, past, present and future, and that God has put everything in all of creation under his feet. But when we say that, I don’t think most of us feel like we have a very clear idea of what a king is supposed to look like. What is an ideal king, a perfect king?

We read in Ezekiel today, that God chose David to set up as his own king, and that was not only because he would be the great-great-great-many times grandfather of Jesus. God told Samuel that he chose David because he saw into David’s heart, into the inner man, and that he saw in David “a man after his own heart.”

But I doubt that any one of us would have picked David the shepherd boy out of a lineup of candidates for the throne of Israel. The young David wasn’t anybody’s idea of the perfect king. When God sent Samuel to a dinner party, where he was to anoint the man he had chosen as king, David didn’t even get invited to the dinner. He was just the kid brother, who was left home, because somebody had to take care of the sheep. No one would ever have thought that Jesse’s smallest son would be God’s chosen ruler, the one on whose lineage God gave his eternal and irrevocable blessing.

No one could have predicted that David would be God’s anointed, but he fits into a pattern that is found all through folklore and literature, running through it like a kind of golden thread: this idea of someone who is royalty, a king, or a prince, but who is unrecognized or in disguise. We find it in the real-world stories of the Bible, where the true king of Israel looks like a youngest child left home to do the chores – where the true king of the whole earth looks like a little baby born out of wedlock into a poor family from a backwater village.

In storybooks or in fairy-tales, kings or princes are often to be found hidden by magic spells so no one can recognize them, like the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, or the Frog Prince. Other times they disguise themselves so they can live like common people, like Prince Edward in Mark Twain’s story The Prince and the Pauper. Sometimes they fall on hard times through their own foolishness, like Edmund in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

But in all these stories, in the end, there is an unveiling. Those unrecognized princes or kings suffer hardship and injustice; they experience hunger and poverty and pain; and because of their experiences they come to understand that things like mercy and compassion and kindness are way more important than power and wealth and domination. They are transformed, and then they are revealed as true Kings.

I truly believe that these stories are dear to our hearts, stories we remember and tell to our children and grandchildren, because we know that they contain essential truth, even if, again and again in the “real world” we choose, or we tolerate – sometimes we even admire – leaders who are ruthless and proud, who are arrogant and strong, who demand wealth and comfort for themselves, who exercise authority without compassion and justice without mercy. But in our hearts, we know better. In our hearts, we desire something more. We might never have seen a true King in our whole lives in this broken world, but we know what a true King looks like.

In the play “The Merchant of Venice,” there is a wonderful speech by a character named Portia, all about mercy. Mercy, she says, is “an attribute to God himself.” Mercy is more becoming to a king, more suitable and fitting, than even his crown.

The quality of mercy is not strain’d.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore…
Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

In the gospel reading today Jesus paints a vivid picture for us. The True King is seated on the throne of his glory, and all the peoples of the earth, past, present and future, people from every nation and people and language, all are arrayed before him, awaiting his judgment. He separates the good from the bad, the good to his right and the bad to his left. And this is the judgment: “I was hungry, and I was thirsty; I was a stranger; I was naked; I was sick; I was in prison. And truly, I tell you, whatever you did to one of the least of these, who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

As Jesus paints this scene at the very end of this world, the judgment of all flesh hinges on this most royal quality of mercy. And there’s a lot of chaos and consternation about that. Those who are commended are bewildered. “Lord, when did I ever care for you when you were hungry or thirsty or lonely or sick? When did I ever bring you clothing or visit you in prison?” And those who are condemned – well, they are even more bewildered. “Lord, when did I ever pass you by in your need?” In that moment, every eye is on the True King, majestic and awesome in his power and majesty and glory – but the eye of the King is on the despised and the oppressed in their loneliness, on the hungry and the thirsty in their suffering, on the sick and the prisoner in their despair.

And every last one of us, when we read this – we find ourselves both condemned and acquitted, don’t we? Have you ever showed mercy to someone in great need: one of the least of these? We can all answer yes. Have you ever failed to show mercy to someone in great need? Also yes.

Consider this, Shakespeare wrote,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

Today we give glory to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the King over all kings on this earth, who is the Lord over every principality and power known to the children of man, and who is the God of all mercy. And as sons and daughters of the King, he calls us to be a merciful people, to turn our eyes and our hearts to the ones he loves, those he has named his own family, those who are the last and the least in this world, but the first and most beloved in his kingdom.

No one would have predicted that Jesus of Nazareth was the True King. He was just the carpenter’s son, who lived his early years as a refugee, who was homeless most of his adult life, who was despised and falsely accused by the leaders of both church and state, who was tortured and wrongly executed. But in the end, he was revealed to be the most High God and the True King over all Creation, when he rose again, victorious over sin and death and the grave.

In a world with a lot of competing claims for rule and power and authority and dominion, we declare today – and we know in our hearts – that Jesus, God of both justice and mercy, God of both glory and grace, is the one and only True King. +