Transcript
When Pilot asks Jesus if he is King of the Jews, he doesn’t deny his kingly status, yet he is quick to qualify it. “Mine is not a kingdom of this world”. Hold that thought. The feast of Christ the King invites us to do more than simply acknowledge Christ’s kingly status. It invites us to reflect upon one of life’s most important questions, whom do we serve? Many might answer, I don’t serve anyone. Yet upon reflection, we all serve someone, or some cause or perhaps many people and many causes. To serve no one is to serve only ourselves. This will always be insufficient. Because our hearts are attuned to the ‘noble cause’. Far from serving no one and nothing, most people care for their children and their families, and serve them with love and dedication; furthermore, they espouse various noble causes, such as care of the environment and the wellbeing of our community.
Yet we also serve other masters, be they the pursuit of career advancement, the acquisition of material goods, our desires for comfort and pleasure and so on. In naming Christ ‘King of the Universe’ we name his as the embodiment of the noble cause. He is the one who, bears witness to the truth, and all who are on the side of truth listen to his voice. In serving Christ the King, we are called to serve the noblest cause of all and so be drawn beyond lesser pursuits. His is not a kingdom of this world, rather it is a kingdom of hearts and minds. Wherever truth is found, and wherever it is expressed in noble action, through compassion, mercy, justice and above all self-sacrificing love, there is Christ’s kingdom. We are made for the noble cause, and there is none more noble than the Kingdom of God.