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Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church

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The Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King (Proper 29B)
November 24, 2024


Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in thy well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Daniel 7:9-14
Revelation 1:1-8
Mark 13:14-23

I hesitate to take us back almost four years to the events that took place in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021, but I think that it is helpful and instructive here, today as we mark the feast of Christ the King. It is safe to say that all of us watched with horror as people ransacked the Capitol building in an attempt to disrupt the Congress as they confirmed the results of the presidential election. From the moment these events unfolded, everyone began describing it in as a “desecration,” sacrilege. It seemed only natural for people to use the language of religion to describe what we saw. I’m pretty sure that while Joe and Mika probably never uttered the exact words, “desolating sacrilege,” they came fairly close. Mingling patriotism with the language of religion is as American as apple pie, and yet it is, in fact, dangerous stuff.

Last week we heard Jesus’ warning:

... when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; let him who is on the housetop not go down, nor enter his house, to take anything away; and let him who is in the field not turn back to take his mantle.

Mark is referring to an event that he and his community had already experienced: the destruction and looting of the temple, and the sacrifice that the Roman soldiers made to Titus Imperator upon its burnt ruins.(1) The altar of the Emperor cult of Roman Civic religion was put in the place of that of the God of Israel, and that very God replaced by a temporal ruled. To the Jewish or Christian mind, this is shocking and painful, perhaps even a sign of God’s disfavour.

It is easy to see, then, how the sack and looting of the seat of American democracy, might be described in similar terms. However, Nancy Pelosi’s desk is not the altar of the Second Temple and the Rotunda is not the court of the Temple dedicated to the God whom Daniel described as the “ancient of days, [who] took his seat; [whose] raiment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; throne was fiery flames, its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came forth from before him.” Too often we confuse the symbols of secular authority with those we should reserve for God. Too often in an effort to honour something we value, we do what those Roman soldiers did, and we treat our politics and our religion as one in the same. So kings, presidents, and prime ministers are treated like God, and too often those leaders are all too ready to take this treatment to heart.

This is why I decided in the last, say, eight years that the feast of Christ the King is important, and not merely a papal response to the Lateran Treaty of 1929 and the end of papal secular power. In fact, the original feast was also a message to Mussolini and remains a Christian retort to both authoritarianism and any attempt by secular rulers to appropriate the symbols and worship of God.

God – our God, the God of Israel, the God who sent his son into the world so that we might have eternal life – is so much more than any king or president. Daniel gives us some images from his “night visions”:

with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

The Kingdom of God is our true home, and it encompasses all peoples and nations and languages, and the king is one who exercises that “everlasting dominion” of love. It is indestructible and death has no power there. It is all in all, as John tells us when he writes: “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

At the same time, our King is also the one who rides into Jerusalem on the colt “on which no one has ever sat.” He is the one who arrived in mock procession, and for whom the people laid

garments on the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed cried out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest!”

The son of David the warrior king, the very Son of God, arrives not in the midst of an army, but with his friends, recognised by the strangers in the crowd. He is the one who entered the city having three-times predicted that he would be “delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise.” He is like no earthly king or prince or president. And we can never forget this. His authority is so much more vast and yet his humility is incomprehensible.

And let me be clear. This does not somehow mean that what happens here and now does not really matter and that we can rest assured that suffering now will be rewarded later. It does not mean that we Christians can keep our heads down, do nothing while our earthly rulers falter and lead others astray. Jesus warns us against false prophets and false messiahs – and indeed so did Josephus, who tells us that they were common in those days.2 We must be alert and engaged in this world, crying out and identifying these false idols. We are called to stand with the true king who calls us to lives of neighbour love, of justice, and of peace and call to account those who would put those presidents and kings in God’s place. God is not on the side of any polician. We, however, stand at God’s side as God’s very body in the world.

And I know that it is not easy. I know that many of us are discouraged and that it looks like the idols are winning, but that is not the whole story. We all have a community of our brothers and sisters in Christ who stand with us and we are never alone. In days that might look to us like those when the temple was set ablaze by the Roman legionaires, we must remember that life springs from death and that we are loved and supported in all the work we do together.


Andrew Charles Blume ✠
New York City
Clement, Bishop of Rome, 23 November 2024


1. Josephus, Jewish War,VI.6.1: “And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city, and upon the burning of the holy house itself, and of all the buildings round about it, brought their ensigns to the temple, and set them over-against its eastern gate. And there did they offer sacrifices to them: and there did they make Titus Imperator with the greatest acclamations of joy.”



© 2024 Andrew Charles Blume