Solemnity of Christ the King, November 26, 2023

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It is not enough to stay out of sin and to pray; we must also DO

Matthew 25:31–46

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’

Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’

Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Music Meditations

Opening Prayer

Lord, what we are asked to do seems so simple—give food and drink to You in those who are hungry and thirsty; to clothe You in those who have little or nothing; to visit You in those who are sick or in jail. Why, Lord, is it that we do not see your face in those around us who have less that we do? In a culture of “never enough” we hoard our goods to ourselves and our own, shutting out your very presence in our lives. Help us to me more attentive and less lazy, less selfish.

Companions for the Journey

From a homily delivered at Memorial Church:

If you know anything at all about Jesus’ life, you know that he was, in reality, in an historical sense, king of nothing. The Kingdom Jesus speaks of in the Gospels of is Jesus’ vision—his dream of, and a metaphor for, what the world ought to be like. Before we look at the gospel, let’s extend the metaphor and look and some “kingdoms” right under our very noses.

First, there is the kingdom of Silicon Valley—the land of the dot-com bazillionaires. A world:

  • Where there are houses purchased for many millions of dollars and then torn down to make room for houses worth many more millions of dollars
  • Where bedrooms for the new baby can cost $50,000 to decorate.
  • Where a child is considered educationally disadvantaged for not having a computer at home.
  • Where preschool can cost $27,000 a year for a half day, and private high school upwards of $43,000 a year.
  • Where we are offended by shopping carts piled high with a person’s belongings.
  • Where we are annoyed or outraged by beggars holding up signs as we leave Draegers.

Then there is the kingdom of all of Santa Clara Valley. A world:

  • Where, recently, Second Harvest food bank distributed food to 500,000 people monthly, 73% of whom were also on food assistance.
  • Where schools have been a primary source of breakfast and lunch meals for the 1 in 3 children who experience food insecurity.
  • Where the homeless population has reached close to 10,000 people, only 18% of which are sheltered. Of the others, 34% are on the streets or in encampments, 18% are living in their vehicles, 13% are living in structures not meant for human habitation.
  • Where there live many “invisible poor” whom we never see, many of whom have been rendered jobless, homeless and hungry by Covid-19 and its economic effects.

And now we come to Jesus’ vision, the Kingdom of God. A world:

  • Where no five-year old goes to kindergarten weak with hunger,
  • Where no homeless person shivers in the cold lying on a pallet under a bush in downtown Palo Alto.
  • Where no baby is born facing family disruption, addiction, or death at an early age.
  • Where no 80-year old has to choose between medicine and heat.

And we do try. There are a lot of agencies and individuals who are making a difference. This is the time of the year when we work to find ways to share our good fortune, and there are many. While busy with all these activities, while donating to worthy causes, how many of us carry negative opinions about the poor—that poor people do not work hard enough or somehow are fully responsible for their situations? In today’s gospel, Jesus is telling us to put a name and a face to all those statistics, and in the words of Mother Teresa, to love humanity one person at a time.

We need to get inside the skin of those who are hungry, or poor, and see, if we can, the eyes of Christ in their eyes.

We have to become large enough to accommodate all the small lives that otherwise would be forgotten. We have to raise ourselves to the power of ten. Love more, require less
—paraphrased from “At Big Rec” by Thomas Centolella, from Lights and Mysteries

We need to give our time and our talent and our treasure—not out of obligation, grudgingly, but out of love, openly and generously.

Ideally we recognize the poor as Christ—in reality, I’d like to hope that we at least recognize them as fellow travelers—sisters and brothers who have lives, needs, hopes, pain, just like the rest of us. I’d like to leave you with a poem that, for me, captures the message of today's gospel better than my own poor words ever could. It goes like this:

My name is not “Those People.”
I am a loving woman,
a mother in pain, giving birth to the future,
where my babies have the same chance to thrive as anyone.

My name is not “Inadequate.”
I did not make my husband leave—he chose to,
and chooses not to pay child support.
Truth is though, there isn’t a job base for all
fathers to support their families.
While society turns its head, my children pay the price.

My name is not “Lazy, Dependent Welfare Mother.”
If the unwaged work of parenting, homemaking and community building
was factored into the Gross National Product, my work would have untold value.
And I wonder why my middle-class sisters
whose husbands support them to raise their children
are glorified—and they don’t get called lazy and dependent.

My name is not “Ignorant, Dumb or Uneducated.”
I live with an income of $621 with $169 in food stamps.
Rent is $585. that leaves $36 a month to live on.
I am such a genius at surviving that I could balance the state budget in an hour.

My name is not “Lay Down and Die Quietly.”
My love is powerful and my urge to keep my children alive will never stop.
All children need homes and people who love them.
They need safety and the chance to be the people they were born to be.

The wind will stop before I let my children become a statistic.
Before you give in to the urge to blame me,
the blame that lets us go blind and unknowing into
the isolation that disconnects us,
take another look.
Don’t go away.
For I am not the problem, but the solution.
And my name is not “Those People.”

—Julia Dinsmore

My friends, take another look.

You just might be looking into the face of Christ.

Further reflection:

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

  • Do I have any idea when my time of waiting will be up and Jesus will ask me to account for my time on earth?
    What will I say?
  • Have you ever had a time in your life when you experienced being left out of life’s mainstream activities, left behind or left out emotionally or financially?
    How did you feel?
  • What do I hope I will be judged on at the end of my life?
    What does Matthew say will be the criterion for final judgement of each individual?
  • Someone said that at the last judgement, each one will go to the group he or she has chosen in this life. Do you agree?
    What group would you be in?
  • By James Forbes as quoted by Ronald Rolheiser, OFM:
    “Nobody gets into heaven without a letter of recommendation from the poor.”
    How does this agree or disagree with this week’s readings?
    Where does that leave me?
  • By Jude Siciliano, O.P.:
    How much do thoughts of the final judgement figure into my day-to-day thoughts and actions?
    On the basis of my life here and now, how might I fare at the Last Judgment?
    Do I sometimes find it hard to see Jesus in the distressful disguise of the poor?
    Do I wait for someone to ask me for help or am I sensitive to their needs even before they ask?
  • If at the end of life, you were not asked how you avoided sin, but instead were asked how you loved others, how you have cared for the others, especially the poor, the needy, the lonely and marginalized, how will you answer?
    Where does neglect fit in?
  • Sometimes, in reading this passage, or the beatitudes, we tend to romanticize the poor, and to see Jesus as existing only in the poor and marginalized.
    Can a poor person be as difficult to love as a non-poor person?
    Is this passage about putting down the affluent, or something else?
  • Paul, on the way to Damascus, was informed that by persecuting the Christians, he was persecuting Jesus. Do I see the face of Jesus in the faces of those the world ignores?
    Where are the hungry, the naked, the homeless who would call on me if they could reach me?
    Have I organized my life so that I am isolated from such people?
  • A preacher recently preached a sermon that said: “When you want to heal the sick, then you had better be where the sick are.”
    How does that apply to my life and those in need?
  • Do I sometimes find it hard to see Jesus’ face in the poor and needy?
    Do I think of the global poor as part of my mission?
  • Are Christians defined mostly by their belief systems and their liturgies, their devotion to right living, their private spiritual practices, or are they also defined by action on behalf of the poor?
    What does this say about how often we should be engaged in these activities?
    What if we fail?
    What kind of Christian are you, the praying kind, the acting kind, or both?
  • “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist.”
    —Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife, Brazil, and one of the great prophets of Christian “Liberation theology”)
    What is the difference between personal charity and social justice?
    Where does your political party stand on the issues of poverty, equality of access to education, housing and jobs, immigration, the stranger in our midst, those in prison, the death penalty, etc.?
    How actively have you been involved in the larger issues of social justice?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

I read Psalm 72, then I reflect on the way power is revered in our society, and, in the main, how that power is used. What are the dangers of power? This psalm is frequently used as a description of the way an ideal ruler must use power. I think of our history and all of the ways in which power has been abused. Has this been the story in our own church? In what way am I myself tempted by my desire for power and control? What steps can I take to combat this natural tendency?

Why do we call Jesus “Christ the King”? What kind of power did Jesus possess? If he was the “King of Nobodies”, how does he become a role model for me? Do some of my priorities have to change? Where do I start? I pray to Christ for the courage to follow the path of Jesus.

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:

In John’s Gospel, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper. In a culture that went barefoot and didn’t have spas and pedicures, this was a fairly unsavory task. In my mind’s eye, I see Jesus, the King, washing my feet, aware of all my flaws and imperfections. I look at his face and see the love and tenderness there. In my heart, I speak my response to this incredible gesture. In addition, I see this story as a clear message that those who are to lead are to be the servants of those who follow. I speak to Jesus about the difficulties such a message imposes.

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

Submitted by Anne and Bill Werdel, from the parish bulletin of Sacred Heart Cathedral, Raleigh, N. C., 2008:

The Gospel is not only about our own individual goodness or charity. It is about our responsibility to help change social structures and national policies to make them more compassionate. We must ask the Gospel questions and struggle to change the answers.

Does our nation feed the hungry? Or do we cut support programs in order to fund an ever increasing military budget?

Does our nation welcome strangers? Or are our immigration limits and laws making it more and more difficult for those seeking a better life to find one here in our country?

Does our nation clothe the naked? Or do we support the sweatshops, which make the lives of the poor a misery while making cheap clothing more available for those who already have an abundance?

Does our nation care for the sick? Or are health care plans and medical care available only to those who can afford it?

Does our nation visit Christ in prison? Or as the nation with the highest percentage of its population behind bars do we ask why these brothers and sisters of Jesus come mostly from minority groups and situations of extreme poverty?

What can I do?

  1. Read the Gospel from the perspective of the poor.
  2. Be informed.
  3. Pray that “God’s kingdom come” for all God’s children.
  4. Get involved in advocating for “The Kingdom of God”.
Poetic Reflection:

This poem, written by Thomas à Kempis in the fifteenth century, shows us the difference between our notions of power and the power God favors:

Oh, love, how deep, how broad, how high,
Beyond all thought and fantasy,
That God, the Son of God, should take
Our mortal form for mortal's sake!

He sent no angel to our race,
Of higher or of lower place,
But wore the robe of human frame,
And to this world himself he came.

For us baptized, for us he bore
His holy fast and hungered sore;
For us temptation sharp he knew;
For us the tempter overthrew.

For us he prayed; for us he taught,
For us his daily works he wrought,
By words and signs and actions thus
Still seeking not himself, but us.

For us by wickedness betrayed,
For us, in crown of thorns arrayed,
He bore the shameful cross and death;
For us he gave his dying breath.

For us he rose from death again;
For us he went on high to reign;
For us he sent his Spirit here
To guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

All glory to our Lord and God
For love so deep, so high, so broad;
The Trinity whom we adore
Forever and forevermore.

Closing Prayer

Let us pray to our Lord Jesus Christ for all those who need our compassion and care, for all those who commit themselves to the poorest and for those who are afraid to be involved. Let us say:
Lord, make us serve you in people.

For all who have lost their way in life we cry out to you to make the Church welcome them and give them you and your Good News to live for, we pray:
Lord, make us serve you in people.

With all people driven from their homes, with the many victims of war and civil strife, with all strangers living in foreign lands, we cry out that people may be hospitable to them, and so we pray:
Lord, make us serve you in people.

With all those who hunger for food, who thirst for justice, who crave for human dignity, we cry out that we may hear your voice in them, and so we pray:
Lord, make us serve you in people.

With all those who care for the sick and the handicapped, with doctors, nurses, pharmacists, midwives, we cry out that we may recognize you in those who need affectionate, loving care, and so we pray:
Lord, make us serve you in people.

With all those who are imprisoned because of their convictions, with all those who are persecuted; who are prisoners of their hatred, their greed or their failings, we ask you to free them, and so we pray:
Lord, make us serve you in people.

The voices that cry out to us, the eyes that plead with us, may we recognize you in them, Lord, and love you in them. Be near to all of us, now and forever.
Amen.

—adapted from Liturgies Alive, Models of Celebration