Christ the King, Cycle B<\/em> Theoretically this is supposed to be a climactic feast Unfortunately, however, Admittedly U.S. citizens Yet deep in our DNA is an anti-monarchical strand \u201cMost Illustrious & Excellent President,\u201d shouted one Senator Traditionally we balk at imperious leaders Rather than imperious leaders In some ways, we would like our Jesus the same way There are deeper challenges in this feast, however, For one, today\u2019s gospel interprets the feast Today\u2019s gospel provides both a revelatory Jesus\u2019 kingship is revealed in the context of a death sentence While the only thing we often remember about Pilate Notice that he does not deem this \u201cfake news\u201d And it is that perplexing combination That initially befuddles In his 1991 book \u201cThe Canadians\u201d She is \u201cA Canadian who visits the United States several dozen times a day; when she goes to the refrigerator or to the backdoor or to make tea for instance. \u00a0To read and sleep, she stays in Canada. \u00a0And she eats there too, as she sits at the north end of her kitchen table. \u00a0Mrs. Bechard\u2019s home is in Quebec and Maine at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n Located in the eastern\u2019 part of Canada it sits on the United States\u2010Canadian border. The 3,986.8mile frontier, drawn in 1842, cuts through the kitchen wall and across the sink, splits the salt and pepper shakers, just misses the stove and passes through the other wall to sever the Nadeau family’s clothesline and cut off the candy counter in Alfred Sirois’s general store.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the late 1970\u2019s when Malcolm first published this tale Almost anywhere else in the world Mrs. Bechard might need a passport to take a bath. The Canadian\u2010American border is different, for it seems to unite rather than divide. [2]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Unfortunately over the past few On the other hand, Mrs. Bechard\u2019s home Vatican II\u2019s Constitution on the Church in the Modern world It is not enough, they say, to wait for the next life This magisterial teaching further suggests But here\u2019s the seasonal dilemma How do we speak truth, especially to power A few years ago, Dan Schmidt hatched an intriguing idea for a book One of them, by C. Christopher Smith I praise God often for the passion for truth and justice that you have\u2026. I am concerned, however, that in your zeal for these true and excellent ends, you have become inattentive to the ways in which you pursue these ends\u2026 .<\/p>\n I know that you are not a violent person, and indeed that \u2026 violence grieve[s] you immensely, but I worry that your formation by the powers of the Western world has blinded you to the violence that is borne of impatience. Western culture in the fast-food era and the age of internet technology is a culture of impatience\u2026<\/p>\n There are all sorts of violence that are rooted in our impatience: violence to our own beings as we push ourselves to go faster and faster, violence to other humans as we lash out when they are not doing as we wish, violence toward the creation as a whole as our impatient need for speed demands a massive consumption of \u2026 energy.<\/p>\n The sort of violence of impatience, however, that I perceive in you stems from a desire to see others of different perspectives transformed immediately, rather than engaging them personally and entering into the circumstances and sufferings that have forged their perspective. This impatience gradually escalates the tone of our rhetoric; it heightens our rage and moves us further from reconciliation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Insulting rhetoric and so we are a society As we prepare to make the advent turn Over 40 years ago, poet and prophet Frederick Buechner It\u2019s subtitle is The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale<\/em> To preach the Gospel is not just to tell the truth So it is crucial to keep them in mind What is going on inside them [the believer] must always try to feel what it is like Music: Each Winter as the year Grows Older<\/p>\n And if we dare inhabit the skin of another That though the year grows older Yet still God\u2019s holy reign forever and ever.<\/p>\n Each Winter as the year Grows Older, vss. 1-3-5<\/p>\n Endnotes [2]\u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1979\/05\/17\/archives\/along-canadas-border-almost-a-third-country-something-amicable.html<\/p>\n [3]\u00a0Lexington CY: CreateSpace Independent Publishers, 2012.<\/p>\n [4]\u00a0San Francisco, 1977, p. 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How do we speak truth, especially to power while maintaining the Jesus demeanor and not resorting to rhetorical, or political or even physical violence?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":44115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[3119,3294,1321],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-plaza-new-ws","category-ars-praedicandi","category-homilies"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nOld St. Patrick\u2019s, November 25th, 2018, 11:15<\/em>
\nEdward Foley, Capuchin<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthe glorious end of the liturgical year
\na festive transition from Ordinary time to Advent time
\na solemnity of theological import
\nand deep devotion<\/p>\n
\nthere are significant cultural problems with this feast
\nand its reception<\/p>\n
\nare some of the most avid royal watchers in the world
\nWe get up at most ungodly of hours to watch the weddings
\nof British princes
\nWe gobble up palace gossip and scandals
\nand obsess over the newest fashion or hairstyle
\nsported by the Duchess of Sussex<\/p>\n
\nAs a nation we were born
\nby severing the political umbilical cord from King George
\nThe anti-royal instinct emerged after George Washington
\nwas elected president
\nThere were no models for addressing elected president
\nJohn Adams suggested calling him \u201cYour Highness\u201d
\nScoffing at the suggestion as too aristocratic
\nsome suggested His Elective Highness<\/em> as more appropriate<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHis Majesty the President!\u201d another called out.
\nFed up with the arguing, a third senator barked,
\n\u201cWhy not call him George IV?\u201d
\nAfter days of debate, one congressman reminded colleagues
\nthat the recently drafted Constitution prohibited titles
\nresulting in the Republican simplicity of \u201cMr. President\u201d [1]<\/p>\n
\nthe most famous national example being Richard Nixon
\nwhose time in office
\nhistorian Arthur Schlesinger deemed
\nan imperial presidency \u2026
\nand one that came to a crashing halt with Watergate.<\/p>\n
\nwe like our politicians pressing the flesh
\nkissing babies
\nrolling up their sleeves like ordinary working folk
\neven if they are multi-millionaires
\nand only do it when the cameras are rolling
\nduring election season<\/p>\n
\nand so maybe at a bit of a cultural disadvantage
\nattempting to celebrate divine monarchy
\nas something more than a liturgical fashion statement<\/p>\n
\nbeyond its title and royal texts<\/p>\n
\nthrough the lens of the Christian Black Friday \u2026
\nor what we traditionally call \u201cGood Friday\u201d
\nfor today\u2019s exchange between Jesus and Pilate
\noccurs just a few hours before the Christ is executed<\/p>\n
\nand highly problematic lens for interpreting this feast<\/p>\n
\nand interpreted through a dialogue
\nwith the arch-villain Pilate
\nwho may actually be a more enlightened official
\nthan we often give him credit for<\/p>\n
\nis his handwashing
\nand protecting is own political hide
\nhe reveals himself as a very astute politician first
\nrecognizing Jesus\u2019 kingship<\/p>\n
\nbut insists \u201cso you are a king\u201d
\nand Jesus affirms his kingship
\nbut a kingship not of this world
\nbut one that speaks truth to this world<\/p>\n
\nof speaking truth without seeking power
\nof announcing God\u2019s reign without wanting to reign<\/p>\n
\nand ultimately scuttles Pilates astute instincts
\nas he retreats into self-preservation
\nand opts for hand washing over heart opening<\/p>\n
\nAndrew Malcolm writes about
\nthe fascinating domicile of Cecille Bechard.<\/p>\n
\nin the New York Times
\nhe concluded:<\/p>\n
\nthat assessment no longer holds
\nand it is not clear whether there has been a recent attempt
\nto install a wall down the center of Mrs. Bechard\u2019s home
\nor deploy U.S. troops in her living room
\nto protect the Northern border of the U.S.
\nby stringing razor wire behind her couch<\/p>\n
\nand that of her neighbors
\nprovides an interesting analogy for understanding Jesus\u2019 words
\nabout the relationship between this world and the next<\/p>\n
\nexhorted the baptized to be citizens of two cities [no. 43]
\nto discharge our earthly duties conscientiously
\nand in response to the Gospel spirit \u2026<\/p>\n
\nand so shirk our earthly responsibilities<\/p>\n
\nthat the split between the faith which many profess
\nand their daily lives – deserves to be counted
\namong the most serious errors of our age<\/p>\n
\nhow do we speak truth in this world
\nwithout resorting to the strong arm tactics
\nfor twisting truth
\nthat we have become so adept at?<\/p>\n
\nwhile maintaining the Jesus demeanor
\nand not resorting to rhetorical, or political
\nor even physical violence?<\/p>\n
\nThe publication Letters to Me: Conversations with a Younger Self<\/em> [3]
\nare a collection of missives that more mature people
\nhave addressed to younger versions of themselves<\/p>\n
\nIs entitled \u201cThe violence of Impatience\u201d
\nIn part it reads:<\/p>\n
\na discourse of diminishment
\nan oratory of dismissal
\nand a speech of degradation
\ntoo often leads to a societal grammar of violence
\nverbal assaults
\nthat contribute to an environment
\nin which the ensuing physical assault
\nseems increasingly acceptable<\/p>\n
\nwith too many wounded and walking dead
\neven as we mourn those whose lives
\nwere literally cut short
\nwhether in a Consulate in Istanbul, thousands of miles away
\nor an ER room only a few miles from this place.<\/p>\n
\nand journey into a literally and metaphorically darkening world
\nthat longs for the light of a peaceful child
\nthis reorientating feast calls us
\nto be of the world but not from the world
\nto speak truth to the world that is not born of the world
\nto offer a vision of the world that is ultimately not worldly<\/p>\n
\npenned what has now become a Christian classic<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s title: Telling the truth
\n<\/em>
\nEarly in the first chapter Buechner writes<\/p>\n
\nBut to tell the truth in love
\nAnd to tell the truth in love means to tell it
\nWith concern not only for the truth that is being told
\nBut with concern also for the people
\nIt is being told too<\/p>\n
\nThe hearers of the tragic, the comic, the fairy-tale truth \u2026<\/p>\n
\nWhat is happening behind their faces \u2026
\nAs they strain to hear the truth if it is told<\/p>\n
\nTo live inside the skin of [others \u2026]
\nTo hear the truth as they hear it. [4]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\njust as God dared to don the flesh of human kind
\nthen the spirit promises us<\/p>\n
\nand though the air grows colder
\nthat though the voice of reason
\nbe rashly charged with treason
\nthat though brash calls for war
\nthe gift of peace ignore<\/p>\n
\nwill dawn upon our pain
\nand the ragamuffin king
\nwho embraced death\u2019s horrid sting
\nthe only son of God
\nwho gently this earth trod
\nwill assuredly hold sway
\non this and every day
\nthat we would dare to bring
\nallegiance to this gentle, noble, outcast, humble king<\/p>\n
\n
\n[1]\u00a0https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/harlow-giles-unger\/how-his-highness-presidents-day_b_4784011.html<\/p>\n