[RCL] Jeremiah 23:1-6; Canticle 16; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-4 Today, as we celebrate Christ the King, we witness strong-man authoritarians who aspire to be kings espousing nationalist, white-supremacist, anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-democratic policies rise up across the world and right here in the United States. In 1925, as the world was being gripped by similar…

Downton Abbey, the much-beloved PBS television series, recently came out with a feature-length movie. The entire plot was based on the Abbey preparing for and having a 24-hour visit from the King and Queen of England. For those of you unfamiliar with the series, Downton Abbey is a large country manor that houses “upstairs” nobility,…

When you think of a king what image immediately comes to mind? A man wearing a crown and regal clothing? Perhaps someone who is powerful living in a royal palace? In the time of Jesus, the ruling monarch of Rome had absolute power on earth and was worshipped as a son of the gods. Any…

The King. Christ: the King. The feast of: Christ the King. This is what we mark and celebrate today, but what does it mean? Back around the time our current Prayer Book was approved, it wasn’t uncommon to hear clergy say, even lament, that confirmation was a sacrament needing a theology. Our understanding of baptism…

Sometimes, people want to know why, in the Gloria, we use the phrase “sin of the world,” singular, rather than “sins of the world,” plural. Good question. But first let’s start with today’s gospel reading. Jesus is mocked. He is on the cross, suffering the additional abuse of soldiers and criminals. “Some King you are!…

“It’s good to be king!” says Louis the Fourteenth in Mel Brooks’ film “History of the World, Part One,” but the Feast of Christ the King makes many of us uneasy. We have little experience of kings and queens, and much of our experience has not been very positive. Of course, the United States was…

His name is righteousness. Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord! There are few places in the Eucharist more moving than these words from the Sanctus that we sing Sunday after Sunday. As we intone them we echo Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who, centuries before them, echoed the Psalmist and…

It isn’t usually such a great idea to begin a sermon with a question, but today’s celebration of the feast of Christ the King really begs us to do just that. The question is, what picture in our mind does the word “king” evoke? How do we really picture Christ as King? It is a…

The story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is troubling in two ways. First, its closeness to Jesus’ crucifixion is disturbing. One day, Jesus is being proclaimed King. Five days later, the crowd is yelling, “Crucify him!” In this country, we are used to rapid changes in public opinion. But this is troubling in the…