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…

This Sunday is known as the Feast of Christ the King, and certainly all of the lessons have images of kingship and rule, though not necessarily in expected forms. This Sunday stands at the end of the long season after Pentecost as a summing up of what we’ve learned about Jesus Christ, and as an…