The Feast of Christ the King
Sean C. Kim
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
26 November 2023  

​Today, we commemorate the Feast of Christ the King. This is a relatively new feast on the Church Calendar, instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925. The historical context in which the pope introduced the feast was the militant nationalism that had been infecting Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and had been one of the major causes of World War I. Pius XI wanted to remind the faithful that as Christians, our highest allegiance – above any nation or government or leader – is to our Lord Jesus Christ, the King above all kings and the King of all Creation. The feast has spread from the Roman Catholic Church to other denominations, including the Anglican Communion.

 The Feast of Christ the King falls on the last Sunday of the Church Year. This serves to remind us that at the end of time, Christ will come in all his glory and power. As we prayed in the Collect, he will establish his rule as “King of kings and Lord of lords.” We have many examples of the kingship of Christ depicted in Christian art. The iconography usually has Jesus enthroned in glorious majesty and splendor and surrounded by a host of angels and saints. Sometimes, he wears a crown and carries a scepter as symbols of his royal authority.

But there is another depiction of Christ the King, one that is ironic but, in fact, more familiar to us than the regal depictions. It is the image of Jesus hanging on the cross. Above his head is the inscription, INRI, the initials representing the Latin words, Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum, “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews.” It is the title that the Romans conferred on Jesus in mockery and contempt as they tortured and nailed him to the cross (John 19:19).

But, for us, his disciples, this title is an expression of our faith, for Jesus is indeed our King. And whether it is the crucifix that hangs above us during our worship or the crucifix on the rosary in our private devotions, it is this image of Jesus the King that we behold in our daily lives. It is the image of a king who has emptied himself of all his power and glory and given up his very life for the sake of the world. It is the image of the Almighty God who has become one of us, a vulnerable human being, to suffer and die. It is the image of our faith and salvation.

And this king who hangs on the cross, this king who has emptied himself of power and glory, calls on us to follow his example. We, too, are called to empty ourselves of power and glory. Last week, I was at an annual academic conference for religious studies. It is always a great pleasure to learn about what other scholars are working on as well as catch up with old colleagues and friends. The part of academic life, however, that I do not care for is the game of status. Scholars don’t make a lot of money, but – perhaps because of that – the competition for status can get pretty fierce. We judge ourselves based on the schools we attended, the number of publications and grants, and so on. I often wonder why we can’t just focus on our love of learning and teaching? Why do we become so full of ourselves? I’m sure this kind of game of status is nothing new to you. Whatever our professions, most of us have to deal with the competition for money, power, and status. It’s the reality of our society.

And yet our Christian faith calls us to a different perspective and standard. Christ, through word and example, calls us to empty ourselves of all self-centeredness, to turn our attention away from our desire for money, power, and status, and to focus on others in self-denying love and service. The Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed while he was on earth was based not on power and glory but mercy and compassion. In today’s Gospel from Matthew, Christ calls on the faithful to love and care for those who are the most vulnerable –the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner (Matthew 25:35-45). He tells us that “just as you did to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). When we serve those in need among us, we are serving Christ in them.

In the history of our faith, we have many examples of the saints who have heeded Christ’s call to humble themselves and serve others in sacrificial love. Last Sunday, we commemorated the Feast of Saint Margaret of Scotland, one of our patron saints. We have a chapel in the basement dedicated to her. Some of you may noticed that we recently brought up her portrait that used to hang there to Saint George Chapel. In the painting, she is holding a spoon, feeding a small child. The image is based on Margaret’s daily routine of feeding orphans and the poor before she herself ate. And she also washed the feet of the poor, following the example of Jesus. She may have been Queen of Scotland, born to extraordinary wealth, power, and privilege, but in her daily life she was first and foremost a humble disciple of Jesus.

None of us here are royalty, though some of you may have royal blood. I know we have a parishioner here who counts Saint Margaret among her ancestors. There may be others of you who’ve done genealogical work and come across some royalty in your family tree. But whether we’re descended from royalty or peasants, whether we’re from privileged or underprivileged backgrounds, whatever the circumstances into which we were born, we share one thing in common. As disciples of Jesus, we are all called to follow his example of self-emptying humility and sacrificial love. We are called to live not for ourselves but for God and for others.

So, on this Feast of Christ the King, we proclaim Jesus the Lord of Creation and Lord of our lives. We offer our bodies and souls to his service. May Christ the King reign in our hearts this and every day that we may carry on his work of love in the world.  

Saint Margaret of Scotland 
Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost 
Sunday, November 19, 2023

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

At first glance today's observance of the feast of Margaret queen of Scotland might seem a little out of place here in Saint Mary's church in downtown Kansas City in the year of our Lord 2023. After all, outside of Scotland Margaret is not particularly well known, and apart from a beautiful window in the gallery to my left there is little historical connection between St. Mary’s and St. Margaret. So, who was St. Margaret of Scotland and what does she have to say to us today? 
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Margaret was the granddaughter of the English king Edmund Ironside, but because of dynastic disputes she was born in Hungary, in the year 1047. She had one brother, Edgar, and a sister, Christina, and many people in England saw her brother Edgar as the rightful heir to the throne. In 1054 the parliament of Anglo-Saxon England decided to bring the family back from Hungary so that they could inherit the throne when King Edward the Confessor died, as Edward had no children. So, Edgar, Christina and Margaret were brought up at the English court under the supervision of Benedictine monks and nuns, who trained the young people according to the Benedictine ideal of a life of work and prayer.

Eventually King Edward the Confessor died, and soon afterwards William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066 and claimed the throne for himself, so Margaret’s brother Edgar didn’t become king after all. Edgar and his sisters were advised to go back to Hungary for their own safety, but on the way their ship was blown far off course by a fierce gale. The trio was shipwrecked at the Firth of Forth in Scotland, a place that to this day is known as St. Margaret’s Hope. It is there that King Malcolm III gave them a warm welcome to his kingdom. …His court at Dunfermline was undoubtedly rather primitive compared to the English court that the family had known, but they were glad of his welcome and the hospitality and safety he offered them.

Margaret was now about twenty years old; King Malcolm was forty, and unmarried, and he soon became attracted to young Margaret. However, she took a lot of persuading; as she was more inclined to become a nun, and Malcolm had a stormy temperament, despite his other virtues. It was only after long consideration that Margaret agreed to marry him, and their wedding took place in the year 1070, when she was twenty-three. In the end, although she was so much younger than him, she was the one who changed him; under her influence, he became a much wiser and godlier king.

Although Margaret was now in a high position in society, and very wealthy according to the standard of the day, she lived in the spirit of inward poverty: nothing she possessed really belonged to her, but everything was to be used for the purposes of God. As Queen, she lived an ordered life of prayer and work that she had learned as a child. She was only the wife of the king, but she came to have the leading voice in making changes that affected both the social and the spiritual life of Scotland. She had this influence because of the depth of her husband’s love for her. Malcolm didn’t share his wife’s contemplative temperament, but he was strongly influenced by her godly character, so he tended to follow her advice a lot – not only for his own life, but also for the life of the church and people in Scotland.

Margaret would begin each day with a prolonged time of prayer, especially praying the psalms and attending Mass. We’re told that after this, orphan children would be brought to her, and she would prepare their food herself and serve it to them (this is displayed in the painting of St. Margaret which is now hanging in the back of St. George’s Chapel.) It also became the custom that any destitute poor people would come every morning to the royal hall; when they were seated around it, then the King and Queen entered and ‘served Christ in the person of his poor’. Before they did this, they sent out of the room all other spectators except for the chaplains and a few attendants because for Malcolm and Margaret this act of charity was not about show but about service.

Throughout most of history them majority of the women remembered as saints by the Church have been martyrs or monastics far removed from the demands of the world and the pressures of family life. Margaret, however, is remembered as having a happy family life. She had eight children, six sons and two daughters. Her oldest son Edward was killed in battle, Ethelred died young, and we’re told that Edmund didn’t turn out too well. But the three youngest, Edgar, Alexander, and David, are remembered among the best kings that Scotland ever had. David I, the youngest son, had a peaceful reign of twenty-nine years in which he developed and extended the work his mother had begun. The two daughters, Matilda and Mary, were both brought up under the guidance of Margaret’s sister Christina in the Abbey of Romsey, and both went on to marry into the English royal family. All of them we’re told, were imbued by their mother with a deep faith and a desire to follow Christ first.

Margaret was not yet fifty when she died. As she lay dying, her son Edgar brought her the sad news that her husband and her oldest son had been killed in battle. Despite this grief, we’re told that her last words were of praise and thanksgiving to God, and her death was calm and tranquil.

Margaret died on November 16th, 1093. A member of the aristocracy, she came into a position of great influence as Queen of Scotland, but she didn’t think she’d been given that position in order to lord it over others. Instead, she’s remembered as a person who spent her life serving others.

It is here, in the fact that she is remembered for serving others that I think St. Margaret has something to teach us because despite being literal royalty Margaret was willing to give it all away for the pearl of great price that is a relationship with Jesus Christ. Everything she was and had was spent on building that relationship and the good works that flowed out of it.  

Margaret spent hours of her day in prayer. Like our Lord in his earthly ministry Margaret would withdraw to a deserted place to pray. Is that our habit? Do we make time to pray regularly, both in community at Church and on our own in a deserted place? For some people, the ‘deserted place’ might be a room in their house; for other people it might be a quiet office early in the morning; for others, it might be a quiet walk at some point during the day. For some it will be alone, for others it will be together with a spouse, or with the family as a whole. Regardless of how we do it…. is spending time in prayer deepening our relationship with Jesus, our pearl of great price, a priority? Margaret teaches us that if we want to be holy if we want to make a difference in the world this is where we must start. 

Because from that prayer flowed Margaret’s countless acts of service, her gifts of charity, her feeding of orphans and widows and the houseless they all came out of the love she had for God and for God’s people because that time with Jesus changed her.  Although she was the Queen of Scotland, she saw no contradiction between being the Queen and serving at tables for the poorest of the poor. She understood herself first of all as a servant of Christ; everything else followed from that.

Although I have no proof of it, I can't help but wonder if maybe that is why our predecessors in the faith here at Saint Mary's chose to honor an obscure Scottish Saint, with a beautiful stained glass window because they hoped that they and we like Margaret might be so changed by the relationship with Jesus Christ that is begun and nurtured in this place that our love would overflow in service to all those most in need around us. Are we living up to their hope? Are we giving everything to know Jesus and to serve God and his people? 

If the answer to those questions is no, then I encourage you here today to come to this altar to receive Jesus, the pearl of great price, in the sacrament of his body and blood and to recommit yourselves to nurturing your relationship with him in daily prayer so that you might be changed like Margaret  and so that like her you might change the world. 

St. Margaret, Pray for us.

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Sermon for Pentecost 24  Pr. 27
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
November 12, 2023
Amos 5:18-24      Ps. 70    1 Thessalonians 4:13-18      Matthew 25: 1-13
 
I like preaching from the lectionary, because if I didn’t I would be preaching on variations of about ten sermons all of the time.  The lectionary also makes me delve into the richness of the Bible while keeping my attention centered on specific passages.  It is like eating at a restaurant that serves you a small portion of something on the menu before going on to the next small-portion dish.
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On the other hand, the “small portions” of Scripture served by the lectionary readings/lessons for each Sunday is still often far too much to try to “inwardly digest”, as the collect for next Sunday puts it. 

The lectionary also forces me to preach on texts that I don’t want to even put in my mouth and give me indigestion just looking at them! 

And then there are the Sundays which have more than one text that are unpleasant to look at and hard to digest—Today we have Three of them!   An angry prophet tells those who can’t get out of ear shot of him that God “hate(s) (and) despises your festivals and take(s) no delight in your solemn assemblies.”   Yeah, that is supposed to fly here at St. Mary’s!
Then St. Paul, in his letter to the church at Thessalonica lays down Scriptural warrant for the Rapture—the idea, in case you aren’t familiar with it, that the literalists have that when Jesus comes back, those who are faithful will be swept up into heaven in the blink of an eye, leaving the rest of us dodging driverless cars on I-70, as they hang out with Jesus.

Then Matthew recounts a parable of Jesus’ which says we had better have oil in our metaphorical lamps when Jesus shows up or we are going to be pounding on a closed door in the dark.

I love the lectionary!

Well.        pause                                 O.K. then!

If I try to deal with all three lessons today we’ll all have indigestion!

Let’s encounter the angry prophet, Amos, you are on your own for the others.   Though I would be glad to talk to you about the others outside of the sermon.  

Amos, like all the prophets before and after him, was called by God to speak what God wanted to say to the King, government, and people of the divided nation of Israel/Judea. 

Like all the other prophets, he wasn’t a predictor of the future, except to tell people that if they didn’t stop ignoring God, or trying to be God, and failing to live by the principles set out in Torah, they were going to shoot themselves in both feet.  Doom wasn’t inevitable, but actions have consequences!

This role, naturally, did not endear people to prophets who were faithful to God.   Old Testament scholar, Harrel Beck, once said that “the prophets were twice-stoned men.  First, they were stoned on God when they delivered God’s message to the people, and then the people stoned them because of what they said!

Unlike the other prophets, Amos was not a citizen of the country he was prophesying in.  After the excesses of King Solomon, revolts against the crown erupted in Israel, splitting it into the Northern Kingdom, Israel, and the Southern Kingdom, Judea.  Enmity existed between the citizens of the two kingdoms from thenceforth, despite common roots and common faith.  Amos was a citizen of Judea, not Israel.  He was a foreigner!     

Furthermore, he was not a “professional prophet,” he was a layman, not clergy of any sort, and was not of the elite of any sort—he was a “herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees,” a common laborer. 

Israel, at the time, had not suffered the kind of political reverses that comes from being geographically located on the pathway of armies of some major players among the nations of that part of the world as Judea was.  They were not under threat of invasion, they probably had a stable, perhaps prosperous, economy.  Into this self-assured culture, Amos steps out of his pick-up in jeans and work boots and proceeds to lay into its citizens, in the name of God!  Actually, he starts by laying into every known nation of the region with how they have offended God, before he tells the people of Israel that they were living high on the hog, caring nothing for the poor and vulnerable in their midst, in fact taking advantage of them to live high on the hog!   He even calls the women Israel “cows of Bashan, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy.”   He wasn’t invited back to coffee hour!

He actually didn’t have anything kind to say to anyone!  In this morning’s lesson he confronts the “church members” in their self-assurance about Israel’s destiny.  “Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord.”   “The Day of the Lord” was understood by Amos’s audience to be a time when God would vindicate their nation, who would destroy other nations who were possible 1adversaries, and they, the chosen, would be dancing in the streets.

Amos gives an alternative view:  The day of the Lord will be “darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it.”   He gives a darkly comical account of what will really happen.  “It will be as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house (maybe to get out of the sun or rest from running from a lion?) and, resting their hand against the wall, were bitten by a snake!”   If God shows up in their midst, He won’t be happy!

Since we are to read the Bible as a living document, not a relic from the past, we are always being invited into the world of the Bible to find that that world is really the one we are living in now.  That being true, what are we to make of Amos addressing us as he addresses the citizens of ancient Israel,

  “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies . . . take away from me the noise of your songs (“The word ‘song’ -shir- is nothing less than the title of the book of Psalms!)” –    Maryann McKibben Dana Feasting on the Word, Vol. 4, p270) --I will not listen to the melody of your harps.”

I rather like our solemn festival masses, and the beauty and majesty of our music.  The sung Psalms—beautiful!! We don’t have a harp, but we do have an organ.  Our worship space is a place of sacred beauty.  What is Amos telling us?
Well let’s not turn off the lights and go home!

With a little background from the scholars who dig around in such things, we can infer that the people of the northern kingdom could have been celebrating their prosperity by confusing it with God’s providence, in essence saying, “Thank you, God, for making us exceptional.”  Or maybe they were saying something like, “Look at how we adore you, God.  Look at the lengths we go to worship you!”  OR, “Look at the size of the gifts we bring you!”  Things were going well for them, and they were resorting to flattery and bribery of God to keep things that way!

To look at the character of God through the whole sweep of the Bible—and that is something we have to remember to do, rather than judging God, and ourselves, by fragments of Scripture—it is sound to say that God isn’t interested in being impressed—He doesn’t need, or want, the flattery of mere mortals, and how can you bribe Someone who is the source of everything?

What God wants is to be in relationship with us.  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” this is the first and great commandment.”  Love is a two-way street; we are to love God because God FIRST loves us—desiring the best for us (which isn’t necessarily always the easiest or the most comfortable).  AND he desires that we take seriously our being in relationship with others.  “And the second is like unto it:  Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”   In fact, the heart of the “Law” within the Jewish Scriptures, the Old Testament, affirms that to love God is to love others, and that when we love others we are loving God.  And when we grasp that God loves us in spite of who we are it is easier to love others.   In fact, out of His love for us God will give us the wisdom and the energy to love others.  Our love might be, probably will be, imperfect, flawed, and insufficient, but it will give us, and those whom we show love to, a glimpse of what the Kingdom of God is, and will someday become.

A prophet like Amos reminds us, however, that God, even though steadfastly loving, can be angry and fed up with us and what we do to others.  The people Amos addressed are self-satisfied with their worship rituals:  both ceremonies and gift-giving.  They are proud of their performance of impressing God even as they ignore the sick, the poor, the vulnerable, and the hungry.  Amos tells us, “Don’t be those people!”   But he goes on to say, but “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!”  Justice is more than random acts of kindness.  To champion justice, which is basically see that others are treated as we would like to be treated requires more than one on one interaction.  In involves such things as who we vote for and the causes we work for.

I like to think, and I’m willing to bet, that those who love to use their gifts of music and ceremony here at 13th and Holmes are not creating music and beauty to impress God, but to celebrate the relationship they have with God, acknowledging His love and presence in their lives.  And those of us listening, watching, and participating within our own abilities, as we come together for worship each time we gather in this place, are doing the same.
  
And furthermore, the gifts we give of time and treasure to support this old church and its traditions, as well as the mission of this parish, diocese, and national church, are truly thank offerings instead of bribes.  

That doesn’t mean God is always pleased with us, or sees us as doing all that we can, because most of us probably aren’t.  I know I’m not.   But, then again, “doing all we can do” is not necessarily what God desires from us.  We don’t gather here to get a “to do list,” which would be a “one more thing to do of many” list.  Another stone thrown to us when we are trying to swim in the challenges and stress of our lives.  What God desires is to allow Him to love us and to love others through us.   He will work out the details as we go along.  We show up here, not to get a “to do” list, but to be empowered, through worship, prayer, and sacrament, to hear whatever God speaks to us in our hearts and minds about, and follow Him through any door He opens.

And any time we find ourselves patting ourselves on the back for doing that, let’ go back and read Amos!

Feats of All Saints
Sean C. Kim
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
5 November 2023
 
            Today, we commemorate the Feast of All Saints, honoring all the saints who have come before us in the faith. The saints are an integral part of our public worship and private devotions. Here, at St. Mary’s, we have our patron saints, whom we name at every Mass – Blessed Luke, Blessed George, Blessed Cecilia, Blessed Therese, Blessed Margaret, and, of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary. And throughout the year, we commemorate the saints on our church calendar during Daily Masses. Today, after the sermon, we will chant the Litany of the Saints. Beginning with Mary, the Litany will present a kind of panoramic history of two millennia of Christian history, calling out the names of holy men and women from many different eras and places.

So, you might ask, especially if you’re from a more Protestant background, why all the focus on saints? Why all the services dedicated to the saints? According to today’s Collect, we remember and honor the saints because they present for us models of faith: “Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living.” Follow thy blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living. When we think about the saints of old, their extraordinary achievements seem beyond our reach. Most of us will never be called, as Perpetua and Felicity were, to pay the ultimate price and suffer martyrdom. Most of us will never be called, as Columba, Aidan, and Patrick were, to become missionaries and preach the Gospel in hostile, foreign lands. Most of us will never be called, as Francis and Clare of Assisi were, to vows of absolute poverty.

But whatever our personal circumstances may be, we are called to the same life of “virtuous and godly living” as followers of the same Lord Jesus Christ. We could spend a lot of time discussing what “virtuous and godly living” means, and we may have different opinions about what is virtuous and godly. Ancient theologians and philosophers used to compile different lists of virtues: the four cardinal virtues, the three theological virtues, the seven capital virtues, and so on. And, of course, there are plenty of lists of vices as well – and they tend to be more interesting. The fact is, we don’t need a long list of virtues to live a “virtuous and godly life.” In last week’s Gospel reading, we read about the Pharisee asking Jesus which of all the commandments is the greatest. Jesus responds with what some call the double love command, also known as the Summary of the Law: love God and love neighbor. All the laws and commandments are rooted in these two.

Or to put it another way, all the various virtues emanate from loving God and loving neighbor. To turn again to today’s Collect: “Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys which thou hast prepared for those who unfeignedly love thee…” Unfeignedly love thee. The saints are all about love – loving God and loving neighbor.

That’s why among the saints’ names on the Litany, we have Fr. James Stewart-Smith and Fr. Edwin Merrill. Fr. Stewart-Smith and Fr. Merrill were both beloved priests at St. Mary’s. They’re the two priests whose portraits grace the back wall of St. George Chapel. This past Thursday, on All Souls Day, we celebrated Mass at Forest Hill Calvary Cemetery. And we paid our respects to Fr. Merrill and Fr. Stewart-Smith, who are laid side by side in the cemetery. I took a photo between the two tombstones in the hopes that some of their saintliness might rub off. Fr. Stewart-Smith served twenty-three years as rector from 1891 to 1914, and Fr. Edwin Merrill, for 35 years, from 1918 to 1953. Between the two of them, they served St. Mary’s for basically the first half of the twentieth century.

But we remember and honor Fr. Stewart-Smith and Fr. Merrill not just for setting records in terms of the length of service but because of their deep and abiding love. They loved God, expressed through their life of prayer and worship. Everything they did was grounded in their profound spirituality. And they loved neighbor, establishing numerous ministries for the poor and needy. One of the tributes to Fr. Stewart-Smith at his death described his life as “a labor of love…walking among the lowly, the poor, the distressed and the fallen as a ministering spirit to relieve comfort and to lift up.”[1] Fr. Stewart-Smith and Fr. Merrill are modern-day, local saints who have bequeathed to us at St. Mary’s a powerful and beautiful legacy of love.

Fr. Stewart-Smith and Fr. Merrill, and all the saints that we name on the Litany are long dead and gone. But they are alive to us not just in memory. We are united in Christ as one body. Again, to use the words of today’s Collect, we are “knit together in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of Christ our Lord.” We, the living and dead, are all united through faith in Jesus Christ. And we experience this unity with Christ and the saints most fully in the Eucharist. In the sacred mysteries of the Eucharist, the veil between heaven and earth disappears, and we are joined by the saints and all the citizens of heaven.

So, dear sisters and brothers, on this happy feast day, we celebrate all the saints. We hold up these models of embodied love to remind and inspire ourselves of what it means to live as followers of Christ Jesus. And as we gather at the altar, we join our voices with those of all the saints in our eternal praise and worship of the Lord our God.
 
[1] W.F. Kuhn, “Tribute to Fr. Stewart Smith,” The Kansas City Free Masonry, August 21, 1915.