Christ the King

This Sunday we celebrate Christ the King Sunday. I recommend reading up on the history of this church festival. Here’s the tweet version — The pope saw nationalism as an idolatrous threat. Our loyalty and allegiance is to Jesus. Hence Christ the King Sunday.

The very declaration of Christ the King Sunday is a political statement, done on purpose by the church. Kings are political. They rule over nations and peoples.

Faith is political too. How we live out the faith has a public impact, and it is supposed to. Feeding the hungry is a political act. Welcoming the stranger is a political act. These have a public impact.

Christ the King is about our allegiance and loyalty to Jesus. That is a public act. Following Jesus is a political act.

As I’m mentioned before, there is a difference between politics and partisanship. Partisanship is about obtaining power for a political party. Political is bringing people together to make decisions for the public good.

God has a politics. And God doesn’t care about the survival of political parties — any of them. All political parties will end. The Democrat and and Republican parties will end. Thanks be to God for that.

Christ the King is the the closing of the liturgical year. Next week we’ll start Advent — the beginning of a new year. Christ the King is a reminder to us that our citizenship is first and foremost in the kingdom of God. Anything else is secondary. And those secondary allegiances should never get in the way of our primary allegiance.

If Christ is King, then everything else is not.

Originally published at https://pastormatthewbest.com on November 20, 2020.