St. Andrew’s Pictou, November 20^th 2005; Christ the King Sunday

 

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Ephesians 1:15-23

Matthew 25: 31-46

 

The Royal Touch

 

In Canada, our form of government is called, “A Constitutional Monarchy.” Our head of state is Queen Elizabeth II. Ours is a constantly evolving system that has changed and adapted by nuance, war, revolution, time, and the check and balance act of power sharing over thousands of years. Monarchy is not a British idea, in fact there have been great kings and queens all though both recent and Biblical history that can speak to the best of what is royal when they exhibit grace and majesty. From Kings Solomon, and David in the Bible to Peter the Great of Russia, King George and Queen Elizabeth during WWII, all monarchies are different, as are all countries, governments and all people.

 

But just to sidetrack for a moment, doesn’t everyone have a source of ultimate power that they follow?

-could be the god of self interest, or self gratification,

-could be money, sex, or cocaine,

-could be their spouse, or their boss,

-could be fanatical adherence to their sport,

-could be their form of political government, or ideology,

-could be their religious leaders: Remember the Jonestown slaughter, or the suicide bombers.

 

So let’s be simply honest here: all people defer to one kind of power or another. We all follow something or someone. Let us not get caught up on what words we use; our personal religion is really about where we place power and allegiance in our lives.

 

Where ever we have our allegiance, we also receive our judgment:

-         people are murdered for supporting the other political party,

-         if we don’t get our cocaine fix, we will be in bad shape,

-         if our team doesn’t win, we feel bad and sad,

-         if the other political party gets in we might loose our job, or our road will not get the paving we had hoped,

-         there were times in the past, and even now, that if you didn’t support the king, you got your head chopped off.

 

As Christians, on this day we commemorate and celebrate that Jesus Christ is our King, Jesus is our sovereign, our access to God and the throne of grace. Jesus is our window to God’s ways and we pledge our allegiance to him as our sovereign.

 

Now our King doesn’t have an army in the regular sense, although he has a rather large contingent of about 2 billion souls who are only armed with their personal power to love and care for other people.

 

Our King isn’t rich in the regular sense of the word, except that his cup is always over flowing with love; his table is always set for the stranger. The gates of the kingdom are open for the one in need.

 

Our King doesn’t have a palace or a castle, except for our hearts to dwell. In fact he once ever said, “Birds of the air have nests and foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”

 

Our King doesn’t have a golden crown studded with jewels, in fact the authorities once mocked him by giving a crown of thorns that pierced his skin and made him bleed in order to humiliate him.

 

While many governments execute people, our King never did such a thing and was known as the King of Love and he himself was to be the one executed by those who were threatened by his power, identity as King, his wisdom, and personal charisma.

 

Our King didn’t preside over parliament and have legislators draw up thousands of laws, with governments, military forcers and police to enforce them, he just reiterated with simple words to his friends, that we and they should love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths, and that we should love our neighbour as ourselves. (The funny thing is that these two simple laws are so powerful and well-defined, that if we all kept them, we wouldn’t need all the other ones.)

 

While most laws are written to confine us, our King really gave us what might be called, “freedom laws.” If we keep those two laws, we would be liberated, we would all be free.

 

While many governments dictate what we are to do, our King as much as he wanted our allegiance, for some unknown reason, still gave us the choice to follow him or not.

 

We see that our King was his father’s son in the reading from Ezekiel where God is angry that the rulers have not cared for the people and selfishly used their position for personal gain.

 

In this passage from Ezekiel, the anger that God has for those who did not care for the people is balanced in showing how God relates to the people using the metaphor of shepherd.

 

“For this says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so will I seek out my sheep.

I will rescue them…

I will bring them  out and will gather them…

I will feed them with good pasture…

I will seek the lost…

I will bind up the injured…

I will strengthen the weak…

I will feed them with justice…”

 

Ezekiel gives us a clear picture of God’s immense love and care for his people.

 

The same theme of care is found in Jesus description of the end of times and the judgment of Jesus found in the Gospel reading from Matthew. The chosen are referred to as sheep, and are shown as favoured by the reference by Jesus that they be on his right hand:
“Come you that are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

 

These words were not new to them or to Jesus. These words are found in Isaiah and were the words he read from the Isaiah scroll when he began his ministry. Jesus was consistent and clear about his message: He came to show love and care for all people and for all of their needs.

 

There are all kinds of ways that we human beings can touch each other: there is healing touch, friendly touch, abusive touch, warm and cold touches, moving touches, limp and strong touches, and so on.

 

In the Middle Ages, there was something called, “The Royal Touch.” On Easter Sunday people would line up to be touched by the king in order to be healed. It was believed that the king had the ability to heal by his touch.

 

No doubt this idea originated from the stories of Jesus where we often read that Jesus touched people to heal them. Now there are also stories where people were healed where Jesus did not actually physically touch people to heal them. In fact sometimes he didn’t even see them, but he healed them.

 

The teaching here is that Jesus seemed to practice a “spiritual touch.” He “touched” people “spiritually” as it were.

 

Are you and I not spiritually and emotionally “touched” by stories and events where we have not actually touched anyone?

 

Now let us go back to Jesus’ litany, “I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.”

 

Isn’t Jesus talking about touching here, too:

-touching people’s hunger, their thirst,

-touching people’s loneliness and estrangement,

-clothing a person’s nakedness and shame,

-reaching through the bars and touching the pain that imprisons a person?

 

For our King Jesus, are these not all examples of his “Royal Touch?”

 

Don’t you and I have Jesus’ Royal Touch when we give comfort to the aggrieved, food to the hungry, hope to the lost, welcome to the stranger, or lift someone’s spirits?

 

Don’t we have his Royal Touch when we give to PWS&D and help someone around the world from earthquake survivors in Pakistan to people suffering from AIDS in Africa?

 

A minister I know stopped at the scene of an automobile accident. There was nothing he could do that hadn’t been done. The paramedics were called and all that there was to do was wait, except that the woman in the middle of the wreck was very upset. So this minister reached into the wreck and held her hand until help arrived.

 

Sometimes the simplest thing is the most profound; we can offer our hand to each other.

 

When Jesus was here on earth, he touched people physically, emotionally, and spiritually in ways that gave them life and healing; you and I can do exactly the same thing today.

 

We can’t help but touch people in the simple living of our lives, (positively, negatively, or not even noticing,) we encounter people every where in all kinds of ways, but the word of the Lord calls for us to convey our King Jesus’ Royal touch.

 

Reaching out to people in need because of our faith in Jesus, gives them the Royal Touch, on Easter or any other day of the year.

 

On this day where we celebrate that Jesus is our King, let us vow in allegiance to our King that we will carry on the legacy of his reign of love, in how we touch all of the people we meet in ways that heal and give them life.

 

AMEN                 Rev. Alan Stewart