(Homily I gave on November 19-20, 2022, the Feast of Christ the King. The readings were 2 Samuel 5:1-3, Psalm 122, Colossians 1:12-20 and Luke 23:35-43.)

It’s November, and the days grow shorter and colder, and from deep inside, from the ancestral DNA hidden deep in cells of this body, I feel a primal desire: I want to eat on a protective layer of fat and sleep through the winter. That’s what November days do to me.

The lectionary, the book of Mass readings, acknowledges the changing of the seasons, the blowing away of the leaves from the bare trees, the shortening days. In November, it treats us to readings about the things to come, like the end of the world. This weekend we come to the end of our liturgical year with the feast of Christ the King, and we put away the gospel of Luke.

With next weekend’s Masses, we will begin the season of Advent. We will light one purple candle, and we will hear one more time about the things to come. But next week it won’t be about stars falling from the sky. It will be about staying awake, being ready. The watchword for the first week of Advent is “Prepare”.

Be awake to the presence of God. Be ready. How do we be ready?

Prayer, every day. How about the Sacraments? Positively. Kindnesses: How about practicing kindness? How about Gratitude? Practicing gratitude helps us to be ready for Jesus coming. We are about to celebrate that one in a big way on Thursday. There will be a Mass at St Bernardine at 9:00 that morning.

What else should we be doing in November to get ready for the coming of Christ?

There is a certain radio station I can’t listen to in November because the playlist has already switched to holiday music. Right after Halloween! It’s not that I don’t like the carols and songs of the Christmas season; it’s that I don’t want to hear them when I’m not quite ready to put my golf clubs away, when there still seems to be hope for another nice day here or there. I will enjoy the music next month, but I don’t want to hear it every time I get in the car for four weeks before it’s even Thanksgiving Day.

Does it sound like I like it better when things are done on my terms? When my expectations met? When things happen the way they’re supposed to? How many of us are like that? We have our ideas about the way things are supposed to be, and we want those ideas honored. Is that so much to ask? Just do things my way. Give me what I expected, and I won’t give you any trouble.

In today’s Gospel reading, God is telling us not to expect things to work the way we expected. God is telling us that if I insist on having things done on my terms, I may be disappointed. Especially when God has something else in mind.

This is the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. It’s difficult to conceive of a loftier title than that. It makes us think of the right hand of the Father, the power and the glory, the splendor and the majesty. For a year the gospel readings have been taking us through Jesus’ life, as told by Luke. We have been meeting his followers and his friends; we have been seeing him eat and drink his way through Galilee; we have been getting warmed up to see him crowned the true king, the descendant of David coming to reclaim his throne. The first reading and the psalm today set us up for that.

Knowing about all those expectations, today’s gospel passage gives us a totally different image of the King of the Universe. We expect the power and the glory, and instead we get Good Friday – in November, right before Thanksgiving. It’s jarring; it shakes up our expectations. Good Friday is supposed to come in the spring, not now. So what is the Spirit up to with this?

What the Spirit is up to is asking us to look at how we relate to Jesus. The passage gives us several models: which model are we like? We have examples of religious power and authority, examples of military power, and examples of powerlessness. The religious rulers said “He saved others; let him save himself”. They’re distancing themselves. How do they relate to Jesus? Sneering. While the rulers are sneering, the soldiers are jeering. They read the sign and said “if you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.”

We hear about that inscription at the top of the cross, “This is the King of the Jews,” but I noticed that we don’t hear about the cross itself. Still, the cross is the centerpiece of the scene. It’s the first thing we see as we visualize all this. And a crown of thorns for the King.

For those of us who want our own expectations satisfied, we have the first of the two criminals. He says, “Save yourself, and us.” He doesn’t have any religious power or military power, and he doesn’t have a lot of imagination either. He’s a loser. The second criminal demonstrates a feel for justice and for Jesus. He recognizes that they had it coming for what they did, but that Jesus has done nothing criminal.

I think the Holy Spirit, within him, enables him to see what Jesus is doing, so he asks to be remembered when Jesus comes into his kingdom. In saying that, he shows Faith: an understanding of God’s will. It’s faith that inspires him to ask Jesus to remember him.
He shows Hope: He has the sense that the end of his own life is not the end of the story, that there is more. He shows Charity: instead of thinking only of himself in a crisis, he’s sticking up for Jesus. Faith, Hope and Charity.

How do we relate to the crucified Jesus, the risen Jesus, the king of the universe, the Jesus each of us tries to get to know? Which of these models is most like us?

We can be like the religious rulers, sneering. We can be like the soldiers, jeering. We can be like most of the apostles, who didn’t even show up. They aren’t even in this story. We can be like the unrepentant criminal, just wanting the easy way out. We can be like the other guy, who finds he can be a little better than he used to be.

I think that’s what God wants out of us: through an encounter with Christ, be a little better than we were before. The apostles all turned out to be better than they used to be too. They came back, and they met the resurrected Jesus, and they gave their lives bringing Jesus to the rest of the world. The faith, hope and charity of the second criminal shows that it is never too late to have that encounter. Dropping Good Friday into November right before Thanksgiving maybe shows it is never too early either, and it shows we gotta be ready, because the encounter with Jesus may not happen right when we think it should. It may be more like Christmas music in November.