A Popular Feast

A sermon preached with the people of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, California.

Before we’re ordained, Episcopal priests have to take a set of tests called the General Ordination Exam. And years ago, test-takers were told to prepare for one notorious question: “When is the Feast of Christ the King?” Well all of us in this room should know the answer [holds up bulletin] without any studying right? I probably would have written, “the last Sunday after Pentecost” or “the last Sunday of the liturgical or church year” or the “last Sunday before the Season of Advent.”

And all of these answer would have been wrong. Because it was a cruel, trick question.

The right answer was “there is no such feast day on the Episcopal Church calendar.”[i]

And, that is technically still true. The official and oh-so-memorable name for this, the last Sunday of the church year, is “The Last Sunday after Pentecost.” You will find no mention of “Christ the King” in the Book of Common Prayer[ii] or other Episcopal Church supplemental books of commemorations or feast days. And yet, the words “Christ the King” appear in most published online and paper Episcopal Church calendars you can find[iii], complete with the instruction for our stoles to be white. To be clear, there are no rubrics or restrictions against celebrating this day this way, but in practice across the church, it sure feels like it’s actually required.

So, without being encouraged to do so, we not only picked up this Roman Catholic-created observance of “Christ the King,” but ran with it. And I should say it is not just us Episcopalians, but many of our Protestant denominational friends as well. As Bishop Neil Alexander has written, “Christ the King is now, by force of liturgical evolution, a major Sunday celebration in the Episcopal Church.”[iv]

And so, if not an official feast day like All Saints’ is, for example, Christ the King may be our only popular feast; in place entirely because of the practice and will of the people.

Even with the tension of an exclusively gendered image of God as king (some call this “Reign of Christ Sunday” instead). Even with the problem of celebrating a title Jesus of Nazareth does not accept – something in us, collectively if not uniformly, demands the Feast of Christ the King. Wants to bring out our finest white and gold vestments and altar hangings. Wants to declare on this day that Christ is King.

This happens to be the 100th anniversary of Christ the King Sunday. It was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925; an era we seem to have, in many ways, circled back around to today. Those living in1925 were still soaked in memories of a devastating pandemic a little over 5 years earlier. They were experiencing accelerated cultural, technological and economic change with an increasingly visible chasm of disparity between the richest and poorest. The most entrenched, familiar, if deeply imperfect institutions were crumbling before their eyes[v]. And, amidst the fear and uncertainty all of this caused, the people watched a chilling, steady rise of authoritarian movements backed by violent white supremacist ideology.

100 years ago, the world was experiencing an era of uncertainty and disorientation. And an era of strongmen and bullies ready to take advantage of that experience.  An era of anxiety.

And amidst that anxiety, Pope Pius XI, a complicated man we now know was in cooperation with the authoritarian government of his day gives to the Church Christ the King Sunday. At the end of his life, Pius became deeply distressed as it was clear that antisemitism and racism – both of which he considered incompatible with the Gospel — were part and parcel of these rising fascists movements. He died before the extent of his reported plans to push against Mussolini and his allies could be realized.

And yet, while he did not live to see it, his “invention” of Christ the King Sunday, for many, has become a day to push against those influences; a day to bow before God as the only true authority. Something that feels more and more to me these days like a glorious and faithful act of resistance.

We have no king here but the unspeakably vulnerable figure we encounter in Luke’s Gospel this morning, hanging from a cross. Perhaps The Feast of Christ the King could as easily be called The Feast of No Kings.

And maybe, this observance has taken such deep root in our collective imaginations and practices because it gives us a chance, particularly in eras of anxiety, to stand at the foot of that cross, take a moment, and remember that while we must know them and operate within them, we do not belong to the powers of this world.

We do not belong to the control-seeking strongmen of the 1st or the 20th or the 21st centuries. We belong to a God of love who was executed by the state, and is always found as and with the most vulnerable.

Is found with the immigrant fleeing from ICE. The Palestinian child healing from war wounds.  The trans parent seeking safety and dignity. The Black mother denied basic maternal healthcare. Christ is the one we crown. And these are the people he declares blessed.

So I think this “popular feast day” that demands to be celebrated, offers us an opportunity to renew our commitment to this king who rejects kingship. And, an opportunity to get ready for next week, when we start all over again in the Season of Advent; watching and waiting with hope and joy, for the world to change. And it will change.

Because Christ is King.

[i] J. Neil Alexander, Celebrating Liturgical Time, p. 42-43.

[ii] Okay okay, you will find it in Prayer Books published after the 2015 General Convention, which  required the Revised Common Lectionary (see note below) be included in the book. It remains the case you will not find Christ the King listed in the section titled “The Titles of the Seasons Sundays and Major Holy Days observed in this Church throughout the Year” (31-33).

[iii] This is the case because of the Episcopal Church’s participation in the Revised Common Lectionary, which *does* use the moniker “Christ the King.” It most certainly has contributed a whole lot to the unintended consequence of the celebration of this feast day by name. Go ahead, nerd out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Common_Lectionary and https://www.episcopalchurch.org/about-revised-common-lectionary/

[iv] Alexander, p. 43.

[v] See for example the decline of major European monarchies in the wake of the First World War.