“Jesus, King of Glory, remember me in your kingdom!”

I don’t know about you (and perhaps I am being a bit oversensitive) but it does strike me as just a little odd that this last Sunday of the Church’s year has come to be called the Feast of Christ the King... I mean, we Americans fought a revolution so that we would have a government without kings. And after the Revolution, it took a while for we Episcopalians to convince our fellow citizens that we weren’t singing “You’ll Be Back” to ourselves, secretly yearning to run back to King George to run things for us (“Da-da-da, dat-da, dat, da-da-da, da-ya-da….”)

But all the other churches who share the Revised Common Lectionary with us—which is, like, nearly everybody! — call today “Christ the King Sunday”, so let’s think about what kingship means for Jesus and for us.

Here in America we tend to think of royalty in much the same way we think of celebrities. So when we say “The King” we might think of a British monarch…or we must just as easily think of Elvis, the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. Or maybe Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. Before he was President, Donald Trump was called the King of Wall Street. There are the Los Angeles Kings, the Sacramento Kings, king snakes, kingfishers, king crab, chicken a la king, king of the mountain, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, The Kings of Leon, B.B. King, Stephen King, and Burger King. There’s King Arthur flour, Carole King, king salmon, the Lion King, the King James Bible, and Steve Martin sang “King Tut.”

Being a “king” may be “king-sized” which might seem like a bargain but does not necessarily demand our obedience. And while may not have a king, we certainly live in a culture that demands our allegiance.

You may not know this, but as church feasts go, this one is a mere pup because Pope Pius XI first established the feast of Christ the King only a hundred years ago. 1925 was a time of gathering darkness throughout Europe and Asia, still recovering from the horror of the First World War, the world was being gripped by nationalist, secularist, anti-Semitic movements led by authoritarian fascist and communist dictators that may look vaguely familiar to us today. Pope Pius’ goals were to refocus the Church, the Body of Christ on Earth, to remember that as disciples of Jesus, we are to serve the world as He did: loving God and all people as neighbors – even to the point of praying for and loving our enemies. Jesus’ reign is a reign of service, and our power comes from the Holy Spirit, and our task is to love others as our Risen Lord and King loves us.

Today we live in a world, with two competing yet parallel idols: Christian Nationalism, a profound heresy that defines Christian faith in nationalist and racial terms, as well as a culture that defines our values by the things we buy and have. The theologian Harvey Cox once said that our culture’s true civil religion is called “The Market,” which has evidently decreed that we will dispense with Thanksgiving and start that most holy of days “Black Friday” a day early!

Nathan Duggan who teaches Christian stewardship through a program called Share, Save, Spend reminds us that the National Retail Federation expects "About 33 million people will shop on the (thanksgiving) holiday itself, and a slew of retailers including Macy's, Wal-Mart, Target... and Kohl's will accommodate them."

We shouldn’t be surprised. Not really. Every week, the busiest retail day of the week is…right now. Sunday morning. And, as things are going, the busiest retail day of the year could become Thanksgiving Day itself instead of the day after.

Needless to say, this is a challenge for people of faith. Something that we must deal with every day—and (before we fall into pearl clutching…) we’ve had to deal with this for as long as there have been people of faith.

Which brings us to the feast today. If Christ is our King, if we are living in God’s reign, how can we, in the midst this planned frenzy, take the time to give thanks, to be with family, to come together as a community and remember who and whose we are?

It is hard in our world to make space for Sabbath, for thanksgiving. The world’s idea of a “holiday” is to take an extra day to do more with more intensity the same activities we do every day. 

This is one of many reasons that we end the Church’s year remembering Christ’s reign and Jesus’ Lordship. Because every day we have to choose who we will we follow. And the fact that the world’s values clash with what God wants for us is not only not new—it is the very heart of the matter! It why Jesus came among us in the first place.

We hear in today’s Gospel how Jesus was called a king. It was not the first time that week. Remember how Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed young colt trailed by a donkey, in the middle of do-it-yourself parade of cloaks and palms? Instead of a parade surrounded by soldiers and carried in by conquered slave, he was showing from the get-go that God’s reign, God’s kingdom was different. This did not make the powers that be happy. So at his crucifixion, when they hung the sign “This is the King of the Jews” on the cross to identify both Jesus and his crime it was an act of derision, an insult both to Jesus and to the Jewish people whom the Roman’s occupied.

So the people witnessing Jesus’ crucifixion joined in the mockery, laughing at his failed and pathetic kingship. “He saved others,” they said. “Let him save himself if he is king of the Jews!” Even one of the criminals crucified with Jesus joined in. “Save yourself and us!” he says from his own cross.

Oddly enough, this mocking thief will get what he asks for…just not in the way he expects! Because while Jesus’ persecutors and prosecutors saw Jesus’ kingship as a political, an economic, or even a military kingship whose only measure was (and is) “how can you use your power to make more power?” Jesus instead saves the thieves—and us! By entering into the darkest places of our lives, where our deepest fears reside, and into death itself, and He reunites us with God, heals our broken souls, and makes us one with each other and creation. The very source of his humiliation and defeat becomes the means of Jesus’ glorification and of our salvation.

The other thief being crucified with Jesus saw this and said so. Tradition calls this so-called “good” or “repentant” thief Dismas. As these men meet each other on their points of their own death, Dismas says to his companion on the cross “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” Suzanne Guthries observed that a cynic might say that Dismas has nothing to lose by such a request besides some precious air in his lungs. But this is no hedging of bets. Dismas sees through the horror of the cross and sees the kingdom's throne. And Jesus manages to gasp out these words: “Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

We baptized Christians are citizens of that very kingdom that Jesus welcomed Dismas into. We have through our faith and baptisms given ourselves to the One who created all things, rules all things, and animates all things. We believe that Jesus is God’s word who spoke all things into being and who will also speak all things into completion.

We are ambassadors of Jesus’ reign to this world and in our daily living we represent God’s reign, God’s time, to a world that is stuck in that weird collision of the humdrum and the crazy-busy. As we wrap up one Church year and move into a new one, we are confronted with the collision of the everyday world and God’s eternal reign.

So how we order our lives is very important. Will we choose to live in solitary reactivity or in Christian community? Will we pray only when things are tough and then only by ourselves or will we gradually and intentionally turn our prayer into a habit where even our private prayer is in concert with God’s people.

Do we choose to see the world as God’s and as our arena for mercy, compassion and service? Do we allow the rhythm of the sacraments to become our heartbeat and our breathing?

This is our challenge everyday as Christians, to remember that we live in God’s time, God’s reign, with Christ is our King.

At this moment, we end one year and start a new one at the cross where God’s reign collides with and overcomes the reign of sin and death. And at this moment, our prayer is the same as that repentant, dying thief… in the midst of all the chaos of living, in the midst of all our choices past and yet to be made and even at the end, our prayer is the same. “Jesus, King of Glory, remember me in your kingdom!”

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Scripture for the Last Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 29, Year C, November 23, 2025

Website for Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Clearwater, Florida

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here

Here is the bulletin for the Last Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, November 23, 2025, Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Clearwater, Florida.