I dislike the expression, ‘let us pray for the church and
the world’ as though they were two different compartments. No, the church is in
the world. If it’s not active in the world and assured of its mission, then it
has no role. In this morning’s gospel (Matt. 25), the giving or denying food,
drink, clothing, shelter and comfort to the poor, hungry, sick, imprisoned and
estranged is described as the equivalent of giving or denying service to God,
and the basis on which we will be chosen for everlasting life or eternal
punishment.
‘As you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did
it to me’ (Matthew 25:40). A charity has been set up in the USA, called Matthew25 Ministries, which seeks to put into effect the gospel command of Matthew 25:34-40 by providing
nutritional food to the hungry, clean water to the thirsty, clothing to the
naked, shelter to the homeless, medical care to the ill, and humanitarian
supplies to prisoners. Much Christian social action, past and present, has been
inspired by this gospel.
Jesus
tells us: ‘My Kingdom is not of this world’ (John 18:36). St Paul tells us in
the first chapter of Ephesians that when he raised Christ from the dead, he
seated him at his right hand, ‘far above all rule and authority and power and
dominion’; furthermore he ‘put all things’ under his feet and made him the head
‘over all things for the church, which is his body’. Yet, although Christ’s
kingdom is not of this world, it is to be built in this world. That is the lesson of the judgement of the nations gospel
reading in Matthew ch. 25.
The
gospel is associated with the Feast of Christ the King, which was introduced
into the Anglican Church formally only in the year 2001. The feast was
instituted by Pope Pius XI on 11 December 1925 in celebration of the
all-embracing authority of Christ which shall lead mankind to seek the ‘peace
of Christ’ in the ‘Kingdom of Christ’.
The year
1925 was the 1600th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the first great
international (or ecumenical) conference of bishops. It was called by the
emperor Constantine in 325, a few years after his conversion to Christianity.
The council gave its name to the Nicene Creed, which is sung or said at the
Eucharist, and it was at this council that the words ‘whose kingdom shall have
no end’ were added at the end of the section of the creed devoted to God the
Son. In his encyclical letter, Pope Pius specifically linked the inauguration
of the feast of Christ the King to the addition of that clause to the creed.
The one, he said, was a fitting celebration to mark the sixteenth centenary of
the other.
Now cast
your mind back to 1925, when Pope Pius XI chose to highlight this clause - out
of all those in the Nicene creed - by instituting a special festival. In 1925
Benito Mussolini, already the prime minister of Italy, declared himself
dictator and set about rebuilding the country on fascist principles in
conscious imitation of the pagan glory that was Rome. Surely, we may suggest,
the timing of these two events – the proclamation of Il Duce’s dictatorship
and the inauguration by the Pope of the feast of Christ the King – was more
than coincidental. It was because of the excessive claim to dictatorial power made
by Mussolini that Pope Pius XI chose to emphasize in a special festival the
kingship of Christ. The choice between leadership of a dictator and the leadership
of Christ leaves Christians with no choice at all: it is Christ alone who, in
Paul’s words, is ‘far above all rule and authority and power and dominion’.
