The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting colder, and the season after Pentecost is coming to a close. It is the longest season of the church’s year, marking the time by reminding us what it means to live as a disciple, to be good stewards of what we have been given, and how to grow in relationship with God. Our church year isn’t a normal, linear calendar.  Instead, it is circular, beginning with Advent and ending with this day, the last Sunday after Pentecost.  “Always, we begin again,” as the Benedictine saying goes.

Many of the church’s yearly celebrations have gone on for centuries, with over a millennium of tradition and history enriching them.  They mark the events in the life of Jesus – his birth, his journey to the cross, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and his sending of the Holy Spirit to remain with us. We tell these stories in our church calendar, year after year. They shape us in a multitude of ways as we become part of the stories—and they, in their turn, become part of us!

Now, here we are, at Christ the King Sunday, the feast day that dates back all the way to…yes, 1925! This tradition is not even 100 years old, yet it came at a time in the world where God seemed to be losing ground. The devastating First World War had been fought, and the powers of nationalism and secularism were rising. Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King to lend encouragement to Christians whose faith might be flagging, to remind nations that the Church too has a right to freedom and immunity from the state, and in hopes that leaders and nations would be bound to give respect to Christ.

Initially, the feast was celebrated on the last Sunday of October but was then moved in 1969 to its current place in the liturgical calendar to be a vision of Christ to which the rest of the year points.  And what a vision it is!  The scripture readings today help us understand the shape of what the Messiah is to be, and it’s not quite what we expect!

In Pat Marvenko Smith’s painting of the book of Revelation’s vision of the King of Glory, Jesus is depicted crowned with many crowns, with fire in his eyes and a light streaming from his mouth as he rides a white stallion, cavalry following behind him through a cloud.  It is quite terrifying, and at the same time completely expected of a Messiah, who is coming to judge the living and the dead.  Yet, our readings today speak of God as shepherd, and Jesus as a just and merciful king, not a militant figure.  Instead, the focus of today’s scriptures is not on what Jesus as the great judge looks like, but on how we, as followers of Jesus, have responded to God’s call in our lives. This is the last Sunday after Pentecost—the end of the intentional time in our lectionary of exploring what it means to be a disciple. This is about discipleship, and so it is very much about us!

Think for a moment about the churches that you have known. Most churches have some measure of the Christian virtues that we all value: faith, love, and hope – they always have!  But the community in Ephesus has especially been noticed because of their reputation. The author of the letter to the Ephesians has been impressed by the word-of-mouth reputation that the community has for having faith in the Lord Jesus, and then demonstrating that faith in love. They don’t just get together to do nice things for other people and talk about Jesus on occasion. Instead, they believe that Jesus is risen, and sits at the right hand of God, and they have experienced God’s power in their lives. They have been changed! They have been transformed!  This transformation informs every single thing they do, individually, and as a community.

This section of Ephesians is called a thanksgiving prayer, and it tells us something else about what God values in a community: people knowing their destination. They have a goal, and because they know in what direction they’re going, they have become people of hope. In our modern times, we sometimes get the meanings of ‘faith’ and ‘hope’ confused, but not the Ephesians. They know that faith means you entrust your life to Jesus today, in the present tense; and hope is about the future, about where our present trust in Jesus eventually leads!

This understanding about the Christian life reflects one of the mottos of the Roman Catholic order of the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits. They are to be contemplatives in action.  In other words, to be grounded and centred in our faith in Jesus, so that we would know where God is calling us to action in the world around us. If we are all contemplatives that don’t do anything with the experience of God’s power that we have, then what’s the point?  If all we do is reach out to others, but don’t go back to the wellspring of God’s living water,  and drink deeply, then we’ve missed our call and can become empty shells. We must have both.

Our Gospel of Matthew story of the sheep and the goats asks us a searching question that can be difficult to bear: are we admirers of Jesus or are we followers?  Becoming a disciple of Jesus is no easy task.  Many throughout the ages have admired Jesus, but far fewer have chosen the sacrifice of following him.

There is a sign in a church that has gone around on Facebook for the past few years and it says, “Sometimes I want to ask God why he allows poverty, famine, and injustice in the world, when he could do something about it, but then I’m afraid he might just ask me the same question.” As Christians, we believe that God has full claim on our lives. We are coming into the season of Advent next week, and are reminded that God loved us so much that he would become human—become one of us—so that we would fully understand what that claim was and how deep that love goes.  How do we translate this love to others?  Jesus tells us in our Gospel today that when we feed, or welcome, or give clothing, or visit the sick or those in prison, that we are, in turn, feeding, welcoming, clothing, and visiting him. When people respond to human need—or fail to respond—they are responding or failing to respond to Jesus himself!

On this Christ the King Sunday, our scriptures are clear about the “immeasurable greatness of God’s power for us who believe.” As we complete another turning of the wheel of liturgical time, may we renew our commitment to be grounded in this power to seek Christ in all persons and love our neighbour as ourselves, even though we may look foolish to the world for loving so lavishly, and we may fail. With God’s help, we can also, thankfully, begin again. AMEN.