The Hidden Christ - Matthew 25:31-46
We are mourning the loss of Carol Lou today. Many of us got the word last night that she’d died from a car accident, some of you may be hearing that news just now. Lots will be said about Carol Lou over the coming days and weeks—of all she did for this church, for each of us. She was, in her decades of service here, as much a part of Christ Church as the building.
But today is a day that isn’t about Carol Lou and I think she would have loved it that way. Today is a day when we celebrate Christ the King and if I learned anything about Carol Lou over the last six years of working with her and the more than a decade that I’ve known her, it’s that Jesus was at the center of all she did. It wasn’t always conventional, and she often put on a show grudging obedience, but for Carol Lou it was always about what Jesus wanted.
Carol Lou lived into the truth of our Gospel today, uniquely inhabiting the way of Jesus. She was someone who faithfully made sure prisoners from our parish received weekly sermons, she would visit the sick, on her own time, and she made sure to feed us, even driving around during that first pandemic easter to make sure all the staff had her famous deviled eggs. So, as I offer this sermon, I do it very much with Carol Lou in my heart.
I recently met a man, I’ll call him Tony, hanging out by the street. I was saying hello to the folks gathered there as I passed, talking to a few, and Tony said he wanted to tell me a secret. I’m a priest, so I sometimes hear secrets, and I’m always glad to offer my ear to someone who wants to share. Tony pulled me away from the gathered crowed and whispered in a low voice, “You know pastor, I’m just here temporarily. I don’t really belong with these folks. See, I’m like a multimillionaire. But all my money is up in New York tied up in a trust. Lawyers are involved and I’m just waiting for it all to be sorted out.” With that, Tony stepped back. He’d told me what he wanted me to know.
That scenario is one that has happened to me dozens of times over my years of conversations with people on the margins. I always try to take people at their word, and I know there are instances where sometimes the claim is in fact true, but their frequency makes me suspect that something else is at play, something about our society, and persons, and who counts as somebody.
Ours is a world where value is measured by what you have. It could be wealth or power, it could be education or fame, but we tend to notice and rank according to what we’ve been able to accumulate over our lives. In our introductions and connections, we whisper the badges of value: “you know she’s been really successful in business” or “back when I was at Harvard.” We drop names and accomplishments. We wear and drive and live in the symbols of our status. And we often inflate or fake these symbols, all in an attempt to prove that we are somebody worth noticing, someone, ultimately, worth loving.
Such a situation is a tragic one. And we may want to answer it, as some have, with a kind of democratic equality—everyone is welcome, everyone is valuable. It’s true, as far as it goes, but such a solution still leaves something lacking. None of us really want to be placed under a collective umbrella of significance, a sameness of value. All of us desire for the unique brilliance of our lives to be acknowledged and celebrated. We feel, in some deep way, like we are people possessing something hidden, like the heirs of a kingdom to which we cannot return.
This sense of our hidden greatness shows up everywhere in our fantasies, both personal and collective. From Aragorn in Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring to Rapunzel in Disney’s Tangled, we have a host of stories of people whose lives are of far greater significance than their immediate circumstances indicate—kings who can’t return to their kingdom, princesses kidnapped at birth. And perhaps we should see in these stories a truth that we all share, a truth at the heart of being human. Maybe we are meant for more. Maybe each of us really does possess a wealth and value beyond what a casual passerby could see. Perhaps, like that famous internet scam, we are all royals whose wealth is tied up and ready to be unleashed if only we had the right means to release it.
The story of Jesus fits this genre. In him we find the liberator of Israel, the Messiah destined for the throne of David, God’s own son, born in a manger and in the end, coronated on a cross with a crown of thorns. Jesus was the king returned, a reality we celebrate on this day, but his manner of life didn’t look much like that of a royal and the truth of his character was recognized by a very few. Jesus was a hidden king, a king who couldn’t be recognized by any of the normal signs of power. And yet his power was such that even death could not contain him, it was power that healed the sick and liberated the poor. Maybe the way that we can learn to see the hidden royalty around us and within us, we should look at Jesus, the light by which the unique significance and destiny of our lives can be seen.
How do we begin to recognize this reality? How do we practice its truth? In our Gospel, Jesus tells us that we will find him in those we encounter, especially those on the margins that it might be most difficult to include in the circle of our care. In the centuries that have followed, Christians have worked out various ways to live into this truth, and for many it has been through saying of the name of Jesus over all those they meet. This is not to lump all of us into some collective Christ, but instead to see the reality of God present in a unique way in each one of us.
In his book, The Jesus Prayer, Lev Gillet, “A Monk of the Eastern Church,” writes that “The name of Jesus is a concrete and powerful means of transfiguring men into their most profound and divine reality.” He recommends that we say the name of Jesus over those we pass in our day to day lives, especially those we find most annoying or problematic. Through such a practice of prayerful encounter, we will find that all are people of profound value, all are like lost royals whose kingdoms are restored in Jesus, the reminder of our true identity. As Gillet goes on to write, “By recognizing and silently adoring Jesus imprisoned in the sinner, in the criminal, in the prostitute, we release in some way both these poor jailers and our Master. If we see Jesus in everyone, if we say ‘Jesus’ over everyone, we will go through the world with a new vision and a new gift in our own heart.”
This practice, this vision, is in stark contrast to the alternative path—one that centers only on advancing our own significance, on our own terms. Sometimes this feeling that we are unrecognized royals, leads us to assert our will and power over others. Ezekiel chided the fat sheep who pushed the weak aside, eating more than they should. And Jesus says that those who fail to serve the hidden reality of Christ in others will not find fullness of joy when Jesus comes to claim his kingdom. I’m sure that many of us have had our moments when we’ve tried to prove our hidden sense of significance by seeking our own pride more than recognizing the presence of Christ in others. Our hope in such times is that someone along the way will see Christ in us, even in our pride and selfishness, and that through that recognition we will be freed to become who we are—heirs of a kingdom of grace and joy.
On this Sunday, when we honor Christ as the King of all, we are reminded that we too are the children of God, we too are the heirs of the kingdom. It is a truth we can pronounce on all those we encounter, saying silently the name of Jesus, the one in whom our deepest identity dwells. Living in such truth, we don’t have to imagine that we have millions locked up in a trust in New York, nor do we have to actually fill our bank accounts or education credits or any other measures of earthly power. Instead, we can be satisfied in our significance with the gift of Jesus’ name dwelling in our hearts; a name we know is our own, as well as the true name of everyone we encounter. Amen.