The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
Lesson: Ez 34:11-12, 15-17
Epistle: 1 Cor 15:20-26, 28
Gospel: Mt 25:31-46
The Last Judgment by Michelangelo (1536-1541)
Today on the final Sunday of the liturgical year, the Church celebrates the Feast of Christ the King. After meditating through the Gospels on one’s own particular judgement at death for the past several weeks, the Church turns our attention to the Final Judgment by Christ at the end of time and the establishment of the eternal Kingdom of God.
For those of us living in a liberal democratic context, the Feast and image of Christ the King can be an easy one to misconstrue. Liberal democratic societies tend to think about politics as a set of procedural norms that safeguard human dignity: regular elections that are fair and free, separation of powers, equality before the law, transparency in government, and protections around civil liberties that are more-or-less robust. This leads to a curious sort of eschatology when the Gospel of the Second Coming is read through the lens of Christian Democracy. The temptation is to half-consciously believe that the principal work Christ the King will be to inaugurate a post-scarcity, post-political society in which the procedural norms of liberal democracy are no longer necessary, because the human race will have definitively transcended them. This Christ is not so much a Lord God of Hosts, whose scepter is eternal and whose rule stretches from one end of the sky to the other (for why would a perfect society need such a strong ruler?), but a quiet host benignly hovering over a society of perfectly free human beings, like a president at an inaugural ball that will never end. In this reading, God will come to wipe away, not just every tear, but every election cycle as well.
While it is true that the coming of the Son of Man will bring about a radical transformation and regeneration of both human society and the entire universe, to picture the reign of Christ the King in the mode of the post-scarcity liberal society described above is to radically fall short of the majesty and glory that awaits the world at the coming of our King.
What is the purpose of political community? For Aristotle, the purpose of political community is to secure those human goods that cannot be secured by either an individual or by family households or village communities. The city, in the political sense, arises as a self-sustaining community once individuals, households, and small groups come together to secure for themselves that which they cannot obtain alone. These goods range from basic necessities such as food, shelter, and security all the way to such elevated and intangible goods as justice, peace, tranquility, and harmony.
The trouble with all merely human political communities is that they can never be truly self-sufficient in supplying for man’s needs. For one, no human community can definitively secure the goods we require once and for all. Crops must be re-sown and re-harvested each year. Peace may endure for long decades, but war invariably breaks out again. Justice must be continually nourished and guarded against corruption. Since these goods cannot be permanently, perpetually possessed by a community, they cannot be said to be fully in their possession at all.
Secondly, no human regime can ever fully implement the higher virtues of civil society, because no human being (save Christ alone) perfectly possesses these virtues, much less has the power to impart them perfectly to others. However just a ruler may be, she is not Justice itself. However wise or prudent a legislator might be, he is not Wisdom and Prudence itself. These imperfect human beings must do the best they can, and even these best efforts, if implemented and guarded for a time against the wiles of less virtuous men, will never fully realize the virtues of Justice and Wisdom.
Thirdly, there are longings in the human heart that cannot be fulfilled by political life to even the slightest degree. There exist within the human soul infinite caverns that are made for God and can be filled by Him alone. Our souls long to have this hunger for Him satisfied by his divine indwelling, which we can obtain in this life only by faith, and in the next life by the Beatific Vision. Political community in this vale of tears, then, is a venture doomed to futility. Its purpose is to secure what is necessary for human flourishing, but it cannot even begin to supply by itself the deepest need of the immortal human soul.
In contrast to the transient, incomplete, and ultimately futile nature of human political community, the Gospel of this Sunday orients us toward the radical, supremely fulfilling and unending nature of the rule of Christ the King:
Jesus said to his disciples:
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
and all the angels with him,
he will sit upon his glorious throne,
and all the nations will be assembled before him.
And he will separate them one from another,
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the king will say to those on his right,
'Come, you who are blessed by my Father.
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
a stranger and you welcomed me,
naked and you clothed me,
ill and you cared for me,
in prison and you visited me.'
Then the righteous will answer him and say,
'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you,
or thirsty and give you drink?
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you,
or naked and clothe you?
When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'
And the king will say to them in reply,
'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did
for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.'
Then he will say to those on his left,
'Depart from me, you accursed,
into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
a stranger and you gave me no welcome,
naked and you gave me no clothing,
ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.'
Then they will answer and say,
'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty
or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison,
and not minister to your needs?'
He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you,
what you did not do for one of these least ones,
you did not do for me.'
And these will go off to eternal punishment,
but the righteous to eternal life."
Our Lord in this Gospel not only lays out the condition of our entry into the Kingdom of Heaven (Saint Teresa of Calcutta’s “gospel of five fingers”: You did it to Me), but he also hints at the nature of His rule as King of the Universe.
First, the gathering of all the nations, and the judgment based on how we have treated “the least of those” points to the total nature of Christ’s rule over all things. Human political communities exist in multitude because no single polity can hope to even imperfectly secure natural goods for every human being. Different countries maintain their sovereignty and independence to safeguard goods proper and unique to peoples, cultures, nations, and histories. Multiple levels of government exist among the same people in order to effectively secure goods that a single level of government would do less well, such as a school board endeavoring to manage the work of national security, and vice versa. Furthermore, no polity can perfectly deliver on its promises to all its citizens and subjects. Even liberal democratic societies have “the least of these” who live on the margins and experience society’s failure to adequately serve and integrate them. When the reign of Christ the King begins, none of these things will apply. He will rule in Himself perfectly over all nations and peoples, and will perfectly supply in Himself for everything that dazzling human array needs. His rule will have no margins, and no one will be failed or imperfectly served.
Second, this totality indicates the perfect possession by Christ of the virtues for which our civil societies labor, and His power to set them in place perfectly and eternally. Christ is able to rule all nations and deliver justice to each of the “least ones” because He is not merely a just king, but Justice itself. He is not merely a wise lawgiver, but Wisdom itself. Christ’s reign will be radically different from any human governance we can conceive because His mode of rule and the source of His authority is radically different from anything we have ever encountered, or could even dream of, in the political realm. Instead of being ruled by a peaceful prince, we will instead be ruled by the Prince of Peace.
Third, the promise that the righteous will go to eternal life points to the definitive victory of his rule and to the promise that He will supply for the deepest needs of our soul. The reign of Christ the King will be no transient victory, no utopia that nonetheless will one day pass away when the cosmos changes. It will be eternal. The righteous will truly possess all good things, because they will possess them forever, and this Kingdom of Heaven will never cease to reign. Furthermore, Jesus will give Himself to human souls and fully and forever fill the infinite caverns of our hearts. Those who enter the Kingdom will go into eternal life, and this same Jesus declares Himself to be, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. Our King promises to not supply for all of our needs for eternity, He promises to give us Himself, without measure, to reign and live within us, in saecula saeculorum.