"The Reign of Christ," or as this Day of the church year was first introduced, "Christ the King": what are we to make of such a festival today? What need do we have for a king? Or a "reign," for that matter?  As we are very much aware these days, we have a president, with his loyal cabinet of counselors; a man we have elected for two four-year terms, who claims a strong mandate to govern our nation. He has sufficient constitutional power to do what we need him to do, so that, along with Congress, we are fed, educated, employed, bonded in families, kept safe, and even entertained. We pay him well to do these things. Sometimes he does all that to our satisfaction, sometimes he does not. When he fails us, no problem; we can trade him in for anothermodel. No, we don't need a king!

Be that as it may, we Christians do have a "Lord," one who reigns over the  community we call the church. We pray to this Lord concerning those same things for which we look to the president and his  officials, plus some things special to the church. We pray daily, for instance, as we come to the table, "Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive."

But here's maybe a difference, an important one. We count our days, 2025, 2026, 2027. …, adding  the years we once referred to as anno domini, the year of our Lord. With this framework, we plot the passing of time, our births, our deaths, our community history, indeed, the rotations of the Earth. The Lord to whom we pray, that is to say, is the lord of time, of all time. He is in some sense with us, as part of our story, part of the history of the Earth, from the beginning of time to its end.  Whenever those times happen, they are given place and meaning  with reference to the life of "Christ our Lord." That is quite remarkable, is it not? Jesus of Nazareth, a man of his time on Earth, whose life began at year zero and ended some 30 years later, we confess our faith in him as the Lord of all time, beginning with the creation and ending at some point in the future.  His life's story, the story of his reign, is the story of time from the beginning to the end. Unfinished as it is, it is nonetheless the  story of everything. More about this later.

So as Christians, we have both president of our nation and our Lord of time. And that is a complicated relationship for us. The complication comes from the competition for our fealty, which arises from time to time between them. A bit of liturgical history related to this Sunday sheds some light on why this matters.  "Christ the King" Sunday was a papal innovation in 1925, as the totalitarian regimes of Russia, Italy, and not long after, Germany, came to dominate the political scene in Europe. This innovation was meant to re-affirm for the faithful that they do indeed have a sovereign unlike Stalin, Hitler or Mussolini. It's a practice still meaningfulin today's world of failing democracies and horrendous military conflict. Indeed, a reading of the scripture lessons for the day will, we submit, disclose the crucial relevance of the Day, as we consider these readings in the light of the political and  environmental crises of the Earth.

Luke's account of Jesus' crucifixion engages the reader with the very issue we have described:  Is Jesus the Lord, the Messiah of God? If so, what are his powers, and what does he intend to accomplish with them? What is his mission? In Luke's account,  the witnesses of Jesus' crucifixion are sharply divided amongst themselves, as he seems either unable or unwilling  to come down from his cross and liberate them from the imperial power that rules the land. Neither as "King of the Jews" nor as "God's Messiah" was he to partake in their conflict. Only one of them, the soldier next to Jesus on the cross, recognized him as Lord and so prayed to be included in his kingdom. And Jesus' response to him is stunning: 'Today you shall be with me in Paradise." 

The meaning is clear:  Jesus is deeply compassionate with those who recognize him as Lord and truly expect to be included in his realm, to which Jesus refers as 'Paradise."  Not much help, the people around the cross undoubtedly thought; nor do today's skeptics find it otherwise: no land, no resources, no food for the people, no forces to secure their wellbeing and safety, only something  this visionary calls "Paradise."  A place, perhaps only in the imagination of Jesus, like the Garden of Eden, the most notable feature of which is the Tree of Life. (see Luke Timothy Jonson, The Gospel of Luke, pp. 378-9). "He has no cards," as our president might put it.

Or does he? We move from the account of Jesus' Crucifixion to the Letter to the Colossians, with its vision of the resurrected Lord. Here he is confessed to be the " image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him." Astonishingly, the one who appeared to "have no cards" now has everything. The passage continues, 

He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross."  

We emphasize the obvious.  This post-resurrection hymn to Christ places him within a narrative that stretches from the beginning to the end of time, from the initial creation to its completion. As the repeated ta panta  (all things) makes  clear, the hymn presents another version of the "story of everything", now with  the cross of Jesus at its center.  The story of the crucifixion from the Gospels, with Jesus' act of reconciliation, has become the heart of the story of everything, the story of all time. 

This transformation is of special interest for those who love their place and time on Earth. Joseph Sittler, a Lutheran theologian who initiated the contemporary conversation as to whether or not the Pauline author of this text  really meant that "all  things" includes  non-humankind as well as humankind, put it this way: "the sweep of God's restorative action in Christ is no smaller than the six-times repeated ta panta . . .and all things are permeable to his cosmic redemption because all things subsist in him."  "Care of the earth," Sittler insisted, is therefore a "Christological obedience", meaning that it is inherent in the mission of the Chistian church. G. Horrell, Cherryl Hunt, and Christopher Southgate, writing in their Greening Paul: Rereading the Apostle in a Time of Ecological Crisis,  vigorously affirms Sittler's view, suggesting that this means that humans who are members of the Church are by virtue of that membership responsible for that care (p. 94). As they write, on the basis of the Colossian hymn and Romans 8, 'Human beings have  a key role in working out in their practices and relationships what it means  to live as renewed creatures in a creation straining toward its ultimate renewal" ( p. 208).

So we might well ask, what about the congregations to which we belong?  How obedient are we to this calling? How do we respond to the will of God revealed in Christ Jesus  for the reconciliation and restoration of all things and times in Him?

With respect to the rival claims on our loyalty of which the Reign of Christ Sunday reminds us, must we not confront the reality that the administration of President Donald Trump regularly stands in opposition to this will?  He is no king, but he is no less responsible as any other human for the care of creation. Without seeking to judge whether Trump acknowledges his responsibility, we can see that his governance of the United States of America has so far failed to show the characteristics of Christian humanity we have found in these texts: his is not a reconciling spirit, working for the unity of the humanity. Nor does he acknowledge his significant responsibility, as both a human being and a governor of the American people, for the restoration and ongoing care of the Earth. "America First " is not a policy conducive for bringing about the reconciliation between nations in a global initiative for the healing of the Earth. The Christian Church, with its partners both religious and secular, will have to carry out our ecological mission without his assistance, making a desperately daunting task seem truly Sisyphean.  And next time around, we can do better!

In the meantime we, the people of the church and of all nations, can hope and work to be reconciled with each other and united for this Great Work. It will not be easy.  Not all Christians acknowledge this responsibility. In particular, white Christian Nationalists supportive of the Trump administration generally resist addressing the environmental crisis as being in conflict with the agenda for energy dominion. They commonly refuse on Fundamentalist grounds the authority of the science of ecology and its sense for the great community of life symbolized by the Tree of Life". Salvation for them is about individual persons, not about the great community of creatures. The End of History is for them not a restoration in God of all God's creative work, but a grand escape, abandoning the Earth to its final destruction.

Let us then attend whole heartedly on this Day of the Reign of Jesus, to Jesus’ words of reconciliation from the cross, and to the grand hymn of celebration from the pen of the Apostle's Letter to the Colossians. And let us all say "Amen!"