Royal Disguise (Christ the King A)

A story was told of a well-loved king who was curious about how his people were treating one another.  To know firsthand what was going on in his kingdom, he went into the villages disguised as a street sweeper.  There, to his utter dismay, he was ignored by many and insulted by some.  Very few were charitable to him.  He went back to his palace and instructed his ministers to do everything in their power to teach the people how to respect one another especially the poor.  After a month, the king disguised himself again, this time as a poor beggar, and mingled with the people. To his surprise, no one jeered at him nor ignored him.  Instead he was greeted with respect and people were charitable to him.  The well-loved king went back to his palace satisfied and praised his ministers for what they had done.  

What had they done?  The ministers had sent the messenger to spread the word that their beloved king was in their midst.  

The awareness that their beloved king was among them trained them to treat one another with respect. 
Even a poor beggar had to be treated with dignity because he might just be the king!

Christ the King and his identification with the poor. “I assure you, as often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me” (Mt. 25: 40). Once again today, as we celebrate the end of the liturgical year with the feast of Christ the King, we are reminded that our King has identified himself with the least of our brothers and sisters—the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the sick, and those who are in prison. To serve the King, we need not travel far and wide. We just have to see him in those who come to us in need.

Our generation is blessed to have known Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Her life was known to the whole world as an eloquent witness to an authentic Christian life. Her eloquence was not in her words. It was in her deeds. Or should we find her words very powerful despite the simplicity, it is because her words flow from her acts of love and commitment to help the poorest of the poor. When asked how she could endure all that she was doing for the poor like cleaning the wounds of a leper or feeding a malnourished child or embracing an abandoned dying AIDS patient, she would explain that it was the suffering Christ that she saw in them. The love that she lavished on them was her love for Jesus Christ, the King. Her words continue to reverberate: “No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.”

Our passivity vis-a-vis the poor in our midst. The poor, the hungry, the abandoned, the homeless, the sick continue to beg for our concern and love. Their continued presence in our midst might have so much inured us to the horror of poverty and destitution that we begin to accept with utter passivity that’s just how things are. We need not do anything. Or the other way around, we might just be so overwhelmed that we react with hasty and convenient solutions, the immoralities of which we are happy to cover up by actually believing that we are concerned about helping the poor. But in fact, we just hate them and their number. We want to get rid of them effectively!

This is not unthinkable in a society which is practically getting rid of God and his precepts. The poor, to whom Christ the King identified himself, are helplessly dispensable. The rich and the powerful, however, enjoy their cherished prerogatives.

Kingship as a Christian call to service. Today’s feast reminds us that in the Christian perspective, Kingship means servanthood. Nowhere else is the reversal of values more apparent than in this humble calling of a Christian king. Our readings for today bring to the fore the image of the Shepherd King—a King whose concern is not his own glorification but the welfare of his flock. Like Yahweh, the shepherd in the first reading culled from the book of Ezekiel (Ez 34: 11-12, 15-17), Christ is the shepherd and provider of his flock. Moreover, He will come, at the last judgment, as a Shepherd King who will hold us accountable for our human conduct on the basis of whether or not we have served one another and especially the least among us (Mt. 25: 31-46).

To a sincere Christian, the face of poverty and destitution is the face of the suffering Christ.  Others may show some concern for the poor for different reasons, political expediency being one of them; but a true Christian serves the least of his/her brothers and sisters for love of Christ, the King.

Among the many faces of the poor I am confronted with everyday, where is Christ the King that I may serve him with love in whatever capacity I am endowed with?