The Crown of Christ the King

“Come you who are blessed by my Father…

For I was hungry and you gave me food…”

--Matthew 25:31-46

“I was hungry…” This reading from Matthew has always spoken to me –as (I am certain) it does to so many.  It leaves me pondering the many times I have met and turned away from Christ.  He was standing right before me and I turned away or I drove right past him standing at a corner or I rolled up my window as he approached to ask for change.

How often have I turned from Christ and hardly given it a thought?

When we look at that man standing on the corner holding his sign or holding out his hand many times we don’t see Christ; we see a wreck of a person or we see a possible threat, or we see someone we suspect is trying to take advantage of us (a scam?), but rarely –I imagine-- do any of us look at that person and immediately see Jesus.  And yet, that seems to be what He is saying here.  Jesus doesn’t say to us: When you do this, it’s like you were doing it for Me. Consider it a form of spiritual simile, if you will. The poor are symbolically my presence and therefore if you do something for them, then metaphorically you are doing something for Me –at least on a spiritual plain.  Jesus seems to be saying that when we care for the poor, the hungry, the prisoner, the sick, the stranger we are in fact caring for, visiting, feeding, helping him.  It seems to me, that He is being pretty clear about this. That when we care for those in need, we are caring for Jesus. And yet, knowing that –in my heart of hearts—how many times has God come to me, literally walked up to my car window and presented Himself to me, prepared to touch my life with His presence –His grace—and I turned away because I was too busy or too scared. Because he looked too grimy or too tattered or too smelly or too desperate.  And, of course, there were times when I thought the guy standing there with his hand out wasn’t tattered looking enough; he was probably just some guy pretending to be poor.  Some cheat who will just take my money and waste it on beer or drugs!

               

But, what if I rethought that; what if I just retyped it:  what if I simply changed “he” to “He?”  Would that capital H make any difference in how I treated him/Him: the poor woman or man, the sick, the half-naked hungry stranger?  I think it would.  If I started looking at that destitute person at the stoplight not as some “thing” to be avoided, but as “someone” to be welcomed (a King, perhaps), I think it would make all the difference in the world.

What if I really heard these words and believed them?  What if –instead of letting this oh so familiar reading wash over me and fill me with a sentimental feeling, what if really listened and let it change my life.  Hearing these words, really hearing them, what if I went forth filled with a desire and a commitment to meet Christ in the poor and the sick and the prisoners?  What if I went out filled with a desire to reflect God’s generosity back to Him by giving freely to the poor, the sick, the naked, the stranger. What if I opened my heart to the blessing of God’s special presence in His poor? What if every time I went out, I was prepared to meet Him face to face in His people?

Instead, too often, on hearing it I am momentarily filled with a sentimental love of the poor that fades almost as I get up from the pew (or close my Bible), and dissipates too quickly into worries about myself, my family and my “poverty.”  And then, instead of looking for Christ, I avert my eyes, roll up my windows and keep my wallet safely in my pocket when He approaches.  Too often, instead of looking for God in the poor and the hungry, I find I am looking only at myself, and seeing there (in my reflection) my real god. 

All of this reminds me of Dostoevsky’s Fr. Zosima (from The Brothers Karamazov). Zosima is an elder in a monastery who presents Dostoevsky’s simple and faith-filled response to Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor allegory.  In a relatively early scene in the novel a “woman of little faith” comes before Zosima asking for help. She claims she just wants to know for certain that there is a God, and that the soul is immortal.  Zosima tells her that there is no proof for the existence of God, but one can be “…convinced of it… by the experience of active love.  Strive [he says] to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. Insofar as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul.  If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt.  This has been tried.  This is certain.”

That doubtless certainty is perhaps what Christ means when He calls speaks of those "blessed by My Father..." They are blessed with a faith that sees Jesus in the poor and doesn't look away.  

If I want to know for certain that God exists, if I want to know without doubt, if I want that blessing, then I must love my neighbor (and that includes my wife and kids and mother-in-law) actively and indefatigably.  I must treat them,the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, the sick, the prisoner (and the mother-in-law) with love and compassion. Then, and only then, I will know without doubt that there is a God. Because then (and there) I will meet Him face to face.  

“When did we see you hungry or a stranger or sick and feed
you or welcome you or visit and care for you?”

This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King.  How is it we recognize a king? Most of the time, we recognize a king by his crown.  Ask yourself, where do you find your king? Where do you see His crown?