I made the mistake of going to the mall with my wife on Friday<\/strong>. We were in Maryland, visiting family, and decided to stop by a nearby Sears. My wife had one thing she needed to pick up. I won\u2019t lie to you; it was underwear. Gentlemen, if you are single and wondering what married life is like, that\u2019s it: Marriage is going to Sears to buy underwear the day after Thanksgiving.\u00a0 Anyway, she found what she was looking for and then got in line.\u00a0 There must have been at least 30 people ahead of her. When people talk about online shopping, I don\u2019t think this is what they meant by \u201con line.\u201d<\/p>\nBut while we were standing there, I was amazed.\u00a0 I usually avoid the stores on Black Friday, so this was a revelation. I saw people absolutely swamped with purchases. Coats, scarves, boots, shoes, gardening tools, toys.\u00a0 Boxes and bags of every description.\u00a0 Only in America could people give thanks on Thursday for all they have, and then on Friday go out and stand in line to buy more. And this was one line, in one store, in one mall.<\/p>\n
The scene was being repeated all over the country\u2014sometimes with shocking consequences. You hear it about it every year, and this year was no different.<\/p>\n
In Tallahassee on Friday, two people were shot at a mall while fighting over a parking space. In Kansas City, shoppers at a Victoria\u2019s Secret stormed the store when it opened after midnight on Friday.\u00a0 In Michigan, security guards had to use pepper spray on some shoppers at one mall. In a Georgia Wal-Mart, shoppers caused a riot when they stampeded over each other to get to the smartphones.<\/p>\n
Standing there in Sears Friday afternoon, I realized: we do have a king. In fact, we have many kings.<\/p>\n
So very often, in so many places, we are ruled by what we want.<\/p>\n
We are dictated to by our desires.<\/strong> Our hunger for more. The newest, the largest, the cheapest, the fastest, the coolest, the trendiest.\u00a0 Often, we want to please others with impressive gifts.\u00a0 But just as often, I think, we want to please ourselves.<\/p>\nOf course, it\u2019s not always just material things that rule over us. Sometimes, we find ourselves subjects of other Kings, other princes. We can find ourselves citizens of a world overseen by Pleasure, or Pride. We might live in a borderless principality where the ruling figurehead is Insecurity, or Bitterness, or Jealousy.<\/p>\n
Many of us discover, sometimes too late in life, that the peaceable kingdom we inhabit is in fact a dictatorship, ruled by our own weaknesses.<\/p>\n
But this Sunday, the Church says: take another look.\u00a0<\/strong> It asks us to look at the world differently.\u00a0 We are asked to reconsider who or what rules our lives \u2013 and honor the only King that matters, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\nHe is a King so great that he stood before a Roman governor in shackles, wearing a crown of thorns. Yet, in that posture of a prisoner, he was victorious.<\/p>\n
He is a King so great that he offers himself to us this day, at every Eucharist, in simply a sliver of bread. But in that bread, something no bigger than a coin, lives all the hope of the world.<\/p>\n
That is our King. Fully present, here and now.<\/p>\n
But do we even recognize him?\u00a0 Pilate asked Jesus if he was a King. Maybe we need to ask: is Jesus our<\/em> King?\u00a0 Or are there others?<\/p>\nI mentioned a few earlier. It\u2019s worth asking: who, or what, rules our life?\u00a0 Who, or what, holds power over our daily choices? It might be a career. Or a debt.\u00a0 Or desires.\u00a0 Or friendships.<\/p>\n
It might be something as small as the smartphone in your pocketbook, as fleeting as the sale at the mall.<\/p>\n
Let me make a suggestion.\u00a0 Next week, we begin Advent. It is is a time for cleaning up\u2013for clearing the way, for preparation.\u00a0 \u201cPrepare the Way of the Lord,\u201d the Baptist will cry out.\u00a0 Well, begin now.\u00a0 Overthrow whatever King is keeping you from Christ. Stage a revolution.<\/p>\n
Plot a coup for Christ.<\/strong><\/p>\nTurn away from the royalty that demands our constant attention and obedience and subservience.\u00a0 Turn, instead, toward the King who is our savior and our hope, our liberator and our advocate.\u00a0 The King who comes into our world in unexpected, quiet ways\u2014in a manger, on a donkey, through a crumb of bread. The King who conquers with an armed force no one can resist.<\/p>\n
He conquers, quite simply, with love.<\/p>\n
In the gospel, Jesus told Pilate: \u201cEveryone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.\u201d\u00a0 Now is the time for us to listen.\u00a0 And to truly hear.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s voice calls us to something more enduring than a 60\u201d plasma TV, more thrilling than an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy Tablet. It calls to something that will last long after the plastic evergreen strands have been folded up and put back in their boxes and the shopping mall Santa has returned to the North Pole.<\/p>\n
It calls us to conversion.\u00a0 To renewal.\u00a0 To simplicity.\u00a0 To faith.\u00a0 It calls us to a kind of regime change that is truly a coup for Christ.<\/p>\n
We aren\u2019t called to storm Sears screaming for bargains.\u00a0 We\u2019re called to storm heaven with our prayers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nWe\u2019re summoned to stage a coup for Christ.<\/p>\n
Let that be our mission this Advent: to be footsoldiers for the Lord, living purely for him.\u00a0 Our lives are crowded with too many other Kings.\u00a0 Let\u2019s return to the only one who matters. And let us make his kingdom manifest the way that he taught us, carrying in our hearts the great words of his great prayer:<\/p>\n
Thy kingdom come\u2026thy will be done.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Click here for readings.] This Sunday, on the Solemnity of Christ the King, I was preparing to preach about how royalty is really alien to us Americans, how the concept of a King is something foreign to our sensibilities. But an experience Friday proved me wrong. I made the mistake of going to the mall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homilies"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n