Christ the Hidden King
On Jesus and the truth of who we are. I The Word in the Wild: Proper 29, Year A
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Matthew 25:31-46
I recently met a man, I’ll call him Tony, hanging out on the patio beside a hotel named for a Confederate general and converted to low-income housing. I was saying hello to the folks gathered there as I passed, talking to a few, and Tony said he wanted to tell me a secret. I’m a priest, so I sometimes hear secrets, and I’m always glad to offer my ear to someone who wants to share. Tony pulled me away from the gathered crowed and whispered in a low voice, “You know pastor, I’m just here temporarily. I don’t really belong with these folks. See, I’m like a multimillionaire. But all my money is up in New York and its all tied up in a trust. Lawyers are involved and I’m just waiting for it all to be sorted out.” With that, Tony stepped back. He’d told me what he wanted me to know.
That scenario is one that has happened to me dozens of times over my years of conversations with people on the margins. I always try to take people at their word, and I know there are instances where sometimes the claim is in fact true, but their frequency makes me suspect that something else is at play, something about our society, and persons, and who counts as somebody.
Ours is a world where value is measured by what you have. It could be wealth or power, it could be education or fame, but we tend to notice and rank according to what we’ve been able to accumulate over our lives. In our introductions and connections, we whisper the badges of value: “you know she’s been really successful in business” or “back when I was at Harvard.” We drop names and accomplishments. We wear and drive and live in the symbols of our status. And we often inflate or fake these symbols, all in an attempt to prove that we are somebody worth noticing, someone, ultimately, worth loving.
Such a situation is a tragic one. And we may want to answer it, as some have, with a kind of democratic equality—everyone is welcome, everyone is valuable. It’s true, as far as it goes, but such a solution still leaves something lacking. None of us really want to be placed under a collective umbrella of significance, a sameness of value. All of us desire for the unique brilliance of our lives to be acknowledged and celebrated. We feel, in some deep way, like we are a people possessing something hidden, like the heirs of a kingdom to which we cannot return.
The Christian story is one that solves the problem of this paradox. Every human life, from the simple fact of its existence, is named as a blessed thing. We are acknowledged as bearers of God’s own image, each of us in our individual lives like the facet of a gem reflecting the divine. Our significance is not one to be found in the dissolution of our selves into some collective goodness, but each of us is proclaimed valuable, beyond calculation, simply by the fact of our existence.
This is a truth reflected from the beginning of our scriptures, but it is in Jesus, the Messiah, God come among us that we find the full reality of this liberation. Jesus is the Christ born in a stable, the king whose coronation was with thorns. It is Jesus, God become human, who lived as a secret savior who now appears, hidden in the ordinary lives around us. It is through Jesus that our vision is trained to see the hidden divinity in all those we encounter and even begin to recognize the secret significance of ourselves.
How do we begin to recognize this reality? How do we practice its truth? In our Gospel, Jesus tells us that we will find him in those we encounter, especially those on the margins that it might be most difficult to include in the circle of our care. In the centuries that have followed, Christians have worked out various ways to live into this truth, and for many it has been through saying of the name of Jesus over all those they meet. This is not to lump all of us into some collective Christ, but instead to see the reality of God present in a unique way in each one of us.
In his book, The Jesus Prayer, Lev Gillet, “A Monk of the Eastern Church,” writes that “The name of Jesus is a concrete and powerful means of transfiguring men into their most profound and divine reality. Let us reach out toward the men and women whom we pass in the street, the factory of the office—and especially toward those who seem to us irritating or antipathetic—with the name of Jesus in our heart and on our lips.” Through such a practice of prayerful encounter, we will find that all are people of profound value, all are like lost royals whose kingdoms are restored in Jesus, the reminder of our true identity. As Gillet goes on to write, “By recognizing and silently adoring Jesus imprisoned in the sinner, in the criminal, in the prostitute, we release in some way both these poor jailers and our Master. If we see Jesus in everyone, if we say ‘Jesus’ over everyone, we will go through the world with a new vision and a new gift in our own heart.”
This practice, this vision, is in stark contrast to the alternative path—that centered only on advancing our own significance, on our own terms. Ezekiel chided the fat sheep who pushed the weak aside, eating more than they should. And Jesus says that those who fail to serve the hidden reality of Christ in others will not find fullness of joy when Jesus comes, finally unhidden to claim his kingdom. Our hope in such times is that someone along the way will see Christ in us, even in our pride and selfishness, and that through that recognition we will be freed to become who we are—heirs of a kingdom of grace and joy.
On this Sunday, when we honor Christ as the King of all, we are reminded that we too are the children of God, we too are the heirs of the kingdom. It is a truth we can pronounce on all those we encounter, saying silently the name of Jesus, the one in whom our deepest identity dwells. Living in such truth, we don’t have to imagine that we have millions locked up in a trust in New York, nor do we have to actually fill our bank accounts or education credits or any other measures of earthly power. Instead, we can be satisfied in our significance, with the new gift of Jesus’ name dwelling in our hearts; a name we know is our own, as well as the true name of everyone we encounter on the street.