Christ the King Sunday 2014

Christ the King Sunday 2014 (Matthew 25:31-46) “Come!”

Salvation is an active, dynamic, transforming participation in divine love.

Divine love is the eternal creative inter relationship among the three persons of the Trinity. God the Father is the one who loves. God the Son is the beloved of the Father. God the Holy Spirit is the personification of the love that passes between the Father and the Son and holds the relationship of the Trinity as One God in Three Persons.

Jesus offers to lift us into the community of infinite and eternal love. Salvation in Jesus Christ is personal, participatory and powerful.

Jesus is the personal reality of God. He not only tells us about God, he not only shows us things about God, He is God at work in our world, among our species, and in each of our lives. He is the servant king.

This planet and the entirety of our species belong to Jesus Christ. We collectively and individually are the Father’s gift to the Son by the creative activity of the Holy Spirit. Unlike the kings and rules of the nations, Jesus rules from within. He inspires us to change our priorities. He infuses us with grace to transform our desires. He is with us and he is for us in every choice we make. Unlike earthly governments, Jesus does not seek to use law to force us to do anything.

Jesus does not employ rewards and punishments to form our behavior. Jesus does not use shame and blame to manipulate us.

What Jesus does is to invite us to participate in a passionate friendship with him. In the context of that friendship, Jesus infuses the real presence of God the Holy Spirit into our souls. The Holy Spirit offers to help us to transform our thoughts, emotions and will by active power.

The teaching of the final judgment should be heard in this context, the context of a personal transforming relationship with God in Jesus Christ.

As Jesus walks with us in our lives he brings to our attention human need. From the Bible, the Holy Spirit reminds us that whenever Jesus met someone who was hungry he fed them. Whenever Jesus met someone who was sick he healed them. He offered kindness and compassion to everyone. He even prayed to the Father for those who slandered him and killed him.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called, equipped and empowered for the triad of Love. The triad of love is worship, service to others, and personal transformation. Jesus instructs us to help others by meeting their physical and spiritual needs. That is why his teaching about the last judgment is intensely personal.

Jesus is very clear that the Plan of Creation is relationship. God sets us each in a family, a community and a society to help each other, to learn from each other and to be transformed by each other. An individual Christian is an oxymoron. We are part of the human community by virtue of the Plan of Creation. And, we are part of the Body of Christ by virtue of the Plan of Salvation. We are called to grow in grace and experience the joy and wonder of grace according to the Plan of Transformation.

Jesus instructed St. Paul to remind us that we are saved (reunified to God) by grace through faith and not of works. Jesus also instructed St James to remind us that faith (as sanctifying grace) without works is dead. What kills faith is rigid, uncompromising inflexible belief. The unifying life giving principle in these two teachings about faith is love. What subverts love is pride.

That love is divine love. It is active, dynamic, creative and transforming. If you are participating in that love, in that salvation, you will experience change. You will experience opportunities to share your faith with other people. And, you will be sensitized to human need for food, shelter, healing and companionship.

If you perceive a lack in that love you only need to ask Jesus to supply more grace. He always offers more love to us than we are willing to receive.

The Way of Salvation is the threefold Way of Love. A refusal to enter into the way of love through worship, service to others and a commitment to personal transformation is a refusal to enter into the personal relationship with the Triune God that our heavenly Father offers us in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Separation from love is separation from God that results in an eternal separation. Reunification with love is reunification with God in Jesus Christ that opens the way to eternal life.

Jesus shows us the Way through a personal relationship with us. The Holy Spirit provides the power we need to change, to grow and to thrive. Our part is choice. Our responsibility is to cooperate with God by saying yes to the revealed word of God. Our path forward is the path of participation in the life and work of grace Jesus offers us in the word of invitation to love:  Come!