Christ The King 2022

A reading from Jeremiah.

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, says the Lord.

Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people.

It is you who have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them, so I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord.

Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.

I will raise up shepherds over them, who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and feed wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety.

And this is in the name by which he will be called the Lord in our righteousness.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth be moved.

And those mountains be hard open to the death of the sea.

Though its waters rage and foam.

God is in the midst of the city.

The Lord of hosts is with us.

Come now and look upon the works of the Lord.

It is the Lord who makes war to cease in all the world.

Be still then, and know that I am God.

The Lord of hosts is with us.

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his righteous power, his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience while joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints and delight.

He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers, all things have been created through him and for him.

He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

He is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.

They crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.

And then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

And they cast lots to divide his clothing.

And the people stood by watching, but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, He saved others.

Let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one.

The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.

There was also an inscription over him, This is the King of the Jews.

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, Are you not the Messiah?

Save yourself and us.

But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

And we indeed have been condemned justly, but we're getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.

Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Jesus replied, Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.

The gospel of the Lord.

Please be seated.

This is the end of the church year.

It's called Christ the King Sunday, and it may come a little bit jarringly that we're ending the year with the Passion Story.

After all, next week is Advent, we're going to start talking about babies, right?

So here we're ending the year with the Passion Story.

And since 1976, this has also been called Restorative Justice Sunday.

So I am going to do something a little bit different.

We did this a few years back.

This is normally something we you might associate with Lent or Holy Week, which is walking the stations of the cross.

The reason we're going to do it today, frankly, is you just heard the story.

And many people have never had this experience doing the stations of the cross.

It exists from the time of the Crusaders, when people went from Europe to Jerusalem, they found extreme value in physically moving around and trying to put themselves in the Passion story.

It was so moving for them that they took it back to Europe and set it up just like we have in here, where people can physically walk and contemplate the stations of the story, not only what happened then, but how that continues to happen now.

So I'm going to read to you a small preface, and then I'm going to invite you to join me in this journey of remembering the passion story, remembering it, what happened, but also how it applies now.

There are photos of each one of these in your bulletin.

You're more than welcome to walk the stations with me physically if you like.

I will let you know that because Jerusalem has built on and built on and built on, if you were to walk the stations today, you would probably, it's more like a mile and a half.

In the ancient world, it was more like 50 yards.

And that's just because there's all this construction you have to wind around.

So Stations of the Cross is the homily today.

We gather on this Christ the King Sunday as Christians united in prayer.

At the end of the church year, we pause to pray as we reflect on the suffering journey of Christ.

As we accompany Jesus on his journey to Calvary, let us take a moment to remember how difficult that journey was.

He carried his cross to the narrow, crowded streets of Jerusalem.

It was Passover time, and the city was full of people, many of whom mocked, jostled, and took pleasure in watching as Jesus struggled with his heavy burden.

The way was often steep.

The journey that Jesus made on that day remains a symbol of Christianity in the world as it struggles with its own crosses and failures and the challenges of modern life.

The streets of our towns are filled with people who carry their personal crosses, who are bruised, battered, and broken.

Through these stations of the cross, Jesus is inviting us to journey with him and to reflect on his suffering as it continues in the lives of God's people.

In solidarity with all who suffer, let us pray that we will be open to whatever Jesus wants us to see, hear, and understand.

Station 1, Jesus is condemned to die by Pilate.

We remember that Jesus was captured at night, taken away by soldiers, stripped of his garments, interrogated, tortured, crowned with sharp thorns, and now handed over to be condemned to death by Pontius Pilate.

Death on a cross.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Jesus is condemned unjustly by those who did not understand him and by those who were frightened of what he did and said.

Perhaps they sense that this man could make a difference, that he could turn their world upside down.

We continue to condemn people unjustly today.

People are condemned because of the color of their skin, their gender, their beliefs, because they're born with a disability, because they don't conform to our way of thinking.

The list is endless.

There are also the people who have been justly condemned, who have been found guilty, served their sentence, and asked for forgiveness.

Does our society really forgive?

Really believe that people can change?

Or do we continue to condemn them over and over again?

Let us pray.

Jesus, what a terrible injustice to see you condemned to death.

Your own people, the Roman judges and the soldiers, didn't recognize that you were the Son of God.

Give us the grace to see, respect, and love you and all people, both innocent and guilty.

Change our hearts that we may see with new eyes those we might otherwise condemn.

Station 2.

Jesus was led away carrying the cross by himself.

A cross is not just a piece of wood, it is everything that makes life difficult.

Jesus carried the crosses of his life without complaint, as a poor person and as an itinerant prophet.

In the calm and courageous way, he put up with the threats of the Pharisees and the lack of understanding of his own disciples.

In the way that he carried all the burdens of his life, but in particular, the way in which he carries this awful final burden, he transforms the cross from a symbol of condemnation into one of liberation.

Adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

There are burdens that we all carry, some are very obvious, and others we take great care to hide.

There are the burdens of illness, pain, and disability, of old age, dependence, and caring for someone who no longer knows who we are.

There are the burdens of constant fear, of loneliness, and of isolation.

The invitation of Jesus on the cross is to hand over these burdens to Him.

Let us pray.

May we see your presence, Lord, in all the burdens we carry today.

Help us to share our burdens more freely, not to be afraid to acknowledge our fears and our pain.

May we be more aware of the crosses that others bear and make time to alleviate their burden.

May your face shine on each one of us through the crosses we bear.

Amen.

Station three.

Jesus falls for the first time.

Jesus falls.

Here Jesus shows us that being heroic does not mean staying on one's feet at all costs.

Being heroic means getting up again after falling and starting off on the road chosen.

Human beings will never resign themselves to stay flat on the ground.

Like Jesus, they will get up again, pick up their crosses, and keep on searching for a promised land of total liberation.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Look at Jesus fall under his cross.

He might have fallen into the gutter or be slouched into a doorway on Skid Row.

He doesn't look much like God there, but he didn't look like God when he fell into the dirt on the way to Calvary either.

The crowds look on with disdain at this man whom they see as a sinner who's been condemned to death by the authorities.

Like the crowd, we often have only condemnation and rejection for those we see as sinners.

We judge them without knowing about their trials, scourging and crowning with thorns.

Do we even suspect the part we might have played in knocking them down?

What do we do to help them?

Let us pray.

Jesus, it's easy to see your image in saints.

Help us to see you in the sinners too.

You had a place in your heart for the divorced Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus, the good thief, and for those who crucified you, give us this same compassionate heart.

Amen.

Station 4, Jesus beats his mother.

When Jesus and his mother meet, they just look at each other.

Words cannot express how they feel.

What he saw in his mother's eyes must have hurt him more than the raw pain of his wounds.

This for Jesus is the most painful time of all.

This is his bereavement.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Jesus carries the heaviest burden of the loss of his family, the sundering of the earthly loving relationship between mother and child.

This was not of his making.

The violence inflicted upon him etched into the very heart of his mother as she watched the agony of her son.

We see Mary's pain in the mothers and fathers who watch their children giving up their life to drugs, addictions, and suicide, and the women and men who suffer violence and the ongoing threat of violence in their home from spouse or child.

We see Mary's pain and the child coping with the breakdown of a parent's marriage, and the couple trying desperately to rebuild their relationship and family anew.

Let us pray.

Jesus, we remember the gaze that rested between you and your mother.

In that moment of pain, there was also a moment of deep and enduring love.

Jesus, give us the courage to bring that love into the deepest recesses of our homes, to our children and to our spouses, to those places of fracture and disharmony in our circle of relationships.

Amen.

Station 5.

Simon helps Jesus.

Simon the Cyrene, a stranger in the city, did not know Jesus, but that did not matter.

What matters here is that in the moment of need, Simon was capable of lending his shoulders to one whose own had given out, of offering his strength to one who had nothing left, of taking on himself the cross, which Jesus could no longer carry.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Look at Jesus who lies hidden and unknown beneath every person in need.

Across our world we see human suffering in the faces of strangers, in the faces of those struggling for democracy in the Middle East and beyond, in the faces of those dealing with the loss of life and destruction of property.

People we know of but do not know must live with the aftermath of the ravages and destructive forces of nature, coping with floods and drought, with the devastating effects of climate change.

Let us pray.

Lord, help us to grasp our opportunities to be a Simon in our world.

In those times when we can help, let us have the generosity to do so.

May we continue the spirit of Simon through our support of agencies such as Lord of the Streets, Episcopal Relief and Development, and all who work to alleviate suffering in our world.

Lord, may we have the humility to accept all the Simons along our road who reach out to help us in our moments of need.

Amen.

Station six.

Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

Veronica was so moved by the sight of Jesus suffering that she courageously moved out from the crowd to wipe the blood and sweat from his face with a towel.

She was rewarded when the image of his face was transferred to the towel.

It is a suffering face, disfigured with wounds.

Yet this is the only image of himself that Jesus chose to leave with us.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Today the visible face of Christ, the church, stands before us still wounded and disfigured, disfigured by its own sins of abuse of children and power, increased with the wounds of hurt and betrayal, bearing the scars of the Murphy and Ryan reports, the face of Christ calls us to look upon and heal the sin of our church.

Let us pray.

Jesus, give your wounded church the courage of Veronica, so that we may wash the face of Christ clean from the disfigurements of our sin.

Help us to bring healing to the scars that hide the beauty of your face to our world.

Give us the faith to continue to build your church as a visible sign of your love and compassion.

Amen.

Station 7, Jesus falls for the second time.

Stretched to the breaking point by his awful scourging, bowed under the weight of the cross, worn out by the abandonment of all his friends, Jesus stumbles again.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you.

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

All around us, people are overburdened by the crosses they carry.

They struggle and sometimes fall.

There are those who have lost their jobs and feel that they have little hope of finding another.

Those who live with the prospect of unemployment, and those who struggle to keep others and work.

There are those who suffer because of failures in our financial health and political systems.

Jesus is with each of us however we fall, and there he chooses to love and save us.

Let us pray.

Jesus, from deep within yourself, you found the courage and strength to get up once again and continue the journey.

Give us your strength to keep going, even when hope is dim.

Amen.

Station eight, Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.

The women of Jerusalem wept when they saw how Jesus suffered.

Jesus recognized their distress.

He broke his silence for the first time, spoke to them, and said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me.

Weep for yourselves and for your children.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Look at Jesus and listen to his message for us today.

Weep for the children who are abused.

Weep for the women who are victimized.

Weep from men and women who suffer from the tyranny of today's body image that controls their lives and prevents them from feeling lovable.

Weep for the young who cannot find a job or a way in life.

Weep for the old who are forgotten.

Weep for people who starve in the shadow of abundance.

Weep for people who are homeless in exile or seeking refuge.

Weep for them.

Let us pray.

Lord, Lord, open our hearts to the suffering of all people in our world.

Give us the generosity of Spirit to help us recognize their pain, the courage to challenge the systems that place intolerable burdens on them, and the compassion to support them.

Amen.

Station 9.

Jesus falls for a third time.

Jesus falls for a third time, broken and exhausted physically and emotionally.

Lying on the ground, Jesus must decide.

Does he get up once more or does he just stop and give up?

We see him rise again, and with all his power he continues on his journey.

Jesus shows us that we can go on even if nobody else thinks that it is possible.

We ignore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Many in our world today feel that they are at that moment of final falling, that their burden is too much to carry.

They cannot bear anymore.

Crushed by the weight of their cross, they feel unable to get up, unable to go on.

Some may look for relief in addiction.

Some may look to even escape through suicide.

In Jesus, we find our hope and our encouragement.

The third fall of Jesus reminds us that even in our moment of complete helplessness or our experiences of depression and our own Calvary, we can stand up again.

Jesus is with us, and Jesus is our strength.

Let us pray.

Lord, we pray that when our strength fails, when our hope fades, and when our spirit grows weary, that we will put our unbounded trust in you.

In turn, may we bring your love in a word or action of comfort to another in their moment of meaningless depression or despair.

Amen.

Station 10.

Jesus is stripped of his clothing.

The clothes were ripped from Jesus, he was stripped of his dignity in front of an irreverent mob.

Jesus sacrifices everything.

He holds nothing of himself back.

Here on the threshold of death, even more intensely than during his lifetime, he is a being for others.

He surrenders everything in order to ransom all.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Look at Jesus and the absolute indignity inflicted upon him by society.

Jesus continues to be stripped of his dignity in those who have their good name taken from them and the intimate details of their lives exposed through the media.

Society takes on the role of judge and jury as we curiously devour the details.

Jesus is stripped again when men, women, and children are portrayed as objects in a pornographic manner in magazines, DVDs, on television, and the internet.

Let us pray.

Forgive us, Lord, for being an irreverent mob prying into people's lives.

Forgive us for being consumers of gossip under the name of news.

Let us never expose anyone.

May we respect the dignity of others and leave judgment to God.

Let us see the good in those around us, and so enable them to reach their full potential.

Amen.

Station eleven.

Jesus is nailed to the cross.

Huge iron nails are hammered through his wrists and through his ankles.

Iron through human flesh and flesh must yield.

There is no defense.

Jesus, nailed to the cross, cannot move.

The hand that has wiped blindness from the eyes, the hand that opened the seal of deafness, the hand that touched a heart and cured a leper, the hand that blessed children and those with a disability.

The carpenter's hand is joined to the wood again.

As the cross is put in place, he hangs there between us and God, a bloodstained victim for love.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Jesus continues to be crucified in the ten children who die every minute of hunger in our world.

He is crucified in all who are maimed, damaged, and displaced because of war.

He is crucified in all who are marginalized in our society because of their race, sexuality, or gender.

He is crucified in those who are abused physically, sexually, or emotionally.

He is crucified in those who are trafficked across the world.

He is crucified in the exploitation of the earth and its resources.

Let us pray.

Jesus, we pray on behalf of those who cannot reach out to you at this moment.

We pray for all victims of violence, those who suffer it and those who inflict it.

We pray especially for children, for the elderly, and those too vulnerable to defend themselves.

May victims of cruelty and oppression know that you are always with them.

Amen.

Station twelve, Jesus dies on the cross.

As the life of Jesus ebbs away, his words are not of condemnation or of pity for himself, but of forgiveness.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

In the midst of his anguish and suffering, Jesus calls upon his Father to forgive those who are putting him to death.

This is the real challenge of the cross, forgiveness even of those who hurt us most.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

There is much to seek forgiveness for in our world today.

Hunger, poverty, violence, abuse, war, neglect, corruption.

The list seems endless.

Each one of us praying these stations could continue the list on our own behalf, and indeed on behalf of those who have hurt us.

As Jesus dies on Calvary, he challenges us to love our enemies, to let go of hurt, to ask forgiveness, and when we cannot find it in our hearts to forgive, to ask God to do it for us.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Let us pray.

Let us stand with those who watched and prayed in silence while Jesus breathed his last.

As we cannot measure love, so we cannot dilute this ultimate act of love and forgiveness with words.

Let our love span the silence.

Lord, let our love and forgiveness speak your praise.

Amen.

Station 13, Jesus is taken down from the cross.

Now Mary takes the broken body of her son in her arms.

In her grief, she remembers the words of her son over the bread, this is my body broken for you, and over the wine, this is my blood poured out for you.

She remembers that little baby in Bethlehem, worshipped by shepherds and kings.

She remembers the days when the crowds followed him, and she is full of sorrow.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Mary's grief is our grief too.

As Mary cradles the lifeless body of her son and offers him back to the Father, she stands with all parents who have held their children close to them in death.

Those lost through accidents or acts of violence, those who have died by suicide, those who died suddenly or after illness.

Mary grieves with all who sorrow for loved ones parents, siblings, family members, friends.

Let us pray.

Help us, Lord, to accept the partings that must come.

Help us to offer our loved ones back to you as Mary offered her son.