The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti

Christ the King 1999 - A

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few people so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

John Updike

The small and wealthy population of this nation have 535 people to speak for them—who can speak for the many more Americans without wealth? That gentlemen, must be the President."

Harry Truman

Once again we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. It might better be stated as the celebration of the leadership of Christ in the Church and the cosmos. For any person put into a leadership role it soon begins to dawn on that person just how hard a position this can be. It is not always easy to lead others in the way they need to be led.

Many people look to their leaders for direction, guidance, correction and vision. If they do not find these qualities in their leader a community will founder, become directionless, or have a vague sense of what they are about.

Leadership in the Christian sense, that is, patterned on Jesus Christ, is one of a servant style leadership that inspires hope. This in a very real way is what our readings are surfacing today. Ezkiel pronounces to a people in exile to have faith: don’t give up, God is acting to restore Israel. Paul writes to reassure the church at Corinth that Jesus was raised from the dead and that such an act by God serves as a promissory note for our own future. In fact, Paul is so confident in the power of God’s life-giving grace that he believes that all may be saved!

It is clear then that the leadership or kingship of Christ is one that engenders hope. It is a hope that the immediate defeats or sorrows do not have the last word. It is a hope that says that this life as lived now will one day be changed—have courage to do the right. Have courage to stand with Christ in the world.

What this means is quite apparent in Matthew’s last judgment scene. The great Catholic theologian Karl Rahner once wrote: that the last judgment is about God’s revealing the meaning of our lives as people and nations in the light of God’s absolute love. It is the light of the absolute love that has a special concern for the poor, the hurting and countless voiceless victims in the world. It is a God, a Lord, and a leader that helps us to assess our lives in whether or not we have responded to the needs of the least of these. This is the reason for the CCHD. It aims at giving hope by meeting immediate needs and working to empower people to help themselves. It is also directed toward changing the unjust structures that perpetuate poverty, racism and violence of all kinds. Compelled by the judgment that only those things born of love can share in the reign of God the bishop’s call us address this love of God to all the areas of life where people and the creation are hurting.

Christian leadership, in the Spirit of Christ, is one of giving expression to god’s inspiring and reckless love that engenders hope for the coming fullness of god’s reign. It is a leadership that gives voice to the voiceless who suffer from being forgotten by the policymakers of local, national, and international leadership. If the least of these are not a priority, then leaders and nations that do not respond to such needs are not worth a fig.

But the words of Paul that God may be all in all offer yet another hope! Is it possible that all are saved in the end? Again, Karl Rahner once stated, "while I must teach orthodox doctrine that damnation is a real possibility for human beings, I can hope that all will eventually be saved." In essence, our hope rests on a gracious Hod and a judge who was willing to die for us! This is a God, who raises to new life. A Christian leader embodies this hope in a life of service to the marginalized and the hurting. This is what brings hope to a world that so desperately needs it.

We follow a God, Christ our Lord and King that does not wait for us to seek after the Lord—this is a Lord in search of us. This is the promise of Ezkiel and Paul embodied in Jesus Christ our Lord. This is our hope when all else, even our choices fail in life fail.

In his book, "Questions of Faith," John Vannorsdall put it this way.

What sustains me is the belief that God is. And because God is, we have a future that is different from the present I know.

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded January 14, 2000