Are you the king of the Jews?
Pilate asked.
Jesus replied,
Do you ask this of your own accord,
Or have others spoken to you about me?
Pilate answered,
Am I a Jew?
It is your own people and the chief priests who have handed you over to me.
What have you done?
Jesus replied,
Mine is not a kingdom of this world.
If my kingdom were of this world,
My men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews.
But my kingdom is not of this kind.
So you are a king then?
Said Pilate.
It is you who say it,
Answered Jesus.
Yes,
I am a king.
I was born for this.
I came into the world for this,
To be witness to the truth.
And all who are on the side of truth,
Listen to my voice,
The Gospel of the Lord.
It might sound a bit divisive,
Our readings for today,
Where we see that everybody must acclaim Jesus,
Everybody must acclaim Christ as the king.
And then we ask ourselves,
What about other religions?
And what about other expressions of spirituality?
I think the message that we can find today in this celebration of Christ,
The king,
Is that Christ came to teach us one thing.
Christ came to take away all these rules and regulations that we needed in order to live a life that God likes,
That God prefers.
And he came to teach us two new rules.
Maybe just a different interpretation of all the old rules.
Love God and love each other.
And that is why the message of Christ is that of love that is unconditional.
And unfortunately,
It has now happened that many people have been hurt by a society and by a system that went backwards.
A society that started saying that we have these two rules.
Yes.
Follow them.
But there's always a but with us as humans,
Isn't there?
But you have to do it in this way.
But if you want to re-love,
Re-marry,
Then maybe not.
And it became this jumble of rules where Christ taught us,
Love man and love each other.
Now,
In that,
I think each and every person on this planet can acknowledge this lesson.
And each and every person on this planet can then acknowledge the sovereignty of Christ in love.
That love is what Christ came to teach.
No matter what your expression of religion or of spirituality is.
Like I said,
Many people have been hurt by the churches,
By the communities for asking questions.
That's a big no-no in many communities.
I remember growing up that in my community,
Some questions were not allowed to be asked.
And that is a way to protect the structure that man put onto a religion.
Christ isn't just the king of the Jews.
Christ isn't just the king of Christians.
The energy of Christ,
The ray of unconditional love permeates through each and every one of us.
And so it becomes quite challenging because Christ,
By default,
Is linked to the concept of just Christianity.
And the message of Christ is often times skewed and people run away when they hear that you want to share a message of Christianity.
Or from within the understanding of Christianity.
Unfortunately,
It is something that Christians need to live with because of the way that ourselves and our predecessors structured things.
So much so that people are moving away from Christianity and from religion because they say that I am spiritual but not religious.
I believe in God.
I believe in Jesus Christ even,
But I do not believe in Christianity.
And that is a bitter pull for us because we kind of deserve that.
Because from within Christianity,
It is so easy to judge.
That is what we were taught.
But what if we return to the original message of Christ?
What if we really make Christ the king in our lives?
The king in our hearts?
Don't you think that perhaps then,
No matter what religion or spiritual path people are on,
They will recognize the glow of the Holy Spirit inside of us?
And the Holy Spirit inside of them would maybe respond.
And without necessarily trying to evangelize everybody,
We can share in the message of Christ.
We can share in the commandment of Christ.
Love God and love each other.
And in doing so,
We honor Christ as our King.
Amen.
