The Divine Right of Kings

 

Feast of Christ the King

Cycle A

Nancy and I have been binge watching monarchies lately, particularly those in Great Britain and France around the reigns of Henry VIII and Louis IV. We love period pieces, and the stories are so well written and made real because they are based on actual events. This was the time of the Divine Right of Kings, the belief that the sovereign derived his mandate and power directly from God, before he was even born, and that the king was accountable to no one but God. To love the king was to love God. To oppose the king was actually a sin against God. That reasoning removed all restraints on the king’s power, and each monarch seemed to draw more and more to himself as each fell deeper and deeper into tyranny. And tyranny, as it always does, was eventually overthrown by violent revolution.

 

What keeps striking us is how the people of those times reacted to the tyranny they experienced. The people seemed to love their king no matter what he did. They rarely attributed the evil he did to him but to his counsellors. No matter what horrible things were done to them they would not blame the king because the king was acting by the will of God. God had chosen him, so he was above blame.

 

The people looked to the king to be the instrument of God’s mercy and God’s punishment. They saw him as a benevolent father figure who gave and took away like the God of the Old Testament had. They expected the king to provide for the common good. It was his responsibility to see that they were fed, housed, and had the basic necessities of life. If they did not have these things it was the king’s fault. If they did it was because of the king’s bounty. Their own personal responsibility was taken away. It was not theirs to be their brother’s keeper, but the king’s. The king was the final judge and arbiter, and oftentimes that judgement seemed completely arbitrary. Loyalty to the king was the most important thing to them. Any hint of disloyalty was met with cruel retribution.

 

And the absolute monarchs were isolated from their people. They stayed within their own courts and never really had contact with the common people. They dismissed the suffering of their people because they never saw it firsthand nor experienced any want or need themselves. They never saw the hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, sick or prisoners. They had no compassion for them outside of their need to believe they were loved by their people. They lived in manufactured bubbles. I think very much like many of our secular and religious leaders today.

 

Each year we have different readings for the Feast of Christ the King, and this year we hear the famous passage from St. Matthew’s gospel about the final judgement. Matthew 25 is one of my favorite passages. We hear of how the king will judge everyone at the end of the age. Judgement is reserved to the king, and this king is truly the absolute monarch, but his judgement is different from the absolute monarchs of Western civilization. Whereas the kings of the Middle Ages judged arbitrarily according to loyalty to the crown, our king puts judgement squarely our interactions with other people. The kings of old were seen as the providers of good to the people. Our king sees us as having that responsibility also.

 

The differences between our king, Jesus Christ, and the kings of old are many. Our king did not live in a bubble, surrounded by courtiers and sycophants and removed from the people. Rather, he lived and moved amongst them, living as they did, simply and poorly. His courtiers were not aristocrats and wealthy noblemen but simple people, tax collectors and prostitutes. He experienced hunger and thirst, sickness and nakedness. He was a prisoner himself. The image we have of our king is the good shepherd, not the autocrat, and our king truly did smell like his sheep.

 

And whenever he encountered someone who was suffering, he first healed them, then redeemed them. He took care of their physical needs first; then he showed them the way to eternal life. By lifting them up out of their misery he freed them to be able to accept him as their Lord and savior. He never imposed his will upon them, even though he had the power and authority to do so, he simply called them to discipleship. To our king, absolute power manifests itself in compassion and mercy. That is the example he left us, and it is by that example we will ultimately be judged.

 

It’s easy for us to make excuses for our responsibility to our fellow human beings. It is easy to delegate it to the state, or to someone else but ourselves. We too often live in our own bubbles, concerned mostly about ourselves, or our immediate families and group of friends. What has always bothered me about this gospel passage is that the people whom the king judges harshly are not bad people. They are not going out and oppressing people to cause their hunger or thirst, nakedness or imprisonment. And it doesn’t even matter that they are unaware of their neglect. In fact, that makes it worse. It is the sins of omission that are judged the most harshly. Ignorance is not an excuse. Apathy is the worst sin. To our king and judge in this passage, your intent and motivation is not important. Did you help others or not?

 

In these days of pandemic we are becoming even more and more isolated from one another. We are living in artificial bubbles, some of our own creation and some imposed upon us. At times like these it is easy and natural to focus on our own situations and not upon those of others. If we don’t see it on the news or on the internet or social media it isn’t real to us. We jump from crisis to crisis and so are unaware or ignore the fact that so many people are hurting and need our compassion, prayers, and assistance. And so many times it is we ourselves who require that. Yes, we are all hurting, but we must not allow that to be an excuse or reason to not reach out to others. Jesus didn’t give any exemptions to loving our neighbor as ourselves, he just said to do it.

 

The monarchs of the Middle Ages claimed the Divine Right of Kings from God, and their absolute power led to horrible suffering for their people. Jesus actually is the Divine King, and his absolute power has freed us from sin and eternal death. He has absolute power and authority, yet he submitted his will to that of his Father. He asks us to do the same. He asks us to show compassion and mercy to everyone we meet, just as he does. He holds us up to the same standard that he held himself to. And just as his submission to the will of God led to his glorification, so will our submission lead to ours.