One of the things about publishing my journal, as opposed to simply keeping a journal for private use, is that I worry a bit about repetition. I come by the worry about repetition naturally, after having been a preacher for 42 years of my life. Throughout my career, I followed the Revised Common Lectionary, a calendar of texts for worship, that is set in a three-year cycle. That means that throughout my career, the texts that formed the basis of my sermons repeated. My job as a preacher, however, was not just to read and reflect on the texts, but rather to enable the congregations I served to make connections between the texts and the lives they were living. While there are events in our lives that are based in tradition and repeated, our experience changes as we age and the meaning of these events continues to be fresh.

I know that I have written before in my journal about the last Sunday of the church year known as Christ the King or Reign of Christ. And I suppose that I could spend some time in preparation for today’s essay by going back through previously-published journal entries to see what I have written on this day of the year before. However, such research isn’t my style in writing personal essays.

If you find the topic of today’s journal to be repetitious, feel free to skip this one. There will be fresh topics in the days to come.

Unlike most of the days of the Christian Calendar, Christ the King, also known as Reign of Christ, is not an ancient holiday with its roots in the early church. It is a 20th century addition to the Christian calendar and has been observed in Protestant Churches for less than my lifetime. The festival began in the Roman Catholic church under the direction of Pope Pius XI in 1925. The pope was concerned about the destructive forces of the modern world: secularism in the west, the rise of communism in Russia and fascism in Italy and Spain, forerunners of the Nazism soon to overtake Germany. The intent of the festival was to celebrate the rule of Christ over all of the earth as a contrast to the totalitarian claims of these ideologies.

I suppose that the Roman Catholic perspective is different from that of Protestants, but from a Protestant point of view, it was more than coincidence that the day chosen by Pius for the recognition of Christ the King was the last Sunday in October, coinciding with the Protestant celebration of Reformation Sunday - a celebration with more ancient roots, but observed only in Protestant churches. It was seen by some Protestants as a kind of “Counter-Reformation Day” and generally not observed in Protestant churches.

After the Second Vatican Council in 1963, however, the Roman liturgy and calendar was reformed. Part of that reformation was moving the festival of Christ the king to the last Sunday of the Church Year, just before the first Sunday of Advent and the beginning of a new year in the Christian calendar. The effect of this move became more than an ecumenical gesture. The last Sunday of the church year already had a tradition of emphasis of thinking about the end of history, called “eschatology” by theologians. The combination of thinking about how God interacts with human history and celebrating the reign of Christ resulted in a revival of the festival’s original intention of celebrating the distinction between the teachings of the church and the aspirations of political leaders.

When the Revised Common Lectionary began to be adopted by Protestant Congregations in the late 1970’s, Christ the King became a part of the recognized liturgy for congregations that follow that pattern of readings. The texts chosen for this Sunday are an amalgamation of the epistle and gospel readings for the original October celebration of Christ the King and those for the last Sunday after Pentecost in the old Roman lectionary. in year B, the middle year of the lectionary and the year that ends with this Sunday, the gospel text for the old October Christ the King festival was adopted as the reading for the last Sunday of the year. It is the dialogue between Jesus and Pontius Pilate in John 18:33-37 in which Pilate asks Jesus if he is the king of the Jews.

That is probably way more detail than most members of contemporary congregations want to hear, but it seems especially relevant this year as we witness the turmoil in our own country over the conflicting ideologies and world views of a Trump-led Republican party and those of a very slim majority of centrist and left-leaning politicians. This division has affected families, is determining who will be included in family Thanksgiving celebrations this week, and created deep divisions in local communities and local politics. The verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case has generated deep acrimony and angry debate.

In contrast to this deep divisiveness in our country, the past week here in the Pacific Northwest has brought about a powerfully renewed sense of community as we have pulled together to help our neighbors deal with the effects of damaging floods, and continue to reach out to help those in communities cut off by landslides and destroyed highways and railroads. We have found a way to set aside our political differences and pull together as a community.

The basic idea of Christ the King, that there is a power in this world that more important than the politics of government, seems to be critical in these times. The symbol of the United Church of Christ is an acknowledgement of this concept. It is a cross on an orb with a crown at the top. The orb represents the globe - the entire world divided into three sections, as in opening of the Acts of the Apostles: “Then you will be my witnesses to testify about me in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The crown at the top of the cross symbolizes the rule of Jesus, even from the cross over the political powers of this world.

As we celebrate today, we would do well to remember our charge not to submit to the totalistic claims of present political ideologies, but rather to live our lives in service to Jesus and all people as children of God.