Christ the King A

In his first encyclical letter, called, in Latin, Deus Caritas Est – God is Love, written in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI presents the world with a view of erotic, sexual love fit for the age in which we live. Along with the writings of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, known as his Theology of the Body, it forms the basis of an important knew sex-education project which will begin to be taught in schools throughout Scotland, including, of course, St Joseph’s Academy, next spring. And having spent a whole morning recently looking at it with the teachers who will be implementing it, I feel very positive about the vision it offers and am confident that, provided it is well presented, it can have a long-term beneficial impact on our young people. But for this to happen, it’s absolutely vital that the rest of us be in tune with that vision. The programme will have little chance of success if, by the time they reach secondary school, our young people have already picked up the kind of negativity around sex and sexuality which many of us grew up with and which I would like to look at briefly today.Then, hopefully, by the time we are finished, the connection between that and today’s gospel will be clearer.

At the very beginning of his encyclical, the Pope rejects the criticism made by the German philosopher, Nietzsche, that Christianity has poisoned eros causing sex and sexuality to degenerate into vice. In a phrase which surprised many by its reference to football - not something Popes tend to speak about in encyclicals - the Pope wrote; ‘Doesn’t she (the Church) blow the whistle just when the joy that is the creator’s gift offers us a happiness which is itself a certain foretaste of the divine?’ - echoes here of that old Catholic dilemma ‘How far can you go?’ The Pope’s answer, needless to say, is that Christianity has not poisoned eros at all, that the widely held perception that the Church, ‘with all her commandments and prohibitions, turns to bitterness the most precious thing in life’ - Pope Benedict’s own words - is not true. And while, he is right to say that Christianity, at its best, has not done this, at its worst it undoubtedly has. Even in the 1940s, I am told, there were still moral text books around in the seminaries which taught that sexual intercourse, even between husband and wife, was at least venially sinful. Where else would the idea which dominated Church thinking for centuries have come from, that to withdraw from the world and live a celibate life was a superior way of living to the married state, condemning millions of ordinary people to a kind of second rate citizenship within the Church, an idea finally only put to rest by Vatican II. And why else would the Church, at particular times in history, have put prohibitions on married couples having sex during Advent, or Lent, or on a Friday, or on certain feast days, if they had not believed that, at some level, sex was an ungodly and unholy activity? And, while fundamentally this has nothing to do with authentic Christianity and everything to do with ancient distortions of it, it’s hardly surprising that people perceive us as being obsessed with sex at the expense of everything else when it comes to questions of morality.

And yet, when we turn to the four gospels, the starting point for all Christian morality, it’s all so different. You will search there in vain for evidence of a Jesus who has much to say at all about sex, the one obvious exception being his encounter with the woman caught committing adultery. And there, his words, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go and do not sin any more’ ring down through the centuries. And many times we are told that he mixed with prostitutes and sinners, always showing great compassion in the face of human weakness. In the first reading, we read how God seeks out the lost one and bandages the wounded, there being no area of human life with more lost or wounded individuals than in the area of human relationships and sexuality. I never remember jokes, but there is one from more than forty years ago that I will never forget. It’s the one about the Final Judgement where all the people are queued up waiting for their turn to face their creator, with all the Popes, bishops and priests at the front. And suddenly, the people at the back hear a huge cheer go up ahead of them as papal tiaras, bishops mitres and priest’s birettas fly up into the air. And then the news filters back. The sixth and ninth commandments, the ones about sex, don’t count. And I remember that story because, even then, as a young student, I knew there was a profound truth in it.

And yet, when it comes to matters of justice – the connection with today’s Gospel – it’s all very different. Jesus’ words in today’s story of the Final Judgement could not be more clear. Christian morality isn’t about sex and sexually related matters. It’s first and foremost very clearly about justice. It is about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, visiting those in prison and so on. A Christian is quite simply someone who lives justly in the midst of the world, doing what he/she can to bring about God’s kingdom of justice in history through living according to the teaching of his Son Jesus Christ.. And yet how we struggle to really understand this. I remember just after I came here more than twenty three years ago having a meeting in the hall to discuss the possible formation of a Justice and Peace Group. After a while, a senior parishioner, long since dead now, put his hand up and asked a question. ‘Is this Justice and Peace American?’ he said, the clear implication being that it was some kind of new-fangled thing which, like the charismatic movement or women’s lib, both topical at the time, had nothing to do with us. Nowadays, of course, we would not have a Justice and Peace Group as such for the simple reason that Justice and Peace is not something a Catholic can choose to be in or out of. It’s of the very essence of what it means to be one.

So ponder this today. Understand it. Know deep within yourself that, while sexual morality matters and we have something of immense value to say to the world about it – hence the work soon to begin with the young people in our schools - of far greater importance are questions of justice. That’s what the Feast of Christ the King is really about. That’s what we really mean when we say ‘Thy Kingdom come!’

BIDDING PRAYERS

Not without reason, many people in the world today see the Church as obsessed with sex, anti the human body and driven by reactionary ways of thinking which belong to a past age. But while there has often been truth in this, fundamentally it is not what the Church is about. Properly understood and properly explained, there is no more beautiful or positive vision of human sexuality that the Christian one, and we pray that the modern world will come, in time, to see this......................Lord hear us

Sadly, many in the Church itself have been deeply affected by negative ways of thinking about sex and sexuality. As a result, sex, even within marriage, has often been surrounded by guilt and anxiety, often causing deep unhappiness and not infrequently leading to the break-up of marriages. And so we pray for all who are caught up in this trap, that they, too, will come to see human sexuality for the wonderful gift it is from God............Lord hear us

And we pray for our young people. Born into a world where there are virtually no landmarks or guidelines in the area of sexuality, they are often left to find their own way through trial and error. As a result, many are hurt along the way. And so we pray that the new initiative we have heard about today will provide them with the support, inspiration and vision they need to make good choices about the way they live their sexuality..............Lord hear us

Hurt and damaged young people grow into hurt and damaged adults unless something is done to heal the hurt. Amidst so much confusion today concerning what it is to be a sexual person, there are millions of hurt and damaged people in our society. And so we pray that the Churches, rather than condemning, will be an instrument of the God we heard about in the first reading; the God who seeks out the lost, brings back the stray and bandages the wounded..................Lord hear us
Despite everything that has been said since the Second Vatican Council, there are still many people in the Church who see issues of Justice and Peace as an optional extra, not something essential to what it means to be a Catholic. And yet, as today’s Gospel passage makes clear, nothing could be further from the truth. To come to Mass each week carries with it an obligation to reach out to all who are in need and we pray for the wisdom we need to see what that means in our own lives............Lord hear us

The Feast of Christ the King brings to an end our latest journey through the Church’s year. Next Sunday, we begin again with the First Sunday of Advent. And so we ask God to stir in us, through the power of the Spirit, a deep sense of gratitude for all that we have received here over the last year. And we pray that, as the whole journey begins over again, we will be even more open than we have been before to the mysteries we celebrate each week together....Lord hear us