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‘Christ the King in the least’

Sermon preached by

the Rt.Rev’d Dr. Trevor

Mwamba

at

St. Martin’s Church, West Acton,

London, W3 9SQ

Sunday 23rd

November, 2014

Feast of Christ the King

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May I start with a confession having been the Bishop of

Botswana. Yes, I know Mma Ramotswe, the heroine of the

bestselling series of books: The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, written by my friend Alexander McCall Smith.

Mma Ramotswe, you will be delighted to hear is an Anglican. In

the book, The Company of Cheerful Ladies, she attends a Service

where I am preaching at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, in

Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. But Mma Ramotswe is not

concentrating on the sermon as her mind is wandering how to

solve a case involving a pumpkin. She stops herself and thinks,

‘This is not the way to listen to Trevor Mwamba’! I am certain your

minds are clear of pumpkins!

We gather in worship this morning to celebrate the Feast of Christ

the King. And the question I pose is what does this mean for each

of us here?

On Thursday, last week, I was in Oxford to take part in a

Westminster Faith Debate on Diversity.

From Church history it’s clear that diversity is something that the

Church has always grappled with in different forms. We see this

with the Apostles Peter and Paul. Peter concerned with the

Jewish followers of Jesus as the heart of the new Christian

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religion, looked to tradition and unity; whilst Paul stressing the

universality of Christianity looked at the Gentiles and change. The

Council of Jerusalem tried to resolve this issue of diversity, the

Petrine and Pauline aspects of the Church reflected in the

traditional and the prophetic. The wisdom of the early church

fathers was that they decided that Peter and Paul should share a

feast day together symbolizing that tradition and prophecy should

always be in a continuing dialogue. Here lies the key to dealing

with diversity, its learning to live with differences in our world and

church in mutual understanding, love, and respect.

An insight which Archbishop Robert Runcie wisely stated in 1981,

in a book entitled, Grow or Die, he wrote “…no single form of

Christian experience, conviction or organization is going to prevail

over others. …But all must learn to live together, for in religion, as

in all else, the same things do not appeal to everybody”.

The beauty of life is its diversity in all its complexity, wonder, and

mystery. There is a parable on diversity set in an African forest to

illustrate my point.

A blind rabbit and blind snake met. And since they could not

make out who the other was they decided to feel each other and

identify themselves. The snake started first and touching the

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rabbit said, “You are furry, have long ears, a short stumpy tail, you

are a rabbit. The rabbit shouted enthusiastically jumping up and

down, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Then the rabbit touched the snake and said, “You are rather long

and cold blooded, have beady eyes, a forked tongue, are slithery

and no means of self- locomotion. You must be a Theologian”!

Such is diversity it’s wide and includes but is not narrowly

confined to: race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social-

economic status, culture, ethnic minorities, diverse physical or

mental abilities, political views, etc.

People often think in compartments and see life as a jumble of

unrelated, people, cultures, and events – untrue.

The truth is that everything in life is interconnected. Everything is

a piece of God’s puzzle, different, yes, but pieces of a puzzle that

joined together forms a lovely picture of life.

People move in and out of each other’s lives, and each leaves his

or her mark on the other. We find we are made up of bits and

pieces of all who have touched our lives, and we are more

because of it, and we would be less if they had not touched us.

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Each of us unique, different, and beautiful is enriched in our

humanity by diversity, by others who are different from us.

From an African perceptive we could speak of the spirit of Ubuntu,

meaning I am because you are. Or has Maya Angelou said, “I go

forth alone, and stand as ten thousand”. Or John Donne, “No man

is an island entire of itself everyman is a piece of the continent, a

part of the main”. Or in Christian belief we are the mystical body

of Christ, in fellowship with one another.

All these diversity is held together in Christ the King. Christ who

is ‘above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and

above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in

the age to come. Christ on whom God has put all things under his

feet and has made him the head over all things for the Church,

which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.’

(Ephesians 1:21 -23)

Christ who fills all in all, fills each of us too, and in the least of

those we despise, demean, and ignore in life hides Christ the

King. In diversity a door to eternity flickers open and to quote

Rumi the mystic, ‘what I once thought of as God I met today as a

human being’. I meet you as God.

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So every encounter in life becomes sacred. We feed Christ the

King in the hungry, we give water to Christ the King in the thirsty,

we welcome Christ the King in the stranger, we clothe Christ the

King in the naked, we visit Christ the King in the sick and the

prisoner.

This is what the Feast of Christ the King means for us. Christ the

King in our ordinary day to day activities making holy all we do in

thought, word, and deed, for the least of his brethren.

On this Feast of Christ the King we launch the study / academic

programme, under the title of St. Martin’s Foundation and pray

that we may grow in a deeper knowledge of God, to know him as

he knows us.

We pray that we may be stirred up so our stodgy and heavy wills

may be freed to plenteously bring forth the fruits of good works; to

love another, as Christ the King who fills all in all, loves each one

of us in our diversity.