Christ the King

November 23, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Christ the King” based on Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Philippians 4:4-9

Today is “Reign of Christ Sunday” or in more historical language “Christ the King Sunday.” It is the final Sunday of the Christian year, as we start a new one next week with Advent. We’ve been counting Sundays after the Pentecost for a while now, this is #24. Fun fact, the times when we are counting Sundays after something are called ordinary time. It is really easy to presume that’s because nothing special is going on and they’re thus “ordinary” but it actually refers to ordinal numbers “1st” “2nd” “3rd” etc. OK, fine, my fact wasn’t that fun.

Anyway, at this culmination of the Christian year we find Christ the King Sunday where we celebrate the ways that the Kindom of God is here on earth and anticipate the Kindom coming in fullness. It is a time when we can contrast the ways of the “kingdoms” and “empires” of the world with the dreams of God for an earthly reality of abundant, communal, sustainable living.

This year, there has been more conversation about kingship in the United States than we tend to have. There have been condemnations of those who seek to use democratically elected positions in authoritarian ways like monarchs do. That condemnation is really in the spirit of Christ the King Sunday. (Yes, I do prefer “Reign of Christ” language but my point is clearer with “Christ the King.”)

The difference between the Kingdoms of the world and the kindom of God is immense. Kingdoms are top down, they benefit the king and those he prizes, and and to do so control the masses, impoverish the many for the sake of profound wealth for the few, use religion to prop up systems of control and dehumanization, lash back at dissenters, blame minority groups for the struggles of the masses to deflect blame from those truly benefiting, thrive on hierarchy and fear, and mostly exist to move resources to the top of the hierarchy.

Sound about right?

The kindom of God is flat. It isn’t a kingdom with a king, it is a kindom where people treat each other as kin. No one is above or below anyone else because we are all made in the image of God. The kindom of God is mutual, it lives ubuntu – the reality that our well-being is inherently interconnected. The kindom of God uses collective wisdom for collective well-being. The kindom of God uses just resource distribution as a means to care for all of God’s people, so that all may live and thrive. Or to go back to the quote that I loved so much last week, in the kindom of God resources will be used “so that all may luxuriate in life as the creator intends.”1 The kindom of God doesn’t require people to live in fear or anxiety, in loneliness nor isolation. It is meant for the thriving of people, all people. It delights in diversity, takes serious the wisdom of minority groups and dissenting individuals, engages in shared decision making (even though it is slow because it moves at the speed of trust), and in the kindom of God there is no longer a need for the church nor clergy because everyone is able to teach everyone else about God and God’s love. (This is under the idea that the goal of every non-profit is to put itself out of existence.)

Deuteronomy is seeking the kindom by giving people instructions about how to live well in a shared society. This is a passage about tithing, about each person sharing 10% of what they have for the common good to balance out the differences between those doing well and those struggling. This is a passage about humility, where the people retell the story that it is God’s goodness that takes care of them and gives them abundance and not their own labor. This is a passage about the practice of faith.

And the ending blows me away. After the tithe has been given, the instructions are, “Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.” Now, I LOVE that the gifts given to God are directly used to take care of everyone. The Levites are the ones without land, so without the gifts given to God, the ones who are to use their lives attending to the things of God wouldn’t have anything – including anything to eat. The aliens, the foreigners, were also cut out of land distribution, and were thus dependent on those who grew the food sharing in order to eat.

In these instructions for the people settling into the land they’d long dreamed of, God asks them to take the first fruits, give them to God, and let them be used to care for those without. AND then those with and those without CELEBRATE together the bounty of God.

Because it turns out that there is enough for everyone when the resources are shared.

Because this is a kindom of God vision and not a Kingdom of this world one. The resources are only too small to take care of all the people when the resources are being distributed unjustly and some take more than their fair share and thus deprive others of a share at all.

Both Deuteronomy and Philippians focus on giving thanks to God for God’s abundant good gifts. For life in the land of milk and honey. For God’s care and love and trustworthiness. For the people living out God’s ways in the world by being gentle, and living in communal shalom (peaceful well-being).

The United States tradition of Thanksgiving is fraught with narratives that glorify the European settlers and dismiss the history of those of European descent in the Americas enacting genocide on the Native Americans who were indigenous to this land. And, for some of us, it is also a holiday we love dearly with great traditions and family connections and food we love.

I believe it is necessary to hold those truths together.

And whether or not we want to associate gratitude with the USA holiday of Thanksgiving, the act of giving thanks is an important part of our faith. So, too is rejoicing.

It is my hope that the commitments people make in their pledging for 2026 are commitments made out of gratitude for what God has done in their lives and out of a desire to be part of what God is doing in this community.

I wonder, sometimes, what story we should tell. It may still be that “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor… and when my people were affliction God found a way to get us out.” But there are other stories too, stories of why we give. “I moved here and was alone and lost, and found people who cared.” “I needed to be with other people who believe that God’s love for everyone means everyone has a right to eat.” “I was lost, and God found me, and I found this place.” “God has given me life, and I am grateful.”

The stories we tell ourselves about what God has been up to in our lives, and how that has led us to respond with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness… those stories are REALLY important. Maybe, even, you might want to tell someone else that story? Maybe you’d be willing to share the summary of the story in a moment when we receive pledges, and tell people the fuller story if they ask??

Because I think those are our stories of seeing the kindom of God, of practicing the kindom of God, of deciding use our lives to build the kindom of God.

The stories we have, the ones that lead us to giving back in gratitude, those are the stories of us rejecting the Kingdoms of Oppression and Hierarchy and turning to the kindom of mutual care and connection.

Let’s keep remembering and practicing those stories, with each other and in our hearts, because they help keep us grounded to choose the kindom of life and not the kingdoms of death. Thanks be to God. Amen

1Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah Vo. 2: 40-66 in Westminster Bible Companion Series, edited by Patrick D. Miller and David A. Bartlett (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 248.