Jesus’s relationship with the words king and kingdom caused nothing but trouble during his whole life. Up on the cross we are told there was a sign, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. You’ve all seen the letters INRI at the top of the cross in images of the crucifixion — that’s what the letters stand for. In a way, he was crucified over a misunderstanding of what kind of king Jesus said he was. On the one hand, once when people came looking for Jesus and they wanted to make him a king, Jesus ran away, because whatever kind of king they were thinking of, that wasn’t it.…
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There are endless jokes about the scene that confronts people after they die. Most of them involve St. Peter, and a gate, and a large book in which records of their lives are kept. These stories might also involve three priests, or a priest, a minister and a rabbi. Many of the funniest ones, for some reason, involve lawyers. You’ve all heard them. They all tend to hinge on what you have to do to get through the gate into heaven, and there’s usually a lot of confusion and strange loopholes, or cases of mistaken identity or complicated questions you get asked. Maybe we tell so many jokes because the…
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The gospels are filled with things that Jesus said that we sometimes wish he had never said. About taking up the cross and following him. About the difficulties of being concerned about money and success. About how treatment of the poor is how we are measured as Christians. All those difficult phrases that stay with us, and bother us, and help us understand him better, difficult as they are. But today, on this feast of Christ the King, in the gospel we hear something that I wonder if Jesus himself regrets having said. Not because it isn’t true, but because it has long been so easy to misinterpret him, and…