Brief synopsis of the readings: Today we celebrate the last day of the liturgical year: the feast of Christ the King. Our first reading continues a passage from the Old Testament book of Daniel. It actually predates last week’s reading and proclaims a happy ending: “one like a Son of man” will come and receive “dominion, glory, and kingship.” The reading continues to describe a kingship that will never be destroyed. John’s Gospel gives an account of the dialogue between Jesus and Pontius Pilate. Pilate asks Jesus if he is a Jew. This dialogue moves beyond “who are you” and “are you a king” to a proclamation from Jesus that “[e]veryone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

We have a month until the end of the calendar year is over a month away, but today marks the end of the liturgical year. Next week begins the season of Advent as we prepare for Christmas.

So why do we celebrate our final Sunday as “Christ the King?” As Americans we look suspiciously on the word “king.” Our independence in 1776 grew out of contempt of the earthly King George III. We felt that his corruption gave us no choice but to sever our relationship with him.

Suspicion of an earthly king, though, goes back much earlier in history. In the Old Testament First Book of Samuel (chapters 8 and 9) the people ask for a king. This disturbs Samuel who prayed to God, but God answered and told him this: “Grant the people’s every request. It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king. As they have treated me constantly from the day I brought them up from Egypt to this day, deserting me and worshipping strange gods, so do they treat you too.”

God’s and Samuel’s exasperation are understandible when seen through the lens of the people’s desire for a king “as other nations have.” When God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, God made endless attempts to tell them that they entered into a covenant that called them to choose a different path from the pagans, the people on their borders.

God knew what we are still struggling to understand: placing absolute power in one person, no matter how good, will not end well. No matter how virtuous or chosen or wise we find someone, absolute power will corrupt.

Only Christ can be our king. But since his ascension after his resurrection he’s not here to rule. What do we do when none of us can rule in his place?

We’ve tried any number of solutions. Three hundred years after Jesus’ resurrection we had our first Christian Roman Emperor: Constantine. Five hundred years later Charlemagne was crowned king of the Holy Roman Empire. And while we look on these men with mixed feelings these kings certainly did not rule as Christ the King would have.

So what do we do? As we swoop over the last 2000 years we can see that we have celebrated good kings and endured bad ones. The same with Popes. And ultimately I think we’ve missed the point. We’ve been looking for one person when we would have been better off looking to all of us.

A king, an absolute ruler, needs to possess numerous gifts. He must be bold, wise, kind, understanding. He must be a visionary but practical. He must know when to charge in and when to hold back. He must be able to both encourage and reprimand. In short, he must be all things to all people.

Has there ever been one person who embodies all this? Of course not. God blesses nobody with all these gifts, and yet we continue to search for this person. In the late 1800s a German philosopher named Frederich Nietzsche wrote that we need a type of “superman” to rule us. Someone who would rise head and shoulders above the rest of us and know what needed to be done. Unfortunately he set the stage for Adolf Hitler to claim that role.

But if we believe what Paul tells us in the 12th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, the Holy Spirit gives us different gifts, different parts of the whole we need.

We are, all of us, the Body of Christ. We are all parts of the whole, and while we are all necessary, none of us is complete. In the final word, I think this feast of Christ the King demands not that we look for one person who embodies Christ, but that we joint together and use our gifts to form Christ the King.

I say this aware that I am being phenomenally counter cultural. We, in the 2nd decade of the 21st Century after Christ, are much too individualistic. Despite tremendous evidence and revelation to the contrary we continue to look for that one person, that easy answer, who will solve all of our problems and fulfill all of our needs. And we continue to be disappointed with those leaders we choose.

I’m an American and by this time next year we will have chosen our next President. Choosing our leader is an awesome responsibility and I’m grateful to have a vote, but I’m struck by how poorly served we are by most of the candidates. Those who feel called to leadership (I think) should be humbled by that call but that’s not what I see. Again and again I see ambitious and greedy people who will tell me anything to get my vote. I see people who insist that they are exactly what we need and our vote for them ensures a future of bliss and comfort.

But this method has never worked. We live in an era where collegiality and cooperation are viewed as signs of weakness and lack of leadership. Where compromise is defeatism and pragmatism is a sin. We live in an era where the best tool of leadership is a bulldozer, where might makes right and losers should be shunned and ignored.

We are called to better than that. If we are, as Scripture tells us, the Body of Christ, we need to take more seriously what Paul is telling the community of Corinth: we are all members of a single body. We are all given different gifts to serve the same whole. These gifts serve the same whole and none of them are better than the others.

As many of you know, I am a hospice chaplain. Pain at the end of life encompasses many dimensions. As a chaplain I am not well suited to palliate physical pain and the nurse next to me is not well suited to palliate spiritual pain. Our patient is only fully palliated when all the members of the team work together.

And our world demands that we look at each other not as rivals, but as teammates. It demands that we see our world as not something to conquer but something to celebrate. And it calls us to look on our faith not as something that celebrates my gifts but instead celebrates our gifts.

Postscript: I’m aware that calling this feast “Christ the King” is patriarchal. I’m also aware that my use of masculine terms may marginalize and anger some of you. I apologize. Our faith calls us to recognize the role of both men and women but our language has not yet caught up. I celebrate that the role of women in leadership continues to grow. And, to be frank, I work in healthcare where women have taken the lead for all of our history.