THE KING WHO FORGIVES

A Sermon for the 22nd Sunday After Trinity & the Feast of Christ the King

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

INTRODUCTION

Beloved in Christ, this morning is the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity, when our hearts are also fixed on the glory of Christ the King, the sovereign Lord who reigns not with earthly dominion but with the mercy flowing from His pierced and outstretched hands. We gather together in the royal array of His coming Kingdom, dressed in our white robes of His righteousness, and partaking in the Feast of the Kingdom, which is His Body and His Blood.

This week’s saints prepare us for this contemplation. St. Proclus of Constantinople reminds us that Christ’s monarchy is the kingship of truth, not coercion. St. Edmund the Martyr embodies the paradox of Christian sovereignty, and that the one who bows to Christ’s lordship becomes stronger than the mightiest empire. And in the Presentation of the Most Holy Virgin, we glimpse the humility through which Christ the King fashions His royal household, by making a Queen of a child, a Mother of a virgin, and an eternally exalted ruler in Heaven out of an earthly slave. All those who wholly offer themselves become the living temple where the King Himself dwells, and become like the most holy Theotokos.

As autumn deepens, creation itself preaches the monarchy of Christ. Leaves surrender, winds turn, and the world bows its head. Yet, in this descent into the frozen world of death and dark, a deeper order emerges. The resurrection will come, and the warmth and light of Spring will dawn, just as we know that Christ will return and bring life and light again to this sick and entropy-filled universe. So, the Christian bows to Christ not in fear of a corruptible leader, with power to coerce derived from violence and control, but in participation in His life-giving reign and submission to His eternal love, which emanates in our hearts in faith. Today’s Scriptures open this Kingdom to us, revealing that the heart’s true allegiance to Christ the King is proven above all in the work of forgiveness.

CENTRAL MOTIF

Christ reigns by mercy; therefore His subjects must become merciful. Forgiveness is the signature of the Kingdom. He forgives us, so that we must forgive others.

COMMENTARY ON THE LESSONS

In the Old Testament, the tribes of Reuben and Gad stand on the threshold of the Promised Land, hesitating to cross the Jordan. Their request to remain east of the river is not mere practicality, but is a subtle refusal to participate in the unity and burden of God’s people. St. Moses rebukes them: “Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?” He exposes their inward withdrawal from the common life. St. Gregory the Great teaches that when the heart seeks its own advantage, unity collapses. And unity, beloved, is the visible mark of a people who acknowledge God as King. The refusal to walk with the brethren is not only discouragement, but it is a denial of Christ’s kingship over the people. Forgiveness, likewise, is not an optional kindness but the very bond of a Kingdom shaped by mercy. To cling to resentment is to stand east of the Jordan, refusing the land where Christ the King reigns.

St. Paul lifts this theme into its heavenly radiance in Colossians. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.” In the light of Christ the King, the Apostle describes the dethronement of the old man in anger, wrath, malice, covetousness, and the inner rebellion where the ego sits upon an illicit throne. These passions are the tyrants of the fallen heart, counterfeit kings demanding loyalty through bitterness and revenge. But Christ, the true King, commands us to put off this old sovereignty and put on the new man, renewed after the image of the Creator. Mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, forgiveness, and all these are the garments of those who serve the King. And over all, charity, “the bond of perfectness,” which St. John Chrysostom calls the robe of Christ Himself. When we forgive, we are not simply performing a moral deed, because we are bowing before Christ’s throne and renouncing the rebellious dominion of the passions.

The Epistle to the Philippians reveals the inner atmosphere of a heart that has submitted itself to Christ the King. “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,” Paul writes, with the tenderness of a shepherd whose heart has been conquered by divine charity. His joy, unity, intercession, and longing flow from a soul where Christ’s reign is undisputed. “That your love may abound more and more in knowledge and all judgment.” This is royal wisdom, discernment governed by charity, justice balanced by mercy, and unity sustained by self-offering. St. Augustine reminds us that love is no softness but the keen light by which one judges rightly. Only hearts ruled by Christ can forgive rightly, wisely, and truly, because we submit to Him when He says, “Judgment is mine: I shall repay” (Romans 12:19).

Then comes the Gospel, unveiling with complete clarity the nature of Christ’s Kingdom: it is a Kingdom of infinite mercy. Peter asks: “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?” The King answers: “Not seven times, but seventy times seven.” In Hebrew numerical idiom, this means: “My Kingdom has no limit to mercy.” Christ then tells the parable of the unforgiving servant, who was a man forgiven an impossible debt, who then seizes a fellow servant over a trivial one. His refusal to forgive reveals he never truly bowed to the King’s mercy in his heart, but was merely being performative in His respect. St. Isaac the Assyrian warns that the one who refuses mercy closes the door of his own heart, preventing grace from entering, locking himself in Hell. Christ the King reigns through forgiveness, and frees us to forgive; therefore His subjects must forgive, lest they betray the very Kingdom they claim to serve.

SERMON

Beloved, in this radiant light of Christ the King, the meaning of forgiveness becomes unmistakable. Forgiveness is the coronation of Christ in the heart. It is the dethronement of anger, the overthrow of wrath, the casting down of the old man’s insurgency. The unforgiving soul is not merely hard-hearted; but it is disloyal to Christ and to the Church. It kneels before the ego instead of the King. The forgiving soul, by contrast, is the soul that has truly seen the King in His beauty. Christ whose throne is the Cross, whose scepter is mercy, whose crown is humility, and whose royal decree is love, is seen with eyes of purity and humility. To forgive is to imitate the King; to refuse forgiveness is to renounce His Kingdom and live in false piety.

Our world is hungry for such a vision of kingship. The kingdoms of this world quivers in wrath, conflict, pride, and bitter division. Nations fracture; families fracture; local churches fracture. But Christ the King does not reign in this worldly, violent, death-centered way. Christ reigns not by force or fear, but by reconciling all things unto Himself, imparting life, and brining true healing and maturity. Christ does not react, resent, or hold bitterness or grudges, and He calls us to lay down these burdens when we are picking up our cross and following Him. And the sign that His Kingdom is breaking into this world is forgiveness, which is freely given, humbly offered, sacrificially sustained, and received as blessing and life. When Christians forgive, the world sees that true kingship and authority are not of this world.

ASCETICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL APPLICATION

The passions that St. Paul’s describes are the inner tyrants that resist Christ’s monarchy. Anger narrows the world; wrath inflates the ego; malice poisons memory; bitterness traps the soul in an endless loop of hatred and resentment that ultimately makes our enemies our gods; internal negativity, rooted in resentment, erodes our ability to pray. We become the very things that we hate. Only forgiving cuts the spiritual bondage that attaches us to our past abuse, trauma, sin and dysfunction. Forgiveness is the liberation of the heart from these usurpers to the throne of our hearts. It is the therapy of the soul, the healing of the imagination, the restoration of truth to memory. The forgiving heart is the heart where Christ the King reigns unopposed. The forgiving heart is a forgiven heart, an one upon which Christ reigns as Pantocrator. What is the best way to practice forgiveness? To pray for those who despise us, hurtfully use us, abuse us, and those who persecute us, as Jesus commanded us.

REFLECTION

In considering how difficult my own journey to forgiveness has been, crushed by evil politics in the Church, the egos of men with bad motives, and the extreme controversies of people with strongly held and opposite position, I wrote the following meditation that I now share with you…

Forgiveness

When I was young, clear-hearted and naïve in my relationship with God

I hardly dared, to think of the pain that I would later have

From so many men, enemies of my soul, who sought to be my God

And tried to condemn my soul to Hell, their inner wounds to salve

And as I learned, how hard these lessons fell upon my soul

Like arrows in my lungs, making it hard to stand and breathe

Each mortal blow, each sharp attack a gaping hole

Left me feeling darkened, deflated, empty, and totally bereaved

Only as I thought upon my own great load of sin

And remembered that I am like all those I hate

Asking God the oil of His mercy to be poured within

Did I feel His grace start to heal my broken inner state

Now I know that these painful wounds and deep, deep scars

Are meant to conform me to the image of my crucified Lord

He suffered for me, His hands and feet nailed to those wooden bars

The pain I have now is a mere token of the love that I adore

Help me, O Lord, to remember to forgive and to surrender

To turn away from my resentment, bitterness and desire for revenge

Help me, O Savior, to continue to be warm, compassionate and tender

And trust your wisdom and mercy in how you choose to avenge

FINAL EXHORTATION

Beloved, Christ the King has forgiven us ten thousand bars of gold, which is our infinite debt accrued through sin and carelessness. Let us therefore forgive the hundred pennies owed by others to us, for all the ways that they have offended and abused us. Let us put on the royal garment of charity, the bond of perfectness, the simple wool and linen garments of peace, the ancient attire of worship: our baptismal robes of white, representing our baptisms, and our out garments of black, representing our constant repentance. Let us enter the Kingdom not in word only but also in deed, proving our allegiance by the mercy we show to others. Remembering that we forgive because we are forgiven. Let us allow Christ to reign as King to reign: first in our hearts, then in our homes, then in His Church, then in the world. And when Christ is King of everything in our hearts, our internal worlds, then He will be King in the outside world as well. Ring by ring. Rung by rung. Circle by concentric circle. When He comes again in glory, may He find in us the hearts of forgiven men and women, truly like Him, transformed by the mercy of the King Whose only throne is a humble wooden Cross.

COLLECT

O Almighty and Everlasting God, who hast set Thy beloved Son to be King of kings and Lord of lords, and in whose Kingdom mercy is the law of life: Grant us grace to renounce the tyranny of wrath and bitterness, and to put on the new man, created after Thy likeness in righteousness and true holiness. Subdue within us every passion that resists Thy sovereignty, and kindle in our hearts the spirit of forgiveness, that we may show forth the mercy of Christ our King, and walk in charity, the bond of perfectness; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.