2023.11.26 Tears of Grace, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

This is the day on the church calendar when we are invited to remember Christ the King ( the one heart able to be benevolent no matter what or who). 

I can’t say too much for royalty, except I do love movie heroes like King Kong, simply for their bold chutzpah. Imagine hanging onto a screaming damsel, blonde of course, and thumping your chest with vainglory when you’re a kidnapper of malicious intent! Well, yes, I can imagine that kind of triumphalism. But I’m a brunette and always have been, so not for me. 

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Christ the King Sunday was, in 1986,  the Sunday of my second marriage, this one to the parish rector at my home parish in the midst of a Sunday Eucharist. Our guest list was easy: the congregation and invited family. An unimaginably perfect setting with one objection I’d already voiced, my aversion to the KING image for Jesus: “Kings don’t work for me!”  “Calm down,”said Dick. It’s Matthew’s agenda. 

I could live with the King idea but still can’t imagine why I unexpectedly wept at my own wedding, right in the middle of saying my vows. My poor, as yet unvowed, fiancé looked stunned, rigid and trembling, so frightened that his mustache quivered. He thought, “This crazy woman!” 

My therapist was my witness. She stood behind me and rubbed my back. Dick’s witness stood behind him and put his hand on Dick’s shoulder. 

As for me, I still have no idea exactly why I lost control at this moment, except that I was vulnerable to floods of tears without provocation. My lines were simple and my heart was secure. Yes, we’d been through tough times, divorces. He was the priest of a small parish in a small town. I was awaiting the bishop’s approval of my own ordination.

All I can say is this: My idea of marriage had been shot through with holes; failure was still in my catalogue of fears. I was absolutely awed that we were vowing all this once again, and equally sure that no one would ever be my “king.” I guess the truth was that we loved each other, admired each other, and dared to try the impossible together, and that we were gathered around the mysterious sacramental grace of the Eucharist. 

I wept—not from feelings of failure or regret, but from the sorrow that accompanies a truth too deep to define: The human heart is a spacious vessel, capable of holding many loves and many pains, an infinity of feelings. The divine heart is even more spacious.  

2011.11.20 King Sunday

When Dick and I were married 25 years ago we chose to have our marriage liturgy on a Sunday morning in the parish church where Dick was rector.

Ours was a second chance marriage. I had been on the search committee of my home parish when we elected Dick as our next rector. On paper he looked quite ordinary and I remember throwing his profile aside saying Let’s chuck this Simeoneee ( I pronounced it incorrectly) guy. Boring.”

I got outvoted because Dick’s profile had advertised his interest in doing youth ministry, the speciality of the former rector. I commented that they all said that, good marketing.

In the short run youth won out. In the long run so did love and eventual marriage. Going through divorces in a small town in a smaller parish was no picnic and neither of us would have opted for that if we’d seen alternatives. Both of our ex’s took their second chances too and are happily remarried.

I remember debating our day. We chose this Sunday called Chist the King, which 25 years ago was Nov. 23. The day marks the end of the Pentecost season and is the springboard into Advent, time to expect the new baby and begin the life cycle again.

Christ the King is a glory day, an all white day just like a marriage or Easter. Time for new life, for recognizing anew who really is in charge, and it’s not you. And time to know that in Christ we see the love of God lived out in the flesh and are supposed to try to follow the good example.

I don’t like royalty much but thought the day for our marriage would be OK since if Christ were sovereign of the cosmos then no one else could be—ever. We would be mutual marriage partners, no one on top, except of course........ :)

But I drew the line at the Diademata hymn—terrific triumphant music but all about kingship and completely and exclusively masculine language.

Jesus was a man and can keep his male pronouns but Christ is alive in an eternal spiritual way and can not be He, Him or His all the time. So I ruled out the crowns and the He’s and that hymn for our wedding day.

Today in church we sang that hymn and for every He that was clearly not referring to the life of Jesus on earth I sang Christ, a more neutral word, gender-free.

You don’t have to be a man to be a christ. Neither for that matter do you have to be a Christian to be a Christ.