Living in a democracy we become used to considering who should lead us at times of elections. More recently certainly in Australia the question of leadership has become increasingly fluid. Who will give the party the best chance of winning the next election rather than considering who will helping us to value what is important to us. This is not limited to just political parties but we see it almost in every walk of life where more is expected of a person in leadership to listen to the people and respond to the signs of the times. Yet too often the person in leadership can start to resemble our own self interest rather than what can help us to become our best self. This is probably the greatest challenge of our age as we seek to consider not just simply whether a person can do what we want but rather whether a person will help us to discover how to become our best self.
In following Christ, especially as we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King it is easy to fall into the temptation of asking for things that we want to happen. We need to feel secure, respected and valued. We look to have enough money to see us get by, to be treated with as someone important and to be acknowledged for the gifts we possess. This is all good but when it becomes the sole focus of our life we can become driven by wanting more possessions, wanting greater honors and pointing to our achievements. The siren call is that we can start to feel bereft of an identity if we do not have the latest fashion, having our name written in lights and people speaking well of us. Our lives can become driven by things over which we have no control and in fact they can start to control our lives. We start to surrender ourselves to things that are illusory and which can be taken from us by forces beyond our control.
Christ seeks to encounter us in our own inner poverty, in that place where people's opinions about us can cause us to feel isolated and alone and where there is a sense of being less than other people we compare ourselves with. We want to escape this uncomfortable feeling of not feeling worthy. Yet it is in this place where we can truly meet Christ as ourselves. Without pretense we can entertain him as the person we truly are where we can have a certain raw honesty about who we are and what we truly value. When we meet Christ in this place we discover that he meets us with a love which is not earned and which cannot be traded away on trivialities. It is a life giving gift of Himself which can transform us anew by recognizing that we have an inherent dignity. This allows us to discover that we are an elect whom God chooses for our own good and the good of our world. An election which cannot be taken away by the vagaries of power, position or pride. This calls us to be the person who God created us to be so that we can love, honor and walk with Him.
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