Reign of Christ Sunday

WHEN WE FORGET WHO THE REAL KING IS

A World Built on Empty Promises

People think the bread lines of the Great Depression are ancient history, but look around. We are standing in them again. Not always outside on sidewalks, but inside our own homes, scrolling through expired SNAP balances, waiting for paychecks that vanish before they land, stretching groceries that won’t stretch anymore. We live in the richest country on the planet—more profitable, more productive, more technologically advanced than any civilization in history. By all logic, “there should be no poor among us.” Yet we have nearly a thousand billionaires in the US alone and a handful of men trying to become the world’s first trillionaires. Not because they’ve built a world where everyone thrives, but because everything we produce is funneled upward while we’re told to be grateful for table scraps. To look up to them as the providers of jobs yet it is off the backs of our labor.

Last week, I preached on Isaiah 65 last week where it says, starting in verse 17,

“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth… they shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat…They shall not labor in vain…They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.

Isaiah’s vision is not abstract or poetic for poetry’s sake. It is about real people living real lives shaped by real justice. When the prophet says, “they shall build houses and inhabit them… they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit,” he is naming God’s economy—an economy where people enjoy the fruits of their own labor instead of watching their work enrich someone else. Isaiah is confronting a world where the powerful took what others built, harvested what others planted, and lived well off the labor of people who lived poorly.

God rejects that system.

In God’s new creation, no one builds a home they can’t afford to live in. No one works the fields just to see the harvest taken by someone wealthier. No one spends their life producing while someone else profits. God’s vision is a world where dignity is restored, exploitation is undone, and the blessings of creation are shared by the very people whose hands made them possible. This is what divine justice looks like: not scarcity, not extraction, not hierarchy—but people long enjoying the work of their hands, living securely in what they have built, and tasting the fruit of what they have planted.

The elites take, hold, hoard, extract, and pass it on to the next set of elites. And the rest of us? We’re like modern-day slaves responsible for our own room and board, except now we’re called “free,” and if we’re struggling we’re told it’s our own fault for not believing hard enough in the American dream.

Our Modern Kings

We aren’t living in stability. We’re living inside systems designed to keep us tired, ashamed, overworked, and blaming ourselves and others--especially others! Walmart is one of the biggest employers in our country yet pays wages so low that full-time employees still need support systems funded by our generosity and tax dollars while the Walmart stock continues to pump out profits for its shareholders.

Workers are told to feel lucky for a job that doesn’t buy them groceries, while corporations use those same workers’ public assistance as a silent subsidy. This isn’t an accident; it’s a structure. And our political leaders—Republican, Democrat, or otherwise—are not rescuing anyone. They are performing. They sat on their hands during the longest government shutdown in history while families went hungry but they still got paid. They use us as pawns in their power struggles. They don’t suffer with us; they benefit from us. We keep waiting for them to save us, as if they haven’t shown us repeatedly that they cannot and will not.

A World on Edge — Then and Now

Ok pastor, nice lecture on the economy but what does this have to do with Reign of Christ Sunday?

Well, humans have a tendency to repeat history over and over. That is why our bibles can still speak into our modern times even from it's ancient contexts. This is not the first time people have reached for loud leaders promising stability. In 1925, Europe was unraveling. War had gutted entire nations. Families were desperate. Fear was thick. And into that fear rose strongmen with big flags, big speeches, and crowds desperate for a sense of belonging. Pope Pius XI looked out at a continent seduced by political power dressed in religious clothes and realized something terrifying: people were bowing again, just not to Christ.

Reign of Christ Sunday was created to pull people back—not gently, but clearly—from giving their allegiance to any earthly power. It was a reminder that no government, no ruler, no ideology owns our hope. And nearly a century later, we are repeating that history. Different stage. Different actors. Same seduction.

The Kingdoms That Shape Us

We claim Christ as King, but our real kings show up in our habits and fears. Our phones rule our mornings. Our debt rules our choices. Our anxiety rules our sleep. Political outrage rules our conversations. Corporate branding rules our identity. Scarcity marketing convinces us we “need” a cup or a product to feel connected. These companies realize now that they do not have to be moral, just seen. All press is good press. Attention is the most valuable currency. Then once they have it, they use it to shape what with think, how we identify ourselves in this world, and influence our spending habits so we can buy the identities we desire. Identity becomes merchandise. And slowly, quietly, we start to bow to things that cannot love us, cannot heal us, and do not care if we fall apart—as long as we keep producing, purchasing, consuming, and performing.

The Kingdom Christ Came to Build

Jesus comes into a world like this and speaks a word that is not soft but freeing: This is not your king. These systems are not your masters. These powers do not own you. Christ does not ask for our exhaustion; Christ offers rest. He does not drain us; He restores us. He does not manipulate us; He tells the truth. He does not teach us to cling; He teaches us to share. The early church understood this so deeply that “there was no needy person among them” (Acts 4:34). Not because they were wealthy, but because they were generous. They shared what they had, trusted one another, supported one another, and refused to let anyone fall through the cracks. They lived under Christ’s reign, not Caesar’s economy. And the fruit of Christ’s reign was abundance, not scarcity; community, not competition; courage, not fear.

Breaking the Boxes

Somewhere along the way, the church forgot this. We started competing with each other, acting like different denominations or styles of worship make us rivals instead of companions. Churches tried to create predictable, marketable versions of faith—easy to package, easy to sell, safe to consume. But Christ did not call us to safety. Christ called us to truth. Christ called us out of the boxes institutions try to force us into—whether the institution is corporate, political, or religious. Christ’s kingdom is not built on branding or outrage or uniformity. It is built on people who dare to live differently in a world that wants them distracted, divided, and dependent.

A Call Back to the Center

Reign of Christ Sunday exists to remind us who reigns—not metaphorically, not poetically, but actually.

It is a day to remember that Christ alone has the authority to shape us, free us, strengthen us, and teach us how to live. It is a day to remember that every other king in this world—political, economic, corporate, cultural—is temporary and demanding. Christ’s reign is eternal and liberating. And it is a day to remember that we do not walk this out alone. Faith is not a weekly box to check or a feel-good hour we spend away from real life. Faith is a shared journey, a shared table, a shared kingdom where each person’s story matters and no two lives look identical. We are meant to grow together, challenge one another, uphold one another, and build communities where no one is cast aside or left behind.

An Invitation to Recenter

This Sunday is not about escaping the world but reclaiming our place in it—not as consumers or competitors, but as people shaped by Christ’s love and empowered by His kingdom. Come to worship. Tap into the heart of Reign of Christ Sunday. Let it recenter you, steady you, and remind you who deserves your allegiance, your hope, your energy, your trust. In a world full of false kings, Christ is the only one who leads us toward freedom—not the kind sold to us, but the kind that truly transforms us.