Christ is King, what does that mean? If Christ is ruler over our lives … then my Nobel Peace Prize is less important than my trying to feed the hungry. If Christ is King, then my invitations to the White House are less important than that I visited those in prison. If Christ is Lord, then my being TIME magazine’s “Man of the Year” is less important than that I tried to love extravagantly, dangerously, with all my being (I Have a Dream, 191) – Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The idea of Black Friday shopping with crowds swarming into stores, fighting and walking over one another over toys and TVs, and spending more money than they had trying to make this the best Christmas ever is very tragic.  This idea belong to the religion of Consumerism shaped by the creed of consumption and the same goes with the idea of annual Thanksgiving. The Black Friday since its emergence in the colonial time started through the fight between some of the big box stores and the state. This was because the old blue laws prohibited stores to open on Thanksgiving Day and this still continues today in subtle competition among the big stores. History records that ‘in the home of the first Thanksgiving, the day was set aside as a day of worship and thanks’ to the unhappiness and disagreement of some large national retailers.

The religions of Consumerism continue to rewrite the need for daily Thanksgiving and turn it to annual celebrity and consumption when we are not even in the season of Advent, the season of waiting and preparing for Christmas. Thanksgiving Day beyond eating bird and the potatoes and watching football invites us ‘to reflect on all that we have been given, and give God thanks for it’ everyday. Black Friday shaped by Consumerism faith is an absurd belief of empty idol of credit which is always on a collision course with the reality of the real Black Friday, when Jesus died on the Cross. Good Friday, also called Black Friday which reminds us of the ugliness of the Cross is a reflective day for Christians to remember the crucifixion of Jesus and His death at Calvary (Matt 27:45). In our secular cultural rewrite and redefinition, Good Friday, the least attended service on the Christian calendar is not always noticed by modern Christians unlike Easter with good attendance. The reflection is, ‘there would have been no Easter without a Golgotha.’

Faith in Consumerism permeates our hearts that we can spend our way out of debt. Shopping, pleasure, and material gain has become essential part of our national religion, Consumerism. We now exchange our sacrament and offerings for some sacrament of pleasurable life under the influence of a capitalist and Temple of Consumption. The secularism through the religion of Consumerism which now defines the rhythms of our live is now the king of our life. Your answer to the question ‘what religious festival get you up before dawn, and draw you eagerly to the temple?’ will tell which king you worship.

The good news is that, the last Sunday of the Church’s liturgical year, a day called the Christ the King Sunday is a day set aside to proclaim our allegiance as Christians to nothing less than the power of Jesus’ name. Christ is king, not Black Friday. Christ the King Sunday or the Reign of Christ is to reinforces the expression of Christian faith that at the end of our journey in this temporal world, God’s kingdom will come. Next Sunday will be the first Sunday of Advent and we will start the new liturgical year afresh as we prepare for the coming of Jesus into the world at Christmas. In such a time and season when insatiable greed is crucifying the earth, our secular cultural rewrite of Thanksgiving, Black Friday is now promoting insatiable greed and ‘the pressure to try to buy our Christmas joy.’ Martin Luther King’s statement in relation to the text for Christ the King Sunday provides helpful reminder on what it means to proclaim Christ the King. The Matthew passage on “Sheep and Goats” to many seems judgemental and threatening and runs contrary to our inherited theology about grace. Goat in the folklore of Greek culture ‘symbolised the loose morals of the lesser gods hence, Jews symbol of the goat represents a disobedient and undisciplined lifestyle. Christ the King Sunday against selfish life, disobedient and undisciplined lifestyle of the ‘Goat Team’ invites us to be part of the compassionate ‘Sheep Team’ under the authority and discipline of the Good Shepherd.

The gospel passage for Christ the King Sunday is shaped by the values to love as God loves, forgive as God forgives. Christ the King Sunday invites us to trust Jesus Christ as we allow the old goat within us to be crucified with Christ so that the new sheep in us is raised in Christ’s image. Jesus is telling the people to be sheep-hearted with compassion under the authority of the Chief Shepherd focusing our minds on God, and creating God’s kingdom here on earth. Christ the King Sunday is counter-cultural to the Consumerism religion and culture of better sale, best deal and the crowds that trample one another on the quest for 50% discounts. Christ the King Sunday reminds us of the reign of God against the crown world retail king. The Sheep Team shall not want or lack, but the Goat Team never have enough. Christ the King Sunday is counter-cultural to Black Friday in relation to Christmas because Christ tells us not to worry about material things or just setting aside one day of the year for gratitude.

Bearing in mind that we are in daily conflict over who is lord in our lives, the question is, what difference does it make if Christ is King over your life? Christ the King Sunday summons us to renounce the usual things people elevate as gods-temporal power, wealth, celebrity and fame. A life centred on Christ the King is about renunciation and not self-aggrandisement. It not about position or what you have but what we do as a member of the Sheep Team. Our understanding of Christ the King is a call for church renewal, as ‘the bride of Christ, not a handmaiden of any particular political party, institution, or privileged group.’ Peter Storey explained that “The Church must be different from, and often over against and in contradiction to, the ways of all nations. That alternative identity must be cherished and guarded as the most important characteristic of the Church. The richest gift the Church can give the world is to be different from it. It must be a constant irritant that the world doesn’t want, but cannot do without.” Christ the King Sunday is a call to personal spiritual audit, on mirror and lookout for the Second Coming of Jesus and asking, do l have a sheep heart and spirit or a goat heart and spirit? Be a part, let us bring God back to this nation, let us renounce cultural rewrite of Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas. Jesus Christ is King.