The word went out. Jesus was coming again. These stories had made the rounds many times before. But somehow this time it was different. Everyone set about preparing for the return of the King. There was much speculation about where and how he would return. But there was no doubt that it would happen on Sunday.

The day dawned, cold and windy. People were up and stirring, filled with anticipation. A stranger wandered through the city streets, his tattered clothing in sharp contrast to his surroundings. He stopped in front of one house, went up and rapped on the door. A woman answered. He stood there for a moment in silence.

"What do you want?" she snapped at him. "Don't you know that this is a busy day? Christ is returning. We're all getting ready for church. He's sure to make an appearance there. I don't have time for you. Besides there are soup kitchens where the likes of you can get a meal."

He turned sadly and walked on down the street. It was the same everywhere he stopped. They were all too busy to look after a poor, hungry man.

At eleven o'clock he arrived at the door of a huge church. He could hear the sound of the magnificent organ and the singing of the choir. But the door was closed. He opened it and started down the aisle toward the only vacant seat, right up at the front of the church. All eyes turned toward him. Noses wrinkled as the smell of someone who has not had a shower in many days reached their senses. They noted with disdain the holes in the knees of his jeans and his filthy jacket. Two men appeared in the aisle.

"Out you go. There isn't a seat for you. We're saving that one for Christ. We are expecting him any minute now. He's sure to come here. This is, after all, the finest church in the city."

His heart heavy, he left the building and began to walk across the park. He walked for some time and finally came to a bridge over a ravine. He could see some people sitting by a fire they had made. As he approached they made room for him and he too began to warm his hands over the flame. A pot of stew was bubbling merrily on the fire. They ladled it out and motioned to him to take a plate.

"We're waiting for Christ to come," they told him. "But I don't suppose he'll find his way down here."

And the man lifted up his eyes to heaven. He blessed the food and began to eat. "I was hungry and you gave me food," he said to them.

Where after all do we find Christ? It is in the midst of the dirty, the grubby, the smelly and unlovely. It is in the least expected places. For our God is a king who reigns, not from a throne, but from a cross. God's sovereign way is not the way of the world. It is not the way of power, but of powerlessness, a powerlessness that overturns all of our preconceived notions about God.

This last Sunday of the Church Year is commonly referred to as the Reign of Christ. On this day we celebrate Christ as king. We celebrate Jesus' reign that began with his ascension and continues as Paul expresses it in the letter to the Corinthians, "until all are made alive in Christ". It is a celebration that calls us to look at the whole concept of leadership within the kingdom of God.

The image of kingship is prevalent in Scripture. The Bible uses the word "king" two thousand three hundred and eighteen times. Not only is it used often. The expectations for a king are great. We see it in Psalm 72. The king is to 'judge the people with righteousness, and the poor with justice. He is to defend the cause of the poor, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor. He has pity on the weak and the needy. He redeems the oppressed from violence.' What a different concept of kingship that is! It is, above all, a calling that comes from God.

It is very much the picture of kingship that we see in the Old Testament reading where Ezekiel speaks of God as the shepherd King, the one who seeks out the lost sheep. It is the shepherd King who rescues the strays and binds up the ones who have been hurt. That image of kingship lays out the standard for the whole community. No fat, strong sheep push aside the weak or the sick. It is a community where all are valued and live in peace. It is a kingdom of shalom.

It is that same image that we see in Matthew's Gospel. Jesus appears on the clouds at the end of time as a king sitting on a throne. We are standing before him being questioned about our lives. Our relationship to God is judged by our treatment of the oppressed. Our guilt arises not from doing wrong things, not from being evil, but from failing to do what is right. Jesus makes himself one with those in need. He allies himself to the poor and the oppressed. As the shepherd of Israel, he is in solidarity with the whole of human misery in all its range and depth. He came to see that everything is as it should be.

Yet if you go into downtown Toronto you cannot help but be struck by the differences between the rich and the poor. Does it not embarrass you when a panhandler asks you for money? There are masses of needy in crowded streets. There are neglected people in need of more than money can buy – a smile, a word of kindness, a helping hand, hope, patience, a prayer, a sign of compassion. What is our answer when Jesus asks us, "Did you feed the hungry? Did you help the oppressed? Did you have pity on the poor and needy?"

Things are not as they should be. Jesus did not come into this world to comfort only some of us; he came to comfort all. Have we who have this world's goods and see others in need, closed our hearts against them? If we have, how do we begin to change the structures and ideologies that are at the root of the problem? Do we need the tables turned on us?

While I was at Trinity I did a placement in Urban Ministry at the Church of the Holy Trinity in the Eaton Centre. Part of my placement was to take a plunge, to spend a weekend homeless on the streets of Toronto. I came up with every excuse you can think of to avoid taking the plunge. It was dangerous. I might be taking a bed from someone who really needed it. I would be using the system. The fact is I was afraid. But I did it, and I learned more that weekend about myself, about my middle class values and my need to live in solidarity with my brothers and sisters than I could have learned in any other way.

I had worked for a time at a Food Bank. I had observed people pacing outside trying to get up the nerve to come inside and ask for help. I would say to myself, "Why don't they just come in? We always help them." Then I found myself pacing up and down outside of a hostel trying to get up enough nerve to ask for help. I felt degraded. I felt useless. I felt hopeless. And I was only on the street for a weekend.

I stayed in a hostel for abused women. I ate meals in soup kitchens. I learned what it was like to have people look right through you. I felt the embarrassment and shame of panhandling for spare change and being told to get a job.

But I also saw great generosity of spirit. There was the caseworker in the hostel who handed me a jar of bubble bath and a fresh towel. There was the resident of the hostel who befriended me and took me to church on Sunday morning, marching me wearing blue jeans and an old sweatshirt right up to the front of a fancy downtown church. She took such delight in singing as loudly as she could and even more in allowing the plate to pass us by.

Not all of us can have such a life-changing experience. Nor would we want it. But we can identify with the poor and with those in need. Our care and concern can be translated into concrete actions in our own community. Do we know that there are homeless people in our community? How do we go about helping the man who often sleeps in the bushes behind the Church Centre? How do we help refugees who have come to our country with great hope only to find that jobs are scarce and landlords take advantage of people whose English is poor or whose accents are thick? What do we do to fight racism and discrimination in our community?

As Christ identifies himself with humanity through death, so we identify ourselves with humanity by entering into their oppression and suffering. In the bright light of reality we confront our poverty, our mistakes, our inadequacies. We allow God to transform our lives so that we can do what God calls us to do and be prepared for his coming. For he comes to us every day in everyone that we meet.