Carpenter-King

How can a simple, hard-working carpenter be king? A contradiction in terms, isn’t it? And yet, this was the living contradiction that Christ was – and the living contradiction that he expects from his disciples – starting from the original apostles, who were poor fishermen.

Last November 11 was the tragic day when the Laoag International Flight 585 crashed in Manila Bay. Four fishermen, two of whom were mere teenagers, were the first to heroically save a number of survivors in their small, motorized banca. Rico Cayabyab, 15, and Elorde Naga, 12, deserve no less than kingly honors. Fishermen-kings.

"Other boys in my place could have been frightened. But what else could I do but help?" Rico was quoted as saying. And the twelve-year-old Elorde: "I was just happy to help. I was not afraid." Both had stopped schooling out of sheer poverty. As they have helped others, it is they – and many more like them – who now need help. The President has awarded the four of them.

Yes. The call goes on as well for farmer-kings, doctor, lawyer, and teacher kings, not to mention businessmen-kings and politician-kings. A call to be disciples of Christ-the-King.

Christ revolutionized the very meaning of kingly power – and this got him into trouble and brought him to his death. But it was worth it. And it is worth it for each one of us, too, if we learn Christ’s way of using personal power that flows from one’s time, talents, and treasures which the Lord has gifted each one of us with. And the prize is no less than a place in God’s kingdom.

"Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcome me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me. . . Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me." (From today’s Gospel message, Mt. 25:31-46).

This call of the Servant-King is universal, intercultural, interfaith – beyond the boundaries of institutional religion – using personal power FOR others, NOT power OVER others.

"In September, a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated his explosives on a crowded bus in Tel Aviv. Among the victims was 19-year-old Jonathan Jesner, a student from Glasgow, Scotland. Five people were killed outright; Jesner, a Jew who had postponed medical school to participate in a religious retreat, was critically wounded in the blast; he died a day later at a Tel Aviv hospital.

"The young man’s family volunteered to donate Jonathan’s organs – and placed no restrictions whatsoever on the choice of recipients. The Jewish teenager’s kidney was transplanted into a seven-year-old Palestinian girl named Yasmin who was suffering from a genetic life-threatening kidney disease. The little girl, who had waited two years for a transplant, is doing well.

"Jonathan’s family said that the seven-year-old’s religion and nationality were ‘unimportant.’ ‘We believe it was what Jonathan wanted us to do . . . . The most important principle here is that life was given to another human being. We are happy and delighted that Jonathan’s memory will live on’." (Connections, November 2002).