Today is the last Sunday of the Church year, Christ the King Sunday, so I'd like to ask you, this is just your bit at the beginning and then you can relax again; I'd like to ask you to call out things you associate with Kings and royalty.

(members of the congregation call things out which I then repeat.) Throne, crown, Coronation, authority, blue blood, palace, servants, thrones, palaces, leadership. Yeah brilliant. Those are all brilliant. OK you can relax now. It's my turn again.

What have I written here? I've written Crowns, Thrones, fine clothes, jewellery, servants, palaces, castles, gold, silver, banquets, robes, armies, bowing and curtseying, coins and stamps 'cause they've got the Monarch's head, luxurious lifestyle, and, yes, leadership and authority I hadn't written down. So I knew that people would give me some more wonderful ideas for if I ever do this sermon again so thanks for that.

Maybe some of us here have met King Charles, our King, or other members of the Royal Family but, generally speaking, Kings and Queens are at quite a distance from the general population. You can't just turn up at Buckingham Palace and pop in for a cup of tea with the King. It'd be quite interesting to try but, no, don't do that. You'd probably have security after you.

The King has lots of staff to help organise where he needs to be and who he will see that day. There will be people who know him very well but, for most of us, King Charles doesn't feature in our daily lives, apart from on the coins and stamps and things, but we don't meet him in person.

Now let's compare the Earthly Kingdom I just talked about with what we have heard in our readings this morning.

From Psalm 95 verses 3-6:
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

So this King has done far more than any King on Earth. Royal families haven't created their subjects or the land that makes up their kingdom, they just reign over it for a while.

So the Lord God, this great King, made "the depths of the Earth", the mountains, the seas and the dry land, and us. Verse 7 says: "For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand."

Which links to the reading from Ezekiel, where God talks about rescuing his sheep.

In verse 16 it says, “I will look for those that are lost, bring back those that wander off, bandage those that are hurt, and heal those that are sick; but those that are fat and strong I will destroy, because I am a shepherd who does what is right.

Why does the Lord want to destroy those that are fat and strong? To understand this, we need to look back to the start of the chapter, which we didn't have included in our reading this morning. Here's verses 1-6:
The Lord spoke to me. “Mortal man,” he said, “denounce the rulers of Israel. Prophesy to them, and tell them what I, the Sovereign Lord, say to them: You are doomed, you shepherds of Israel! You take care of yourselves, but never tend the sheep. You drink the milk, wear clothes made from the wool, and kill and eat the finest sheep. But you never tend the sheep. You have not taken care of the weak ones, healed the ones that are sick, bandaged the ones that are hurt, brought back the ones that wandered off, or looked for the ones that were lost. Instead, you treated them cruelly. Because the sheep had no shepherd, they were scattered, and wild animals killed and ate them. So my sheep wandered over the high hills and the mountains. They were scattered over the face of the earth, and no one looked for them or tried to find them.

Quite a telling off really that, isn't it? So the strong and fat sheep are the rulers of Israel. These words, written thousands of years ago, are so relevant today. There are still people in power who abuse that privilege and mistreat anyone who isn't part of their privileged inner circle. In this reading, God promises to give the people a King like his servant David to look after and take care of them. Human Kings are obviously not up to the job so now God will step in. Very comforting words for the people who are being mistreated. For the rulers: not so much. And David, of course, was a shepherd before he was chosen to be a future King.

The sheep being scattered or lost reminds me of a time when I was at a Quaker children's day and got left behind when everyone left to go on a trip to a local Buddhist temple. It suddenly went very quiet and I got quite scared. I was only 8 or 9 and I didn't know if anyone would come back for hours! Luckily, a couple of the adults were still around and one of them took me to the temple in her car. The relief of being looked after by an adult after briefly feeling abandoned was huge! I hadn't wandered off in that instance but I'm sure it's a similar feeling. Many people have traumatic memories of getting lost on family shopping trips as children. With no adult to guide them, there can be such a feeling of panic and bewilderment, not knowing where to go to find the adults taking care of them and showing them where to go next. It's also traumatic for parents finding their child is no longer following them, so they go back to the last place they saw them and, if they're not there, keep looking until they find their lost child. I remember hearing regular lost child announcements in shopping centres and supermarkets growing up. What a relief it must be for a parent to hear their child has been found and to know where to go to be reunited with them.

God is stepping in here because far too many people, or sheep, have scattered and got lost, being left to wander around, not really knowing what to do next. The rulers who were supposed to be taking care of them have kept all the food and good things for themselves. Shepherds protect their flock, which can involve killing predators, so God will destroy those corrupt rulers to stop them harming the rest of the flock.

Some of you will know that I do a lot of singing and, earlier this year, I sang All People That on Earth Do Dwell with a choir and was interested to notice a difference in the words of the second verse. This morning, we sang:

we are his folk, he doth us feed; and for his sheep he doth us take.

But in the choir version, we sang:

"we are his flock, he doth us feed",

which also makes sense, especially with the next line about sheep.

And now we come to today's Gospel reading. Yet more about sheep! But there are goats in this one too. I don't know how many people here today are familiar with goats and sheep. I certainly haven't had much contact with either. On researching them though, it seems sheep need a lot more care than goats, which is why they need a shepherd. If they fall on their backs, sheep can't get up again without help and if no-one helps them get up, they will die. They panic and run around when they are stressed. They wander off and go astray.

The job of the shepherd, mentioned in the Ezekiel reading, is to go and find the lost sheep and bring them back to the fold, bind up those that are injured and heal the ones that are sick. Jesus spent a lot of his ministry healing people and he came to Earth because people needed him, the promised Messiah, since humans weren't doing a great job of looking after each other.

In the reading, Jesus is telling people what will happen when he comes as King, sitting on his royal throne to judge everyone. The people will be divided into two groups: sheep and goats. Those listening would have been familiar with a shepherd doing exactly this, dividing the sheep from the goats, after they had all grazed the same land together, so the sheep could follow the shepherd wherever he went, because they'd learnt to trust him.

Both groups are puzzled when told they did or didn't help him, asking when this happened, and Jesus explains that every time there was someone hungry, thirsty, naked, sick or in prison, by helping or refusing to help them, they did the same to him.

It reminds me of this text, attributed to St. Teresa of Ávila

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

It's saying we need to do Christ's work on Earth but, what struck me on reading it while preparing this sermon is that, as well as doing his work, when we are in need, we are still his body. When someone helps you or me, they are helping Christ.

There's some sheep and some goat in all of us. There will have been times when we have helped and others when we didn't, either because it wasn't safe or advisable, or because it was a difficult day and perhaps we just wanted to get home or were in a hurry to get somewhere. There are always things we could have done to help others. That was part of our prayer of confession earlier, asking for forgiveness for all those occasions where we didn't act.

But surely, some might say, this reading seems to be saying that you'll only get to heaven by doing good works. Doesn't that contradict the teaching about salvation through grace? Aren't we all saved by Christ if we call him Lord? Isn't God's free gift of grace enough?

I preached a sermon last month and one of the readings was from Philippians, where Paul says: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." "it is God who is at work in you." Not outside, or somewhere else, but inside you; in me. God among us, always. If we choose to accept it, he gives us so much abundant love that we can't help but share that love with others by helping them out. That love causes us to automatically do things for fellow humans. We might not be able to afford to buy someone food if they are hungry, we may not feel safe to let someone sleeping on the streets stay with us, but there are other things we can do that can make such a difference.

Many years ago, I was in my local shopping centre and was going through a really tough time, and suddenly I burst into tears, right there with the other shoppers walking by. A woman who didn't know me saw and stopped. She could see I was having a bad day. She asked if I wanted a hug. I said "yes please". She hugged me while I cried, then made sure I was OK, showing me to a cafe table so I could have a coffee and a sit down for a while. I never met that woman again, and yet she had such a profound effect on me, on a day when I felt totally alone, that I have never forgotten it.

You or I could be that woman or man for someone else, making their day just a little bit better. Smiling or waving at someone, asking how their weekend was. Such simple things and yet they can make such a difference. You might not be able to give someone in need food or clothes but perhaps you can tell them where to get help.

If you are helping though, please do make sure it's welcome. I had an experience on the way here this morning where I was getting on the bus and a woman called to me and said "are you getting on the bus," and I said yes and I walked towards her because she was obviously on the bus and by the door. Then she took hold of my arm quite firmly and I find that a bit frightening. Remember, I can't see it coming. Imagine if someone came and grabbed you from behind you. She didn't mean to scare me but she did. So I said, "let go of me please," and she said I was ungrateful and she wouldn't bother helping next time and got rather grumpy. So, you know, take care in your helpfulness. Don't invade someone's space or insist on doing something for them that they're quite capable of doing themselves. It's also kind to give people their dignity and independence, and ask if they need help and then it's up to them.

On this, Christ the King Sunday, we think about what it means to acknowledge Christ as our King and Lord. What is his Kingdom? How can we be part of it? We pray for it every time we say The Lord's Prayer "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven", but do we really think about the words we're saying?

At primary school, we had a wonderful series of assemblies on The Lord's Prayer, teaching us about what each section meant, week by week. When we got to this part, I remember imagining the kingdom involving crowns, gold and lots of other riches like we were talking about earlier. Perhaps God and Jesus would have a palace and lots of servants when the kingdom came. Maybe there would be accommodation for all the angels and people could go to the palace and enjoy the wonderful, heavenly choir! Would they let me join in the singing? That would be great! Maybe Jesus would be the best King ever! I knew Jesus was the King from all the Christmas carols so this all seemed quite reasonable to me.

But then we were taught that Christ's Kingdom isn't like that. The only crown Jesus wore was a painful crown of thorns. He wasn't born in a palace and he grew up with an ordinary family, not surrounded by riches. As an adult, he didn't form an army and defeat the occupying Romans. He spoke to ordinary people and ate with prostitutes and tax collectors and he laid down his life for us all. Can you imagine a monarch's life being like that? I can't.

Every time we help someone, pray, or fight for justice, we are doing our own small part towards Christ's Kingdom. All the problems in our communities and the wider World can seem overwhelming, leading us to feel there's nothing we can do to make things better, but we can improve people's lives, one small kindness at a time, allowing God's love to shine through us onto everyone we meet. One candle doesn't seem very bright but a room full of candles, or a community full of people caring for one another, can light up a whole area, or many more people's lives.