By Heather Mustain
One of the great mystics, Howard Thurman, once wrote, “How moving is the sheer wonder of being necessary to the life of another! The giving of a gentle word when you did not know that such a word was desperately needed; the sharing of so little at the crucial point of acute urgency.”
His words are a reminder that the heart of the spiritual life is not in grand gestures, but in small, grace-laden exchanges that hold one another together. And on Christ the King Sunday — a day when the Church proclaims that Christ reigns over all creation — Thurman’s insight invites us to reconsider what kingship truly means.
For much of history, kings have been imagined as distant figures elevated above ordinary life, set apart by power and spectacle. Yet the kingship of Christ is of an entirely different order. His authority is not the authority of coercion or display, but the authority of one who kneels, heals, listens and loves. His reign is measured not in dominance but in mercy; not in how many obey him but in how deeply he makes himself necessary to the life of the world.
Thurman’s words sharpen this truth. What does it mean for Christ to be King? It means that the One who holds all things together does so not by force but by tenderness. It means his sovereignty is expressed in the “gentle word” we give without knowing how desperately someone needs it. It means his kingdom appears in the “sharing of so little” at precisely the moment someone’s life begins to unravel. In other words, Christ’s reign is made visible whenever love becomes embodied in small, ordinary, often unnoticed acts.
Christ the King Sunday is the culmination of the liturgical year, a kind of final chord that gathers up all the themes we have walked through — from incarnation to resurrection, from wilderness wandering to Pentecost fire. But this feast day also asks us a question: If this is the King we follow, what does loyalty to him look like? Thurman gives us a clue. To recognize Christ as King is to become participants in his way of ruling. It is to allow ourselves to be necessary to one another’s lives, to speak the gentle word, to share the little we have when the moment is urgent and the need is real.
This is the paradox of Christ’s kingdom: it is cosmic in scope yet revealed in the smallest gestures. It has no borders, no armies, no thrones — only a King who reigns through compassion and invites us to do the same.
During this season of gratitude and giving, may we all find the wonder of sharing our lives with the world.