Crucified Between Two Thieves

The gospel text for this Sunday, Christ the King Sunday, is Luke’s record of Christ’s crucifixion.  What is the church trying to say with the cross and Christ’s coronation?  George MacLeod, Scottish war hero and founder of the Iona Community (1895-1991) wrote a peom, “Crucified Between Two Thieves,” which gives us pause:

Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral

between two candles

But on a cross between two thieves;

on a town garbage heap;

At a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan

that they had to write His title

in Hebrew and Latin and Greek . . .

At the kind of placw where cynics talk smut,

and thieves curse and soldiers gamble,

Because that is where He died,

and that is what He died about.

And that is where Christ’s men ought to be,

and what church people ought to be about

See you on Sunday at Broadmoor!