From the Archives: "Transfiguring Monarchy"

Each month, our blog features articles from the archives of Liturgy. Our goal is to share the wisdom from decades past so that we might celebrate the work and insights of these excellent ministers and scholars.

In 1996, Liturgy published an article by Gail Ramshaw, entitled “Transfiguring Monarchy.” Writing on Christ the King Sunday in the liturgical calendar, renowned theologian of liturgical language, Gail Ramshaw, takes on the problem of kingship which is the odd identification of Jesus of Nazareth with how people have understood the word “king” in all its historical negativity. A king seeks power; Jesus gave it up. Ramshaw’s discussion ranges widely to the riches and difficulties in the lectionary, the meaning and gift of biblical metaphors, the troubling metaphors that defy the gospel (master-slave being but one of them), and the history of this Sunday, acknowledging that it is a troubling preaching event. Written in 1996 during a presidential election campaign, Ramshaw’s observations will seem familiar to those of us who have just experienced the presidential election of 2024.

Selected Quotes from

“Transfiguring Monarchy”

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“In the 1920s, when the Vatican was excluded from participation in peace talks after World War I and the loss of the last papal states meant that the Pope was king of no secular real estate, the Jesuits, accustomed to submitting to Christ the King, invented just such a solemnity and fixed it on the last Sunday of October to counter Protestant celebrations of the Reformation.”

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“As an American woman whose mother was raised near Lake Woebegon, I find the myth of the crown, like the crowns themselves, more greed and glitter than divine design. The weight of all those jewels seemed nearly always to cover the ears and crush the brains of the quite average, if not congenitally diseased, person underneath.”

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“Admittedly, our challenge in exegeting metaphors is acute on this particular Sunday. But the myth of the crown is not reserved for this one feast. It pervades the scriptures, and other feasts, such as Ascension, give us parallel problems. Our liturgical task of transfiguring human imagery so that our words can convey mercy is thus required not for one set of propers but for the whole of the Bible and throughout the liturgical year, from the first Sunday in Advent through the Last Sunday of the Year. I wish you wisdom for your task.”

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Gail Ramshaw studies and crafts liturgical language from her home outside of Washington, DC. A Lutheran laywoman, a past president of the North American Academy of Liturgy and recipient of its Berakah award, and professor emerita of religion at La Salle University, she has published extensively about biblical metaphors, the Revised Common Lectionary, and parish liturgical practice.

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Gail Ramshaw, “Transfiguring Monarchy,” Liturgy 13, no. 2 (1996): 35–39, https://doi.org/10.1080/0458063X.1996.10392344.