• children lead the dismissal at the 9am service, and the process out the transept door and report to their classrooms for Sunday School.
• Rite 13 ( grades 7-8) meet in room G18

• J2A students (grades 9-10) gather in room G09 . 

• Sr. High students (grades 11 - 12) meet in room 111 (aka, the parlor).
  

This is the closing Sunday of the Christian year, and celebrates Christ as King. The lectionary readings from the Old Testament offer a choice - to focus on David, the greatest of all Israel's kings, or on a more general image of kingship. The former might seem a rather better choice, because the image of 'king' does not have much resonance in the modern world. This is especially true in a country like the United States, which was deliberately founded on a republican ideal, the outright rejection of royalty and the affirmation of the equality of citizens. Since the focus on David brings to the fore the Christmas theme that Jesus is 'of David's line', we seem on more obviously religious or theological ground with that.

But in fact, the difference is merely one of emphasis. It is David's kingship that matters. His status in first century Judaism was like George Washington's in American political culture - uniquely important, and in no way diminished by his evident human failings. Israel's hopes, by and large, were still pinned on the thought that a new David would arise, and return the Jewish nation to its rightful place as a 'light to lighten the Gentiles'. As history turned out, it was not to be. What Christians believe is that, against this background, God acted to reveal a quite different kind of kingship - 'not of this world' - as Jesus expressly says in the Gospel passage for this Sunday, and ultimately revealed in the paradox of  a 'crown of thorns'. We mustn't read 'not of this world' as 'otherworldly' detachment from ordinary life, but the message does run counter to the hopes people pin on all political programs, not just those of old fashioned royalists.

So to celebrate the Feast of Christ the King properly, we must be sure to avoid all hints of triumphalism, any implied suggestion that 'our man' won out in the end. Rather, in a spirit of wondering humility we must find a way of accepting that God's ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts, and yet it is His ways that prevail. The incarnation of God in Jesus makes it possible for us to do that, and celebrating Christ as King is an acknowledgment of this fundamental truth.

• Help collate race bags Tuesday, November 24th in Flemer Library. E-mail Annie Thomas(see address below)
  

• to be "race marshalls" on the course, email Grant Fraser bgfraser@bellatlantic.net

•  to help distribute the t-shirts, food and water, e-mail Annie Thomas thomasa@trinityprinceton.org