I.N.I.
A sermon
to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, Virginia on
Christ the King Sunday, that is 22 November 2015, and being based on
the Holy Gospel for the Day, St. Matthew 25:31-40
Grace,
mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Here it
is, Christ the King Sunday again. That's what we call the last Sunday
of the Church Year, the Sunday before Advent starts us off on another
year. “Christ the King” … I noticed it doesn't say “Christ
the President”. Which, I think, makes it a little harder for those
of us with elected governments to really understand the image. We
haven't had a king here since the 1700s when the British colonists,
some of them anyway, chose Revolution rather than the status quo.
So that's way before any of us remember. It might as well be as far
in the past as the 800s when Charlemagne was emperor in Europe. We
Americans don't remember or know what it really means to live under a
king.
So I
think it might be a little hard for us to unpack all the meaning in
Jesus's words that make up today's Gospel. But we'll try anyway,
because this is an important passage.
According
to the beginning of chapter 24 Jesus said these words while sitting
on the Mount of Olives, a small ridge across a little valley to the
east of Jerusalem. It seems to have been a favorite place of Jesus.
The Garden of Gethsemane is there. And Jesus would be in that Garden
a handful of days after He spoke our Gospel to His disciples. This
lesson comes at the end of a long day of teaching, first publicly in
the Temple itself with the crowds, and then here privately on the
Mount with His disciples. The teachings focus ever more closely on
Christ's Second Coming, and on our judgment at the end of time.
The
disciples would have had a better feel than we do for what it meant
to say that the King was coming. They lived in a world of emperors
and kings, with the Caesar in Rome, and King Herod, and so on. So
they understood. They understood that the king himself wielded all
authority. If they ever heard the phrase “balance of power” they
understood it to mean that, on balance, the rulers had all the power.
It was a rough world for everyone not in power, that is, for everyone
other than the king and his favorites. Which means also that they
probably had a quick emotional response to the idea that the coming
King was going to judge them.
And here
we listen in as Jesus tells them that “when the Son of Man comes in
His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His
glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He
will separate people one from another....” (25:31, 32) Yep, here it
comes: the impending judgment. A division of the peoples. Some to
the left; some to the right. At least what Jesus says has some sense
and reason to it. And there it is: all nations are gathered, and then
all the people are divided.
Now
unless you're a brand new Christian, you've heard this passage before
or read it in your Bible. You know how it goes, as I do. This is
Jesus talking about His own second coming – His coming as a King in
glory and majesty. He had come into Jerusalem as a humble king at the
beginning of the week, riding on the donkey and surrounded by the
children and the palm branches and hearing the Hosannas. Here He's
talking about the final judgment at the end of the world. It's a
scene we're all waiting for; and it's appropriate to think about it
as we're about to launch into our annual season of re-enacting the
waiting for His first coming as a baby in Bethlehem. We seem so much
more eager to do our Advent waiting for Christmas than we are to do
our daily waiting for the Second Coming.
Why is
that? Maybe it's that Christmas comes every year, while the Second
Coming hasn't happened even once. I think, too, perhaps it's because
we're afraid. Are we afraid that maybe we are going to end up on His
left hand with the goats instead of on His right hand with the sheep?
Are we afraid that maybe we haven't been doing the things we should
have been doing, living the way we should have been living? Afraid
because of our sins? If that's the case, then what was the whole
first coming about? If we're afraid to stand before Christ the King
sitting on His throne, then what was His manger and cross all about?
He came into this world to gain us forgiveness, so that's taken care
of. The Holy Spirit came on each one of us, giving us the gift of
faith that Jesus's death and resurrection counts for us. Our job now
is to live in that faith. As believers who trust in God's promises,
the Second Coming should not make us afraid.
But you
know what it is in this passage that has caught my eye for a while?
It's the verse where the people on Jesus's right side say “Wait!
What? You
were hungry and we gave you food? You
were thirsty, and … and a stranger? No, I would have remembered
that. What are You talking about?” [that's a paraphrase]
Yes, Jesus replies, that was Me. When you did your works of love and
mercy to the most insignificant people around, the ones other people
considered worthless, then you were doing those things to Me! Really!
What
catches my eye about this particular verse is that the sheep-people
are as confused about the daily presence of Jesus in their lives as
the goat-people are in the rest of the passage when they are told
“you didn't
do these things unto Me.” You can hear the shouts from the left
side “no fair! If we'd known it was You, if You'd let us know, of
course we would have helped You out, we're not heartless; give us a
break.” That's the goat-people.
But
as the sheep-people, we will be just as mystified about how Jesus
could have been the recipient of our charity. And the thing is, see,
that I believe the reason the sheep are mystified, the reason they
aren't sure how they could have been ministering to Jesus, is that
they were just going about their business. They hadn't been keeping
an eye out for Jesus as the goats maybe just might have been
(although, really, do you actually think they were? If anything, the
goats might have been watching for Jesus only to the extent that a
lazy employee keeps an eye out for the boss's approach and only gets
to working hard when the supervisor comes by.). The sheep on Jesus's
right hand were visiting the sick and imprisoned, were clothing the
naked and welcoming the strangers, they were feeding the hungry, just
because that's what they normally did. It was their way of life. It
was how they conducted themselves.
Someone's hungry? Well, of course you'll feed him or her! That was
their attitude during life. So when the King tells them this from His
throne they're a little confused by how they could have missed Jesus
if He had been hungry or sick or a stranger. They weren't really
looking for Jesus. They were just doing what they normally did.
The point here is not that the way to get into Heaven is to
offer charity to the needy. It isn't. The point is that for those of
us forgiven by God because of Jesus's death on the cross and His
resurrection to life, we the people of God now just do these things
naturally as part of who we are. It's how we act. It's how we behave.
It's what we do.
And it's what we do without recognizing – or even looking for –
the face of Christ on those receiving our help. The sheep in this
Gospel lesson didn't know that they had been helping Jesus whenever
they helped the least of these His brothers, and we certainly don't
know that we are helping Jesus whenever we help the least in today's
world. But it's all here in the Gospel. This explanation of what
happens when the followers of Christ act warmly and charitably to
those in need.
So, for unbelievers it makes no sense to look for the King. They
wouldn't know Him even if they tripped over Him. But for believers,
it is a natural part of our new life to look for the King in the face
of our brothers and sisters.
This
Christ the King Sunday happens to fall in Thanksgiving week -- or the
other way around, Thanksgiving happens to fall in Christ the King
week. That seems to make it an appropriate time for us to consider
the life and death needs of our King's other children. In only a few
days, after all, most or all of us will sit down to our typical
American Thanksgiving feasts – when those in deep need won't even
be able to count on a simple meal.
Matthew 25 makes it clear what our charge is. If we do not give food
to the hungry, if we do not give a drink to the thirsty, if we do not
welcome the stranger, if we do not clothe the naked, if we do not
visit the sick and the imprisoned, then we will be among the goats
sent to the eternal fire. If we have not done those things, then we
haven't carried out our responsibilities as members of the Kingdom
and show by our lack of works that we have no faith underneath. If we
haven't done those things, we are guilty of ignoring the King.
But
if we have?? Then we will inherit the Kingdom prepared for us from
the foundation of the world. If we have
fed the hungry, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger and all the
rest, then we have done these things for our King.
Our search for the King's face in the faces of the hungry, the
naked, and the strangers is a search that pleases God. When God
called us to be in mission and ministry, he called us to (among other
things) help those in need as if we were helping Christ Himself. To
this end we remember our church's outreach and the outreach of
community and international aid organizations that help people on our
behalf in places we cannot go, done only with our support and
backing..
We live in a fortunate part of the world, as you know. Here in
America there are comparatively few people who go completely without
food for days, or who live out in the open air with barely any
clothing and hardly any family and friends. Here in this country we
don't have people washing up on our shorelines desperate to escape
violence and bloodshed and persecution in their home country.
And
merely because these people don't knock on our doors for help, that's
no reason to deny them our help. As Christian people, our help should
extend around the world. We can find the face of Christ our King in
the faces of the hungry, the dispossessed, the refugee, the homeless
and naked and stranger everywhere in the world. We can simply love
those people for Christ's sake, and give them what they need.
Christ our King searched each of us out when we were lost sheep. He
brought us into safe places. He nurtured us. Our response, out of
love and gratitude includes our search for other people with whom to
share the Gospel about Christ, and with whom to share our material
blessings. Let's give everyone some thing to be thankful for.
Amen.
And the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts
and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord and King. Amen
S.D.G.