Good Shepherd Lutheran Church(elca)
Following Christ, Growing in Faith, Sharing God's Love
Sermon
November 22 and 23, 2008
Matthew 25:31-46
We’re still in the same section of Matthew
that we’ve been studying the last 2 weeks.
And as we’ve said before,
this section responds to 2 questions.
The first,
When will Christ return?
And the second,
What shall we do while we wait?
So, to review—
We don’t know.
We can’t know.
No one knows.
But we know the time is coming,
whether it’s the end of the world for all of us,
or the end of our life.
We don’t know when that will come.
I was visiting in the hospital.
The wife was sick.
And the husband said:
“We are giving thanks for whatever we get,
whether it’s two weeks,
or two months,
or two decades.”
And I said:
“Actually, that’s true for all of us.”
And the second question,
What shall we do with whatever time
God gives us on earth.
That’s what this parable continues to explore.
At its essence,
I think it’s very clear.
Our lives are to be lives of service
to those around us.
We are to give food to the hungry,
drink to the thirsty,
welcome to the stranger,
clothing to those who need clothes,
care to the sick,
visits to the imprisoned.
And when we do,
that service is not just care for the needy.
It is care for Christ.
Today we celebrate Christ the King,
and this story shows us that Jesus
is a different king than we might expect.
He’s not like ordinary kings.
He is not only a king who judges,
but is also a king who stands with those in pain,
with those in need.
He really cares.
He really loves.
And as we follow Christ,
we care for those who are hungry
and thirsty
and strangers
and unclothed
and sick
and imprisoned.
As Pastor Richard Jensen wrote:
“When Jesus comes into our hearts,
he brings all of needy humanity with him.”
Caring for others
is following Christ,
like our mission statement says.
And that’s the basic message here,
I think.
How shall we spend our time
as Christians here on earth?
Caring for one another.
Caring for all the people God has created.
But as sinful human beings,
it seems to me that there are a couple ways
we mess up.
In 1 Peter 2:9-10, the Bible says:
But you are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood,
a holy nation,
God’s own people,
in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts
of him who called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light.
One way we mess up
is to turn that around.
The verse starts:
“You are a chosen race…”
God has already chosen you.
But sometimes we want to turn it around.
We want to say—
“…because of the good works we do,
God chooses us.”
But that’s not the way it works.
We do the good works
because we’re already chosen.
I remember one time when I was in High School,
when my speech teacher asked our class
if any of us collected stamps.
Well, mostly I collected coins,
going through pennies,
finding the dates I didn’t have
and pressing them in that little blue book.
But I also collected stamps some.
So I raised my hand.
She looked at me,
looked thoughtful for a moment,
and then said:
“Yes. I think you do.”
And I thought:
“What are you talking about?”
She knew me pretty well,
because she was also the debate coach.
And we’d go on speech and debate tournaments together.
So I wondered what this meant.
And she went on to explain.
The concept she was teaching us
was something she’d read about,
a concept of discipline.
And she wasn’t talking about literal stamp collecting.
She was talking about the idea
that we do tasks—maybe even tasks we didn’t like.
And when we’d done enough,
then we’d earned ourselves a reward,
and we’d treat ourselves somehow.
Like a bowl of ice cream
once the chores are done.
Bowls of ice cream
are good motivation for me.
She was right.
I do that sort of thing.
And it’s helpful to keep you going
when you don’t feel like doing what you need to do.
It’s a system of works and rewards.
And it has value.
It’s a good motivational tool.
But it’s not how God relates to us.
God loves us first.
God loves us while we are yet sinners.
God loves us even though we don’t deserve it.
And because of that
we care for others.
Sequence is critical.
First, God loves.
Then we reflect God’s love.
And we mess up
when we think it goes the other way around.
Our relationship with God
is not a system of works and rewards.
It’s a gift of grace,
and reflection of that grace.
So the first way we mess this up
is by getting the sequence wrong.
The reality is that God loves us first
and we reflect that love.
The second way we mess up
is by not acting—
--not feeding the hungry,
--or visiting those in prison.
It’s like we read the verse from 1 Peter:
“But you are a chosen race,
God’s own people…”
And then we stop there.
That feels good.
It’s good to be chosen, holy,
God’s own people.
But do you remember the next words?
“In order that…”
Often, we stop before we get to the “In order that…”
“…you are God’s own people,
in order that you may proclaim
the mighty acts of God.”
We are chosen.
And we are sent out in service to the world.
Sometimes we stop
before the “being sent” part.
As some people have put it,
we form a holy huddle—
--staying close together,
--thinking and planning.
But we never run the play.
We never get to the “in order that” part.
I read a book during sabbatical.
The author lives in downtown Philadelphia
and reaches out to the hungry,
and homeless.
He often asks people
if they think they should follow Christ--
--do what Christ did?
And they almost always say yes.
And then he asks:
“How many of you think Jesus spent time with the poor?”
And most of them, correctly,
think he did.
“How many of you,
followers of Jesus,
spend time with the poor?”
Not so many.
How about you?
People ask this guy:
“What cause should I support?”
He says:
“Don’t support a cause.
Spend time with people.
Spend time with the poor,
the hungry,
the homeless.
And get to know them.
And care for them.
It’s so much more than a cause.
It’s people.
God’s children.”
Sounds simple—doesn’t it.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Everything around us crowds in.
Our busy lives take over.
And we don’t respond to the love God first gives us.
So, that’s one of the reasons I’m thankful
that Good Shepherd provides opportunities
to reach out.
Like the Thanksgiving Baskets.
Last I heard—
--we’re delivering 159 this afternoon.
It’s exciting to see it.
It’s exciting to be a part of it.
As we share food,
we follow Christ.
even the good we do can lead to temptation.
When we care for others,
sometimes we start to focus on ourselves again,
instead of focusing on Christ.
And one of the classic definitions of sin,
that I come back to again and again,
is to be curved in on ourselves.
One of the things in the parable
that keeps coming back to me
is that the sheep were as clueless as the goats.
When the goats said:
“Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry
or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison
and did not take care of you?”—
--that seems like a normal response.
But did you notice that the sheep said the same thing?
They were as clueless about what they did right
as the goats were about what they didn’t do.
Now, that could be simply because
they didn’t realize that in doing good
they were doing it for Jesus
If our eyes are always on ourselves,
then we miss it.
When our eyes are focused on Christ,
that’s when we get it—
--even if we don’t know it at the time.
When we are focused on Christ,
that’s when we are living as we were created to live.
And what does that look like?
Caring for others.
Feeding the hungry.
Welcoming the stranger.
Caring for the sick.
Reaching out to those in need.
Not because we’re earning anything.
But because when our eyes are focused on Christ,
we follow.
Pastor Richard Jensen talks about it this way:
“Caring for other people
is such a part of Christians’ (redeemed) nature,
that the caring acts come naturally—
--perhaps even unconsciously—
--like a good tree naturally producing good fruit.
The tree doesn’t have to think about producing fruit.
It just happens.”
It’s what the tree does.
So,
Then God sends us out in service.
As we do,
we keep our eyes focused on Christ—
--not on our works.
(Sometimes we get a glimpse of true wonder.
we’re changed.
In a book by Bill Moyers,
there’s a section where a man named Jacob Needleman is talking.
I was an observer
at the launch of Apollo 17 in 1975.
It was a night launch,
and there were 100’s of cynical reporters all over the lawn,
drinking beer, wisecracking,
and waiting for this 35-story-high rocket.
The countdown came,
and then the launch.
The first thing you see is this extraordinary light,
which is just at the limit of what you can bear to look at.
Everything is illuminated with this light.
Then comes this thing slowly rising up in total silence,
because it takes a few seconds for the sound to come across.
And then you hear a “WHOOOOOSHHH!!!
HHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMM!”
It enters right into you.
You can practically hear jaws dropping.
This sense of wonder fills everyone in the whole place,
as the thing goes up and up.
The first stage ignites this beautiful blue flame.
It becomes like a star,
but you realize there are humans on it.
And then there’s total silence.
People just get up quiety,
helping each other.
They’re kind.
They open doors.
They look at one another,
speaking quietly and interestedly.
These were suddenly moral people
because of the sense of wonder,
the experience of wonder,
had made them moral.
Our experience of God leads us to good works.
To feed the hungry.
To care for those in need.
Those actions are a reflection of the wonder and love of God.
The wonder of that good news of God’s love
is that it changes us,
so that we care for those around us.
And when life is done,
the good works are so tied to our focus on Christ,
that we say:
“When did we serve you?”
Truly I tell you,
just as you did it to one of the least of these,
you did it to me.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
