Sermon - St. Matthew’s Episcopal Ch. - November 24, 2002 - Last Sunday Pentecost

Today we read of the evangelist Matthew’s account of words of radical judgment of the people of the world. "Truly, I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me."

In reading this story three words come to me.

    Threat    Promise     Mystical Exchange

The story is pointed to the future. "when the Son of Man comes in his glory… All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another… The unrighteous will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

In this future oriented vision Jesus is unleashing something on the order of a threat. Here is the life I expect from you. Your blessedness and fitness for eternity will be based on compassion and nothing else. You are judged on whether or not you cared for those who are the "least of these". You are judged on how you have given food to the hungry, drink for the thirsty, welcome to the stranger, clothing for the naked, care for the sick, visitation to the prisoner.

If taken as the entirety of the New Testament witness about God’s expectation for our Christian walk, we would all have reason to go into panic mode. Who among us lives up to these monumental expectations?

In Jewish teaching hyperbole and exaggeration have an honored place. Threats and woes are unleashed to disturb. The prophet loves God and loves justice and cannot tolerate passivity and lukewarm-ness from believers in a vicious world jammed full with hungry, thirsty, cold, sick, imprisoned human beings.

I trust that all of us are disturbed by the distressing reality Jesus is envisioning here. Perhaps you afraid that you will go to hell if you disappoint Jesus. I’d be more afraid of living in the hell that billions of the world’s people experience every day.

Yes, this is a threat. It is a threat. We are to look in the mirror and ask ourselves tough questions about our daily lives and our commitment to Jesus and his commitment to hungry, thirsty, naked, sick imprisoned people.

If this story is a threat to the safe and comfortable it is a promise to the afflicted and downtrodden. It is a promise that God is especially concerned for those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, sick and in prison. It suggests that God is particularly and inwardly present to them.

Perhaps, it suggests that they might be spared the judgment of the sheep and the goats altogether. Those with plenty of food, drink, clothing, good health and freedom will enjoy all these good things NOW - NOW, and those without these things may be experiencing physical hell but they will enjoy something else, life with God, now and into eternity.

Jesus’s story of the last judgment is intended to wake his Christian people up to the vivid realities of wealth and poverty and the incredible disparities that exist among the human beings of the world. To those of us that walk through life as if these catastrophic realities are someone else’s problems - we are spiritually asleep. I know that I can be guilty of caring only for myself and my small circle of loved ones --- woe to me.

Truth be told, few of us recognize just how wealthy and pampered we are relative to the vast majority of the people of the world. We simply marvel and give thanks for the triumph which is American democracy and free enterprise. This story, offered as threat and promise by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, is a wake up call.

"The least of these", whoever and wherever they may, are calling us into ministry. They are calling us into being our best selves.

Yes, Jesus is threatening and promising, but I insist that his promise far transcends the threat. Jesus is suggesting, even guaranteeing a sort of mystical exchange. In serving the least of these, one is serving Christ himself. This implies the stunning idea that Christ experiences hunger in the bodies of hungry children, that the Risen Lord is parched for thirst when one person in the world is thirsty… Use your imagination. You are meant to use your imagination here. God needs us.

As I said, this story is exaggeration and hyperbole. It is meant to excite, to quicken the conscience, to exact a real cost on the listener. No one can hear this story and gently smile, or relax. Jesus reminds us that God has a claim on our lives. God can lay out expectations and God’s expectations are significant and focused on "the least of these".

Often, we can mistake God’s steadfast love with some sort of unblinking affirmation for us, whatever we may do or not do in our lives. Jesus says wake up, and to do so he tells us this story teeming with threat and promise, with an invitation to new life and love with the mystical exchange that takes place in our acts of kindness and love.

I say this vision is exaggeration and hyperbole because it is not the whole story, or the final word of God, on this subject. I say this because I don’t for one minute believe that God in Christ is some sort of a scorekeeper in heaven, weighing our every action, giving us bad and good marks on some sort of a ledger, and ultimately separating those of us who might fall short from his love forever and ever AMEN.

I don’t believe that because I do believe in the resurrection. The resurrection is forgiveness and new life. In raising Jesus from the dead God forgave the world for the death of Jesus and therein has granted new life for the world that we can love "the least of these", not out of fear of eternal hell, but out of the overflowing gratitude we have for being children of God. Grace received. Grace shared. I do not accept the notion that authentic faith can be born out of fear of damnation.

Instead, I would suggest that this story and its mystical exchange is yet another way to understand that magnificent call to the abundant life - "Love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself."

As your rector I am keenly aware of your love for God and the deep river of compassion that flows the very heart of this church. We hear this story of Jesus and we respond with gratitude and action. We know we are blessed with resources. We know we see the face of Christ in the suffering of the prisons, in Honduras, in our sick and shut-in, in those fearful for their futures, perhaps even in ourselves.

Today we will introduce our Family to Family ministries of compassion for Christmas this year. Listen and find your place, your own way to minister to the least of these in our midst.

I know we care. But I believe we do need encouragement to persevere in acts of caring. I’ve never forgotten these words attributed to Mother Theresa: People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; LOVE THEM ANYWAY. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives: DO GOOD ANYWAY. If you are successful win false friends and true enemies, SUCCEED ANYWAY. The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow. DO GOOD ANYWAY. What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight: BUILD ANYWAY. People really need help but attack you if you help them; HELP THEM ANYWAY. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth; GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU’VE GOT --- ANYWAY!

It’s true, so often we throw up our hands at the evil and sadness in our world and say "I cannot possibly make a difference. My one action of love is just a drop in the bucket."

I am reminded of the well-traveled story of the young girl vacationing on the beach with her family. She awakened unusually early on a scorching sunny morning. To her surprise thousands of starfish were littered all over the beach. She closely examined one and quickly realized she needed to throw it back into the water for it to survive. Suddenly she flew into action realizing that she was the only solution. The beach was empty of people. Quickly, she threw one after another into the water. Tearfully, she struggled to keep working, realizing that she was barely scratching the surface with her efforts. Then she heard an adult voice. A stranger said, "you innocent and foolish little girl, can’t you see that you cannot save them all. What you are doing is just a drop in the bucket. Give up! It can’t be that important." She stopped and looked at him quietly for just a moment. She said, "No. No. You are wrong. It is important."

She lovingly lifted a starfish up from the sand, "it is important for this one." And she threw it in the water. And it is important for this one. And this one…"

I believe it was Wordsworth who artfully summed it up that the "the best portion, THE BEST PORTION, of a person’s life were those little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love."

If compassion is foolish, then we Christians are foolish and we have a foolish God.

Today is Christ the King Sunday. We celebrate the gift of King Jesus who reigns by servanthood, loving us, cajoling us, even threatening us to serve with him and under him as he has sacrificially served us. One by one.

With a universe of humanity as plentiful as sand grains on the sea shore, Jesus says to God, "I would die for this one and this one and this one and this one, and this one. And what can we say, but Thank you, Jesus and AMEN.