Last Sunday in Church Year

Christ the King Sunday

November 20, 2005

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Ephesians 1:15-23

Matthew 25:31-46

            Here we are on a snow covered last Sunday in the Christian church year.  In the liturgical church we call this “Christ the King Sunday.”  Next week we will begin our four week time of preparation for the birth of the infant King Jesus.  But this Sunday we approach the grown-up shepherd king.  He sits on his throne and we stand in awe before him.

            We tremble and we wonder what will happen next.  We’re like sheep and goats, waiting to be divided up.  Some of us will receive good news.  We’re among the chosen sheep.  Some of us will receive bad news we are among the rejected goats.  All of this has to do with how we have treated ---- or neglected ---- people Jesus calls “the least.”

            What shall we make of this?  Indeed, there is a “list of the least.”  Who are the least?  The least include:

1. The hungry.
2. The thirsty.
3. The stranger.
4. The naked.
5. The sick.
6. The prisoner.

This list is not exhaustive.  You could add others to this Least List”.  As one of my clergy colleagues has pointed out, the list Jesus gave is not an exhaustive list, but rather an example list.  Still, it’s good enough for now.

            As each one of us hears this list read aloud we imagine ourselves in situations when we have met someone who is hungry, thirsty, a stranger, unclothed, sick, or in prison.  Perhaps you felt good about the time you helped out that person who came to the door looking for a hand out.  Or perhaps you wonder about the time you passed by that man who held up the sign asking for food because you didn’t want to encourage begging.  All sorts of thoughts come into my mind about how best to organize welfare.

            I wonder what sorts of thoughts were on the minds of the people who first heard Jesus words.

First of all there is surprise.  Both the so-called “sheep” and the so-called “goats” were surprised.  The people who did good were surprised that they had helped Jesus when they just did what they thought was common, ordinary, decent behavior.  The people who didn’t do anything were surprised that they had walked right by Jesus when he was there among “the least.”

            Surprising.  Are you ever surprised when someone praises you for doing something you just considered natural and ordinary?   You helped somebody chop his wood or brought her a meal after she was in the hospital.

Perhaps it is as Anthony Robinson discovered: 

"Goodness is not planned. It is not a heroic decision or clever calculation. It is an expression of who we are."

            This is the profound mystery of what Luther discovered when he came upon the realization that he could try to do all the good things in the world and it didn’t amount to a hill of beans.  But when he placed his trust in God, it just seemed natural that he would try to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, and visit the prisoner.  To put this truth in other words, it is not works righteousness, but works that naturally flow out of our right relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

            What is also surprising is that we do not determine whether we are the sheep or the goats.  It is not what I call myself that matters in the end.  What matters is will my actions lead Jesus to recognize me?  Or to put it even more surprisingly, will the poor turn to Jesus and say, “It’s all right, Lord.  I recognize him.”  (Jerry Goebel)

            Sometimes we speculate about what Jesus looks like.  We have the image of Jesus with long hair sitting in the portrait by Werner Salmon.  When our denomination was young and new a Sunday School curriculum appeared showing Jesus with short hair.  What a commotion that caused!  How funny that we seem to know what Jesus looked like since there are no pictures.  If we take this story seriously, it is more likely that Jesus looks like the panhandler on the street or short-termer at the county jail or the unwed mother in jeans.

            Or Jesus could look like this kid at school.  Here is a middle school version of our Gospel Lesson:

Matthew 25 for the School

I sat alone in the cafeteria, with little to eat,

            and you sat with me and shared your lunch.

Kids laughed at my old clothes,

            but you treated me as if they were brand new.

I was never chosen for any team,

            but when it was your turn to choose, you chose me.

Everyone laughed at my mistakes,

            but you said kind words to make me feel better.

When I stayed home, I thought no one would miss me,

            but you called me and asked when I would be back.

Yes, Jesus shows up in surprising places.

2.         In addition to surprising us, this story of the sheep and goats also invites us.  This story invites us to an “encounter.”  When we bring our offerings to church or participate in a mission project we are tempted to make “the least” into objects of our pity.  We think we are doing something for them out of the goodness of our hearts and we pat ourselves on the back.

            Actually,  Christ the King invites us to “encounter” the hungry, thirsty, strange, sick, imprisoned, unclothed ones.  When our Confirmation class goes down to Milwaukee we don’t so much do things for others as learn from them.  We go to a so-called “soup kitchen” named St. Ben’s and we get in line with the street people who have come for a free meal.  We go through the chow line and sit down with an old bearded man or a mother with three children and we learn from them.

            Johnny Cash, the late country and pop singer, was famous for going to Folsom Prison and singing for the inmates.  He sang songs that moved their hearts and his eyes showed that he was right there with them.  Later on he sang at other prisons.  One observer has said that Folsom Prison appearance began the resurrection of his professional and personal life after his bout with drugs and divorce.  The prison encounter gave Cash as much he gave to them.

            In an op-ed piece recently published in the New York Times, University of Georgia historian James C. Cobb made some observations about the hurricane-devastated American South.  He acknowledged that Hurricane Katrina had bared the lie behind the South’s supposed prosperity, but then went on to note a remarkable shift in racial attitudes, where once racist small towns were now places of cooperation among blacks and whites.

            And then he wrote:

“As community after community across the South opened its arms to the displaced, small-town papers were awash in stories about middle-class whites who had obviously made homeless and penniless evacuees the first black guests ever to sit at their tables and sleep on their sheets.”

            This horrible hurricane had forced an encounter between black and white, affluent and impoverished, urban and rural.  The blessing in the middle of the curse.  The good that came from the bad.  The meeting of God’s people.  Acts of compassion, not just shows of charity.  How surprising is that?

            Christ the King.  Christ the beggar.  Christ the prisoner.  Christ the homeless one.  Christ the surprise and challenge to each of us.  This we receive on a deer-hunting weekend in Wisconsin.  A challenge:

• To serve Christ through meeting one another’s needs.
• To see Christ in one another and to be Christ to one another.
• To show the reign of Christ, visible through us for the entire world to see.