Sunday, November 26, 2017

Sermon on Matthew 25.31-46

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews
November 26, 2017
Last Pentecost, A, Proper 29
St. Joseph-St. John, Lakewood
Matthew 25.31-46
           
We’ve reached the end of Matthew 25,
            the end of Jesus preparing those hearing him
                        for the end of the world
                                    when God judges all things and all people.
After these verses,
            the plot to kill Jesus gets underway
                        and we heard that during Lent and Holy Week.
After this Sunday,
            we won’t gather again on a Sunday in this liturgical year.
We start a new year and new book
            next Sunday when we start Advent.

The last two weeks we were warned:
            Keep your lamps trimmed and burning
for you don’t know when Jesus will return;
            Be good stewards of what you have
                        because God owns it all and expects a good return.
Today Jesus tells us in far more words:
            Love all you encounter,
                        for in encountering them,
you encounter me.
The image of God separating the sheep and the goats
            is on that is popular and persistent.
It’s easy to imagine and grasp:
            sheep go to the right and to heaven,
                        goats go to the left and to hell.
Angry Matthew is back at it
            with lakes of fire and eternal darkness
                        as Jesus condemns those who fail to love their neighbor.
Because this image
of sheep and goats is co clear, so visceral,
            we may miss the roles we play in this story.
We may want to interpose ourselves
            into the role of shepherd
                        rather than that of sheep
                                    or if we’re not careful, goat.

When I first dove into Jesus’ talking about
            the Son of Man coming in his glory
                        sorting the sheep who fed him without knowing it
                                    from the goats who sent him away in the same ignorance
                                                I wanted to use it as a litmus test.
I was rejecting aspects of my upbringing,
            aspects that led one of Billy Graham’s grandsons to say in 2008,
                        “We’re not supposed to be building houses or having food drives.
                        We’re supposed to be saving souls.”
My sponsoring priest flatly said,
            “That is Gnosticism, and it is heresy.”
That idea of what Christianity means
            rejects in full Jesus’ directions in today’s Gospel passage.
Even as I was rejecting that notion of Christianity,
            I was all the while making myself the judge,
                        making myself the shepherd.

Jesus doesn’t say,
            “When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
                        those who think of themselves as sheep will sit on the throne.”
Jesus says,
            “When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
                        he will sit on the throne of his glory.”
Jesus’ charge isn’t to decide who is being cast into outer darkness
            but to pay attention to what he teaches
                        and then follow it, to do it.
Following Jesus isn’t for the weak or for the lazy.
Following Jesus is exhausting y’all.
I’m learning that here as your vicar
            because our community’s habits are so built
                        around seeing Jesus in everyone around.

If we asked, “Jesus,
when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food?”
He’d say,
            “Every Wednesday at 6.
The Second and Fourth Wednesdays.
Whenever you give someone in need a bag of dried food.”
If we asked, “Jesus,
            when was it that we saw you thirsty and gave you something to drink?”
He’d say,
            “Most mornings at 9 a.m. and sometimes 1 p.m.
                        when those blessed wanderers of Lakewood
ask for a bottle of water.”
If we asked, “Jesus,
            when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you?”
He’d say,
            “On Sundays when visitors come.
            When you open the doors of the church to Family Housing Network.”

To be so small,
            we do so much!
It’s exhausting, too,
            especially when there’s a skeleton crew
                        making up so much of the work.
But we do it,
            and we don’t do it alone,
                        because we can’t do it alone.
Today’s collect says,
            “Almighty and everlasting God,
whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son,
the King of kings and Lord of lords:
Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth,
divided and enslaved by sin,
may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule.”
Throughout the Gospels,
            Jesus says, “The Reign of God is at hand!”
Because God’s Reign is here, now,
            God is working through us as Christ’s body
                        to restore all things.

Community dinners,
            Family Housing Network,
                        bottles of water,
                                    these are all part of that restoration.
All that work of restoration is tiring,
            and we can’t and don’t do it alone.
The Reign of Christ
            is here, is now,
                        is already-not yet.
We get a glimpse of it
            when we show up here
regardless of how we feel
            when we break bread
                        and remember Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension.
The Son of Man will come in his glory
            and look for how we have treated
the least of those among us.
Jesus will come in his glory,
            but his reign is already among us.
Before the glory,
            we're not the shepherd.
We’re the workers who’re given
            tasks of love that are
physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychically taxing.
We glimpse Jesus’ glory
            at this altar
                        as we hold Jesus,
                                    who comes in both humility and glory as Bread
                                                who feeds us to keep our strength up.
When we leave this place,
            they'll know we’re Christians by our love
                        as we trust and hope we’ll hear,
                                    “Come, you that are blessed by my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world.” 

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