NOV. 20, 2005 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
EZ 34:11-16; 20-24; PS 95:1-7; EPH 1:15-23; MT 25:31-46
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we believe and in believing we obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Picture this scene. I’m sure it hasn’t happened to any of you, but just let your imagination run with it and see what happens. Conjure up the image of a parent, let’s say a mom, at home, with a house full of kids – maybe an overnight birthday party.
A few of the children are good, a couple even helpful, but the rest fall somewhere between trouble and…monster! As the night wears on, the road gets rockier …until she’s finally had it. She’s bitten her tongue…until it’s almost bloody; she’s counted to ten…a thousand times over; she’s held her composure…and now it’s pulling apart at the seams.
Then there comes that significant moment when some invisible line is crossed, when one tiny little straw breaks the back of the camel, when what was funny becomes infuriating, what was fun becomes frustrating…when it’s time to read the riot act, to rein in the horses, to lay down the law.
You probably don’t know that feeling…but I do. Plus I get to that point more quickly when my stress level is high. As I was working on my sermon this week, I began to wonder if this might be similar to what Jesus was experiencing when he proposed this problematic parable about the sheep and the goats. There are some signs to support such a claim.
For one thing, Jesus is near the end of his ministry, very close to death. Our story occurs only two days before his final Passover, before he says goodbye to his friends, his family, his life. For another, his enemies are organized, ready to make their move. Very soon he will be betrayed, arrested, falsely accused and denied. So, if he’s a little on edge, it makes sense – the gloves have come off, the die is cast, the stage is set for a most tragic and touching drama. So like our mom at the party, maybe Jesus, too, felt that it was time to read the riot act, to rein in the horses, to lay down the law.
Can someone share what you hear Jesus saying in this story about the sheep and the goats? Just like the parable from last week about the slaves and their talents, so, too, here: those who do will be blessed, those who do not will be condemned.
What’s striking is that nothing is said about a person’s faith or beliefs or trust in God. Instead, the world’s experience of the divine that, to this point has been painted in all the colors of religion, and in all the shades of morality, is suddenly boiled down to two elements: the black and white, those who did and those who did not, those who are praised and those who are panned, those who are welcomed in and those who are cast out.
How does that fit with what have you learned since you were a child about how a person gets into heaven? Anyone? To quote the book of Ephesians, by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works (Ephesians 2:8-9)…hmmm.
In some ways it seems as if we’ve stepped through the looking glass, as if we’ve suddenly been told that the earth is flat, that up is down, that black is white, that the moon really is made out of cheese, and that the monsters under our beds and in our closets...are, in fact, real!
If that’s so, how would you finish this sermon? Faith is a foolish notion? It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you do good works? God doesn’t care about the condition of your hearts, just the actions of your hands?
Actually, I think it’s something more than that. On this Christ the King Sunday, our focus is drawn not only to Jesus’ reign as ruler of creation and all its people, but also to that which is vital about God’s will for life. Our experience of where God (vertical) meets us (horizontal) at its most basic is here elevated to the utmost importance.
It’s not about doing the work of humanity without knowing God…both sides are obviously aware of who the Lord is and what he expects. No one says, We didn’t know that we were supposed to serve you…! Nor is anyone astounded that Jesus, the Lamb of God, is King and Judge over all. But there are a couple of surprises here.
The first is that Jesus, the Lamb and Judge, is incomparably connected, intimately intertwined, completely commingled with people who are in need. But remembering what the prophets said about the poor, the hungry, the blind and the lame, we realize that this is nothing new, that this is, in fact, absolutely consistent with God’s concern throughout history. Just two weeks ago we heard Jesus himself, at the beginning of his ministry, say Blessed are the poor and the hungry, the weak and the meek. Here he says the same at the end of his days.
The second surprise comes in the fact that neither the sheep nor the goats saw Jesus in the poor and naked and jailed and hungry. The goats had their eyes open for Jesus and would have helped him had they seen him… But the sheep had their hearts opened by Jesus and helped his children, his neighbors, his friends simply because they trusted him, took him at his word.
The message here is that Jesus opens our hearts to God, our ears to the Gospel and our hands to all who are in need …not to help us fulfill a requirement in order to get into heaven, but to fulfill a vow of love – certainly ours to God but especially God’s to us.
It’s a trap to wonder if we’ve done enough to earn God’s favor, to deserve God’s blessing. Like someone who’s having trouble falling asleep. It does no good to worry about all the slumber that’s been lost. No one falls asleep by trying to do it - counting sheep or otherwise; just as no one gets into heaven by counting the sheep that they’ve helped.
What works instead, according to theologian Robert Capon, is just dumb trust…trust in the relationship, in the love of the shepherd for the sheep. When it comes down to it, says Capon: We simply don’t know (how salvation works or why), and we should all have the decency to shut up and just trust (Jesus)…And we don’t even have to know if we have succeeded in doing that, because Jesus is there anyway…He is the love that will not let us go. If anybody can sort it all out, he can; if he can’t, nobody else ever will. Trust him, therefore. And trust him now (Kingdom, Grace, Judgment, p. 512). Amen.