20 November 2011

“Famous last words”
Matthew 25:31-46
Christ the King Sunday
20 November 2011


If you knew that the next words out of your mouth would be the last opportunity you would have to … make a public proclamation … try to influence others’ hearts and minds … make a lasting impression on others … what would you say?
Would it be something like Lou Gehrig’s famous retirement speech, words of gratitude offered to the crowd at Yankee Stadium: “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” Maybe you’d try and be humorous, like The Beatles in their final public concert, after recording “Get Back” on top of the building in Saville Row: “On behalf of the crew and ourselves, I hope we pass the audition.” Or perhaps you’d be more poignant, like Johnny Carson at the end his last broadcast: “I wish you a heartfelt goodnight.”
Today’s Gospel reading gives us that moment for Jesus. His days of public ministry have come to an end; the next verses begin the story of his passion and crucifixion.
So what do you think Jesus should say?
Should he leave us with a stern lecture about “pure doctrine,” exhorting us to lay out every bit of our faith in systematically intricate, well-constructed confessional theological statements with which no one can argue?
Should he implore us to liturgical correctness, emphasizing “right worship,” the proper way to pray, praise and give thanks to God?
Certainly he should focus on naming moral rights and wrongs, laying out what’s sinful and what’s not, so that we can congratulate good behavior on the one hand, and judge and condemn on the other.
But surprise! Jesus pulls a fast one. In these his last words of instruction before his Passion and crucifixion, he says … hey, what the kingdom of heaven is all about, what it’s going to be like when I come again to you … is … justice, love, service. Concern for the poor, the sick, those in prison, those on the margins of our society. That’s what it’s all about, Jesus says.
Now … it’s not that Jesus doesn’t care about that other business. He gave us pure doctrine already in the Great Commandments, earlier in Matthew’s gospel – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart … and soul… and mind … and your neighbor as yourself. On these … hang all the law and the prophets.”
Right worship? He set that straight in a passage shortly before today’s … Matthew 23.23: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.”
And as for morality … Jesus’ words of the Sermon on the Mount up the ante. He calls suffering and sacrifice for others a God-blessed state; saying that those who practice meekness, making peace, and being persecuted for his sake are truly blessed; and also exhorting us not to resist an evildoer … if anyone strikes us on the right cheek, turn the other also … and to love our enemies, praying for those who persecute us.
But it’s here in the 25th chapter of Matthew that Jesus makes his real point. What truly concerned him then … what truly concerns him now … and what will truly concern him on that day when “The Son of Man comes in his glory,” is how we treat “the least” of our brothers and sisters in this life.
Right doctrine, right worship, right morality … they all take a back seat to this: how we treat the hungry, the poor, and the prisoner … the disenfranchised … the ones who don’t fit in, most of the time, with “nice people”… in fact, these are the ones whom the “nice people” would probably rather avoid, and ignore, sweep them under the carpet.
We might want to forget them. But Jesus doesn’t. Like all the prophets who came before him, from Isaiah and Amos right on through to John the Baptist, the ones who are usually the last on everyone else’ mind are the first people on Jesus’ mind.
Those who care for the poor, the powerless, those without a voice in this life, he says that they are the righteous ones… for in caring for them, they are really caring for Jesus. This is true religion … this is what right worship of God is all about … this is proper moral behavior.
And what of those who reject the poor and the powerless and those without a voice in this life … ignoring them, forgetting them, shoving them into the background, providing for themselves first at the expense of those who can least afford it, leaving them isolated and abandoned? Well, they are the ones who stand condemned. “Truly I tell you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
A Lutheran colleague of mine says that last sentence is precisely why he has a hate-love relationship with this text. He hates it because it seems to make what we do into the requirement for being blessed by God. And indeed, it sure seems that way. Where’s the grace?
But he also loves these words … because the ones who Jesus calls “righteous” are surprised. Here’s the grace. The ones who have been “doing to Jesus” don’t even realize it.
And that’s because their whole life attitude, their posture for living … doctrine, worship, morality … it comes as second nature to them … it’s just part of who they are. Their “doing to Jesus” doesn’t earn them heaven because they never understood faith to be this way.
And the goats … the ones who didn’t “do to Jesus” in this life … they are equally surprised, but for the opposite reason … they were so intent, so conscious of their posture of “rightness before God” … in doctrine, in worship, in morality … that they spent all their earthly time paying attention only to themselves, and missed the real opportunities to serve the Lord by serving “the least of these” … their neighbors who were truly in need.
It is like posture, after all … when “standing up straight” becomes second nature to us, we do it without thinking. When we’re always looking in the mirror and checking and rechecking “how we look,” we miss real life … it goes by us.
In he same way … our salvation, our being made right with God in Jesus … isn’t given to us so that we would stand around and preen and point out “how good and right we are.” No … our salvation is to be our very motivation for our neighbor’s emancipation … we are saved so that we would go and do for the “least of these” in the same way that Jesus comes and does for us, sinners that we all are. We have been given freedom and forgiveness from God in Jesus Christ, so we are to go and give – to the hungry, the poor, the sick, those in prison … in our pledges, our offerings, our prayers and our service.
You and I are saved for something … we are called to live justice … the gift of salvation is a call to go and do to and for “the least of these.”
And not some day in the future. You and I are called to do it now. We are called by our Lord and Savior to do it now. Right now. And every day from now on. Our posture … our doctrine, our worship, our morality … is to make sure that “the least of these” are not forgotten. We are called … called, not to sit, not to get comfortable, but to stand up straight and get to work.
This is Jesus’ way. This is Jesus’ work. This is Jesus’ faith. This is his final word to us … and the way he wants to find us when he comes again … our posture for living … not checking our selves in the mirror, but suddenly seeing in the mirror of the faces of our neighbors … that in serving them, we have truly been serving our Lord. Amen.