they got a mural up on e.13th. that said halleluiah rest in peace
Well; there you have it…
You have to admit, though, it is a little ironic…
I mean here we are, going through all the trouble of showing up when we could be anywhere else; hoping maybe God would show up too, hoping we would see God today. Only to hear that God isn’t here. God has already beat us to the door, apparently. God is outside these walls; albeit amongst those folks who are hardest to be around, maybe even the ones we try to avoid.
Isn’t that always how it goes, though???
But; there you have it anyway…
If nothing else at least this parable is straight-forward. When we care for ‘the least of these,’ we take care of Jesus himself; and conversely when we fail to take care of the least of these we ignore the Son of God.
Yes, although it is only a small consolation at least this parable is easy to understand; hard to do, but easy to understand…
I suppose it goes without saying, though, that understanding this parable doesn’t make it any easier to obey. Sadly, grasping the supposed moral of this parable doesn't make it any easier to go out to those folks Jesus shows up amongst. Tragically, recognizing the ethic of this parable doesn’t make the stranger any more familiar. Regrettably, comprehending this parable’s lesson, does make hungry any more well-fed, either.
That’s the rub of so much of Jesus’ teachings, though, isn’t it? We can understand it, supposedly; but for the life of us, we can’t bring ourselves to act on them…
But, hey; at least we can understand this parable…
For as hard as this parable is to do, though; that’s not what’s really hard about this parable. Believing this parable is the real challenge. That’s the real reason, sisters and brothers, acting on this parable is so difficult.
We might think we understand the parable, but we don’t believe it -not really, not deep down, not in our heart. Until we really believe the implicit promise of this parable, we’ll never act on it’s supposed teaching.
So, there you have it…
The real problem with have with this parable is that its just too unbelievable!
Isn’t that, after all, why both the sheep and the goats are surprised as they’re sent to the king’s left and right?
The king calls all his subjects together, and then separates them. To those the king has put at his right hand, he says; “I was hungry and you fed me, enter into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the earth.”
To which these sheep are perplexed. They search their memory, surely if they had ever cared for royalty they would have remembered something like that. So they can’t help but venture, “Ummm… King, when did we ever do that for you?”
Then the king replies with something truly unbelievable: “Any time you took care of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick or imprisoned, you took care of me.”
That’s the twist to this parable, that’s the promise behind the moral of this parable, the promise we can’t get ourselves to believe. The king of the universe has shown up at all, and then on top of that, the king has shown up amongst the last people we’d suspect.
That’s what’s really hard to believe about this parable, not that we should feed those who are hungry. We can handle morals, but sheer promises? That’s another story.
Just search your own life if you’re skeptical. Those times you didn’t have enough to eat or drink, those times you found yourself in some place new with no familiar faces to welcome you, when found yourself without the right clothes, when that sicknesses knocked you down, when that decision landed you in the clink; now, when you were in those wretched places, could you bring yourselves to believe that God was present with you there???
Yes, we may fancy we understand this parable; but before we could even try obeying it, we can’t even bring ourselves to believe it!
Could Christ, the king we laud today, is really be out there amongst the outcasts, the thieves and the bums?!?! Could Jesus really be hanging around those folks, the ones that -if we’re honest- we avoid? Could Jesus really be in those places in our lives, the places where -if we’re honest- we’d do anything we can to avoid?
That’s a scandalous kind of king, sisters and brothers! No wonder both the goats and the sheep are surprised by the king in today’s parable.
In fact, when you examine our perpetual suspicion, you can’t help but wonder if we actually understand this parable at all.
Once again, the parable threatens to have it’s way with us. Just as we thought we had made heads and tails of this parable, we realize it’s actually flipped our world upside down! This parable has its own center of gravity.
Isn’t that always how it goes, though?
Here we are, hoping Jesus will show up in this place, today; only to hear that Jesus is out there, in the places we’ve been trying to avoid, amongst those people we’re even afraid of. Noting is the way we’d thought!
Happy Christ the King Saturday/Sunday…
If it’s any consolation, that’s how it was for those sheep in today’s parable, too. The king calls his subjects together, nothing out of the ordinary there. After all isn’t that how Jesus is born in Bethlehem? Cesar August gathers all the inhabitants of the world for a census, to tax them, of course.
Suddenly, though, the parable flips everything on its head. The king separates the subjects into two groups, and then commends those sheep to his right. These sheep are blessed because when the king was hungry, thirsty, strange, naked, sick or imprisoned, they were actually taking care of the king.
Here we must pause, we must humble our intellect.
Here, as we see the sincere shock of those who have been called to sit at the right hand of the king, we must put away the fallacy that we understand today’s parable. Here we must, at least, come to grips with the fact that no one in this parable acts on its supposed moral.
These blessed sheep, why they never went out to care for the hungry, thirsty, strange, naked, sick or imprisoned because they believed that God was amongst those poor souls. Why those sheep are caught in the same predicament as us!
No, if these subjects the king has ushered into his kingdom ever did care for the least of these, they just did it; not because they fancied it a part of their “Christian Duty.” When the king invites them into his kingdom, they’re just as surprised as we are.
Isn’t that always how it goes, though?
Well, sisters and brothers, this parable has one last surprise up it’s sleeve; and get this, this surprise, it’s for you and me…
As this parable has it’s way with us, as it flips our world upside down, as it insists that those hungry, thirsty, strange, naked, sick and imprisoned are actually Christ, and so they became; Christ the King finally gets what he wants, thy kingdom comes, thy will is done, on earth as it is in heaven, even!
Right here, right now; Jesus the good shepherd, our king, makes this parable happen again. Here you are, not by accident but because the king has gathered you here, and then, by nothing other than royal fiat, the king declares us sheep and shepherds us into his kingdom he’s been busy preparing for us since the foundation of the earth.
In something as simple as saying so, God has turned a room full of sinners like you and me, into saints who dare to leave this place and go out amongst the hungry, thirsty, strange, naked, sick and imprisoned declaring Jesus is there, too. In something as simple as saying so, God has turned a room full of sinners like you and me, into saints who dare to trust that in those wretched places of our lives, Christ the King reigns victorious.
Now this is Christ the king you can’t help but praise!
Today we conclude our stewardship emphasis by focusing on the “Out,” of the “down, in, and out.”
Out, the movement from this place to share all God has given us.
Hear this loud and clear, you blessed by the father, you don’t go out from here alone. Christ has gone before you. Christ is already out there amongst those who have no one to feed, welcome, clothe or heal them, and made them strangers no longer, but familiar sisters and brothers in Christ.
Hear this loud and clear, you that are ushered into the kingdom Christ has welcomed you into, you don’t go out from here alone. Christ has gone before you. Christ is already in those godforsaken places of your life, and redeemed them into the royal highway to the Kingdom of God.
The unexpected action of the king is the real point of this parable, sisters and brother, not some moral that none of the characters in the parable act on…
The madcap, Russian author, Franz Kafka, once wrote that if we dare to listen to the parable, we become the parable ourselves.
That’s exactly what Jesus had in mind.
Today, just like those sheep in our parable, you thought you were going to hear the king, but suddenly the king has done something different, something unexpected.
In the simple act of gathering us here and putting this parable in front of us, Christ the king issues a royal edict yet again. You that are blessed by the father, enter into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the earth. Nothing can be the same ever again; today is Christ the King Sunday the end of the church-year; no more than that, the end of the world! A new world springs up from the faith this parable creates, a world where Christ the King reigns.
Amen.
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