Christ the King
Matthew 25:31-46; Ezekial 34:11-16, 20-24; Ephesians 1:15-23
The corner of Belmont and Clark in Chicago is known as the place
to meet if you are a homeless teenager or a runaway. Every night there are at
least 1,000 homeless teens between the ages of 14 and 20 on the streets of Chicago
and another 10,000 in what is described as precarious housing. Teens crashing
on the floor of a friend of a friend’s apartment or spending the night
riding the el(evated). Family shelters for the homeless only allow boys under
14 years of age to be housed with a homeless mother. Some mothers try to stay
in their car all night with the family intact but it is getting colder and the
younger children need a warm meal and shelter for the night, so the 14 year
old son is told that he’s on his own for the night. Head for Belmont and
Clark, they are told, in the hopes of finding some connection that will get
you through the night.
Last Sunday evening Holy Spirit teens visited the Night Ministry. our presence to the homeless teens of Chicago around Belmont and Clark. There is shelter for 16 teens at our facility near that location. 16 of the 42 beds available each night for the 1,000 homeless teens in the city. After getting some orientation to the needs of the homeless our teens were sent out on the streets shadowed by adults with the assignment of spending one hour on the streets to see what they might see and consider what they might do to survive a cold night in the city. I was shadowing three of our high school girls. At one point I watched from a distance as a worker for another street ministry program approached three teenage boys dressed in baggy blue jeans, fleeces and stocking caps pulled down tight on their heads as a hedge against the cold. I watched as the street worker questioned the boys about their needs. offered them an information card and invited them to get some help. I watched as the boys refused the assistance. refused it not because they didn’t trust the street worker. and refused it not because they had a better offer from another agency. I watched as the boys refused the offer of assistance by explaining that they had comfortable beds to go home to in the suburbs. because the boys approached as homeless were actually three of the teens from Holy Spirit.
If you are a homeless teenager you dress to fit in. not to call attention to yourself. It’s hard sometimes to tell who is homeless and who is tourist. And Jesus said, Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ In the next few weeks before Christmas most of our college and university students will be having final exams for their semester studies. This is finals week for the Christian church. Today is the 27th Sunday after Pentecost. More than half of the 52 weeks that make up a year have been spent in the “green” season of Pentecost, the portion of the church year intended to instruct and strengthen our faith. Today is the end of the church year. We call it Christ the King Sunday. The texts are designed to signal that the end is at hand. Our Gospel lesson is a parable told by Jesus of the final judgement. a Goats and Sheep passage that sounds for all the world like the kind of thing that my professors used to do in college. Remember what that was like? The days right before finals when instructors would say things like, “This is very likely something that will be on the final.” Or “Be sure you study these chapters or this time period or the following concepts because you will need them for the final exam.”
During our academic years there was the constant pattern of study followed by assessment or evaluation followed by more study followed by more evaluation or grading. There was a rhythm that defined us as students. Grades are what matter. High school grades from Stevenson arrived in the mail Friday for another 6 week grading period. Andrew came home Friday night for a week long Thanksgiving break from the University of Illinois. One of our first conversations had to be “How are your classes going?. And your grades?”
Jesus tells a parable that is viewed by many as the study guide for God’s final exam. Cliff’s Notes for the final times. Advice for the test preparations like,“Before you die or the world ends, which ever comes first. Be sure you are clear on what you have done to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the stranger, cloth the naked, comfort the sick, and visit the prisoner.” In the parable told by Jesus there is surprise by both those who have and have not met the requirements of this final exam. Could it be this parable is a warning not to be taken by surprise?
I always hated pop quizzes. Those dreaded words,“All right, close your books and take out a sheet of clean paper. Number from one to 10. Your first question is…” Do you remember what that felt like? The pop quiz. The adult equivalent is the surprise inspection. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the Fire Inspector’s car pull into the church parking lot and I’ve gone running into the sanctuary to check and see that all the exit lights are lit and nothing is blocking any of the many, many exit doors we have in this building. It all seems so cut and dried. Sheep on one hand –goats on the other. Sheep pass. Goats fail. Life just isn’t that simple. We try but we do not always get the right answer.
Years ago I had a math teacher who gave points on tests for effort. Math is usually pretty cut and dried. There is a correct answer. Two plus two equals four. Any other answer is simply wrong. In more sophisticated math equations the answer must often be derived but there still is really only one correct answer to most math problems. My math teacher wanted us to try even when we weren’t sure. He wanted us to put forth our best effort even if we came to a wrong conclusion so he would give points for effort. I still remember one page-long calculation I carried out on which he wrote, “Very creative approach with excellent logic, next time don’t forget to notice the negative sign and you’ll get the right answer.”
I want to believe God gives credit for our efforts to be good, for doing good, but that’s not so clear. Jesus tells a parable that sounds for all the world like preparations for God’s final exam. And like all the parables it is told with elements of surprise in it. The first surprising element to me is that Jesus says that when God’s final exam time arrives all the nations will be gathered. I worry sometimes that that means God is going to be judging me as part of a nation rather than individually. Could it be that what I have done personally will not matter as much as the deeds of our political and corporate leaders who defined the course of our nation’s relationship to other people of the world? I still remember my whole class missing a recess because someone spoke during the quiet reading time. The whole class missed recess because of what one person did. Hardly seems fair that the deeds of a few should so impact the life of the rest of us, but that, of course, in a post September 11th world, is the world we live in. We want our world to be secure, our grades to be guaranteed, our future well defined. Vulnerability is difficult to acknowledge.
Another surprise in the parable is the reaction both of those who have done what is judged “good” and those who have not done what they should have. The sheep and the goats have the same surprised reaction. Lord, when...? Neither group remembers studying for the questions Jesus put on the final. Yet some did the answer and some did not. This is the kind of thing that almost drove Martin Luther crazy. As a monk and priest and pastor Luther strove mightily to be right with God. He wanted to guarantee his salvation and looked for a way to do the right things. This parable scared him as he saw himself among the goats, and try as he might to become one of the sheep he was never sure that he was doing the right things. Such is the real surprise of this parable. Jesus makes it clear that neither the sheep nor the goats had recognized that they were doing anything to secure their place in God’s kingdom.
Our Lutheran faith finds the center of our salvation in God’s grace and not our good works. Feeding the hungry or clothing the naked are the things that we do as people of faith, not to make ourselves right with God. Some would make their good works their religion. I have been told more than once by members of this community that it is more important that they or their children are doing something good to help others than for them to be in church on Sunday morning. The surprise of the sheep in this parable is because they did not do any of the good things they did to secure a place with God or credit for themselves or to improve their resume. Our gathering before God on Sunday morning in worship is no more or less important an act to God than caring for those in want or need. What matters is our motivation and understanding of living not just a good life but a faithful life. Living a life filled not just with good deeds but with an understanding that God’s grace is what brings us to our actions of helping others.
Jesus prepares us for our final exam by asking us to open our eyes, to have eyes to see not needs but to discern God’s grace and grace moments. We are invited to see what we too often choose to miss. We tend to see what we want to see. It happens in the confirmation class that a softdrink is spilled or a snack item dropped on the floor, and no one notices, no one, not even the person responsible for the mess, because to see the spill is to feel a responsibility to clean it up and no one wants to have to do that. If we really noticed every spill that occurs in our lives. well, it’s hard. Walking along a side street just off Belmont in Chicago there in the doorway are four shadows are sharing a bottle. They sit there bundled against the cold. What should I offer them—food?. I don’t think they need a drink. Clothing? They were wearing the best in homeless attire. A few steps further and the bus stop has some truly unusual looking individuals. One gray haired old guy is talking to himself. Crazy? And a couple of teens mix in the group waiting. They wait with the rest for the bus only when the bus comes they have no money to get on, but there is safety in numbers so they will wait for the next bus, and the next bus, and the next. What do I see? What do I want to see? There are no naked children on the streets of Chicago like there are in other parts of the world I see presented on television. We have some of the best dressed homeless in the world. Homeless teenagers who look like they are straight from the ‘burbs.
That is the challenge of this parable. How do we see? Do we look at the world with the check list of works to do and merit to be achieved? Is our perspective that of protecting our reputations and our position? We are a caring church.. we can prove it through the list of social programs we support and participate in. We are striving to be good sheep, right God? In the parable the sheep were surprised and so were the goats. The final exam just didn’t have the kind of questions that had been expected. Lord, when? was the question asked by both groups. That’s the problem with grace. It is unconditional, no strings attached. We will commit ourselves to helping others, and then we get busy with work and the family and personal challenges at work and with health questions and we run out of time. We strive as a people to help others but they just don’t appreciate our efforts. Sometimes they won’t even accept our help. We send them food but they don’t want our genetically engineered crops. How dare they refuse us? Don’t they know who we are? We have the resources and the power, and therein lies the problem.
The gospel call is not to power but faith. We are to see the world differently. To see what others miss. To see that peace is not found through quests for security and safety but in the risking of vulnerability to be equal to another. The best security system only tempts another to break in the unsinkable sooner or later hits the iceberg that sinks it. The impenetrable defense ultimately is breached. Jesus invites us to see the world through the eyes of grace. As the surprised righteous who had lived faithful lives responsibly sharing the gifts they had been given. That’s all they had done. Lived just lives caring for those around them. We are surprised to find that those who we thought to be in need of help were actually assisting us to become part of God’s kingdom. To see the world through different eyes.
One of my favorite stories is of four community leaders out walking together. As they walked they passed an elementary school yard filled with children. The Mayor looked at the school yard and she wondered what it would take to get the votes of each child’s parents in the next election.. The School Superintendent looked at the many children and he thought about the need to pass yet another school referendum. The Police Chief looked at the excited youth and wondered which would she soon be arresting after what type of problem. And the fourth community leader looked at the school yard full of children and saw only one. his child who brought joy into his life every day. What do we see? Do we see the problem or the possibility? The burden or the hope? God says, Put away your books and take out a blank sheet of paper. Now we begin again a new church year, a preparation for a new course of study, a new way of living, a new way of seeing. And we say, Lord, when? And Jesus answers, NOW.
Amen.