the one about Matthew 25

Message based on Matthew 25:31-43. Christ the King Sunday 2014

What do we do with a gospel passage that is meant to provoke or surprise us but tends to make us feel superior or self-righteous instead? The ethical checklist that Matthew provides for the church in Matthew 25 becomes a simple way for us to judge ourselves.  What I mean is, we feed hungry people.  We clothe people.  We visit the sick and pray for the imprisoned.  As a national church, the ELCA does all of these things.   What we don’t do personally, we support financially and prayerfully.  We are ethically righteous, even if we are humble about it.   We have programs that do all of these things. As Americans, we can feel good too.  The U.S has a history of welcoming immigrants; the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  We are immigrants, all of us.  Immigrants with a history of oppression of native peoples, but  that’s in the past.  We are enlightened 21^st century Americans.  Progressive compared to other parts of the world.  The envy of the world, really, because of our freedom and openness and prosperity.   And though some disagree with our national charter of liberty that must defend the rights of the poor and oppressed to find refuge here, we welcome strangers in.  President Obama alluded to the biblical call to welcome the stranger to justify his executive order that may provide a form of amnesty for certain undocumented people living on U.S. soil. Some 5 million people will benefit from the orders, if they come to pass in 6 months.  Our ELCA Bishops support the president’s actions on immigration.  I printed for you a copy of their statement in response to the speech; they quote the Matthew 25 passage we just read this morning.  You might think our endorsement as a church of the president’s speech was a response to Matthew 25---like he was acting on behalf of King Jesus in announcing this good news.  And though some are calling his actions imperialistic, others see his actions as consistent with the empire of God.

So, if we are doing these things, then this end time parable of judgment is, for us, good news.  We are the sheep, the righteous, the good guys, the ones at the shepherd king’s right hand.  Our goodness toward the least of these gives us eternal access to the throne of God.  We are safe and secure.  Right?

This is a parable that is not about us, though.  We like it to be about us.  But it’s not.  It’s about the son of man, showing up in glory and in shame.  It’s about the King appearing in the disguise of the poor.  The powerful hidden in the vulnerable.  The sheep did not know they were sheep; the goats did not know they were goats.  Their actions in life did not convince them of their eternal destiny. They could not.  Their actions were not the focus.  The focus is the action of the son of man, the King, the Messiah, the God man in the flesh, the Immanuel God with us Jesus standing in their midst.  His action was to come to us in the form of a servant, in the form of a crucified convict.  They did not realize that the one who held their eternal destiny in their hands had come to them as a hungry child or an imprisoned addict or an illegal immigrant or a naked body exploited for sex or a man hanging on a cross.  

The church is the church, not because we are ethically right; because we feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, etc…our actions do not make us church.  Jesus’ actions do.  That he is poor and hungry and naked and thirsty and in prison and sick and dying.  And that he is King.  And we dare to worship HIM, to serve Him, to call Him King.  We dare to announce that God is in vulnerable flesh.  We dare to suggest to a world obsessed with power and wealth and violence that the most powerful person in the world is a poor, hungry baby born in Bethlehem-an occupied and dangerous land.  I say to you that no social or national or religious program or institution or extraordinary giving event can save this world.  Christ the King saves the world by becoming poor.  The greatest became the least, so the least might become great.  That is the way of things in God’s kingdom.  “To know God is to love the poor and plead the cause of the oppressed.”  Our proximity to God is revealed in our proximity to those at the bottom of the human pyramid. Because Christ the King is found there.  And where He is found, there is true life. May you encounter King Jesus in the flesh this week.  Amen.