"Seen as Real" - Sermon for Christ the King, Nov 262017

Sermon:

Text: Matthew 25:31-46

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who makes us real.

            Have you ever watched a child play? Especially if it’s with dolls, actions figures or stuffed animals? The toy gets a name, they get to talk, do things, to the child this toy becomes real. One of my favorite representations of this is in my favorite comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Whenever it’s just Calvin and Hobbes, Hobbes is a real tiger he talks, moves, emotes, etc. When others are present though, Hobbes is a little stuffed tiger who just sits there. There are many times when Calvin’s mom has to go get him from the bus stop because he “walked” out there with Calvin, but then Calvin left him to go to school and Hobbes of course just stayed put, or Mom has to go get him in the backyard, Calvin had to come in, but Hobbes had run off because they had a fight. One instance his mom even resorts to yelling out loud, Hobbes!! trying to find him in the dark. To Calvin and other kids, their toys are real.

            We have a very different situation in the “real” world though. There are entire groups of real people that are often treated as if they were not real. They have no voice, no power, no way to stand up for themselves. We walk by homeless people constantly, there are real stories of churches shutting down feeding ministries because it attracts the wrong crowd, there’s too many of those people here. The incarnation rate in the US is the highest in the world, and we don’t ask what we can do to change that, we just keep punishing when study after study shows that education of prisoners with life skills means a much, much lower recidivism rate, the rate that a prisoner freed will at some point get in further trouble sending them back to prison, and even more studies show that increasing education and afterschool activities in an area has an even more dramatic impact on the incarceration rate. We’re still all too happy as a culture to think of all these groups as simply, the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the prisoners. They’re just those categories, with no “realness” behind that title.

            Which brings us to today’s Gospel. This final parable of Jesus’, the last teaching moments of Matthew. After this he goes and has his feet anointed by a woman, Judas agrees to betray him, and it’s the Passover meal, arrest in Gethsemane, trial and death. In this text he retells a version of our lesson from Ezekiel with the separation of sheep from sheep. Jesus has the king of the parable separate all the nations between the Sheep and Goats, one of the right, one on the left. To those on the right he says, “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’” And to the left he says, you did not do those things. Here’s one things I noticed this year that I don’t think I’ve noticed before, neither group understands or has seen Jesus in those they helped or didn’t help. Both ask, when did we do this or when did we not do these things? “when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

            The basic interpretation of this parable is simply, do good things for others, for in them we see Christ. But, I think Jesus is teaching the disciples and us something even more powerful than that.

            When we look at this passage, it’s more than just we see Christ as those people, in it we see Christ identifying with those people and seeing them as real people, people worthy of love, people worthy of relationship, and regarding those who helped them as blessed. Those who helped them did so because they, like Christ, saw the humanity, the God createdness, of them. Saw them worthy of relationship. Christ and the sheep, see them as real people.

            In this passage, Jesus is telling us to help those in need. The hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the prisoner, the sick. But, even more so, to see them as real people, to reach out in relationship with them. We are called to help by doing things like giving of our money, but even more so, we are called see others as worthy of relationship and see them as real. To look at all those around us, and see that God created them, God loves them, and God in Christ comes to be with them.

            It’s the message of Advent which starts next week. Our God who comes to us. This year we will be looking at Advent through 4 C’s, Advent 1: Come and Save us. We see all the chaos and fear around us and we need God to come to us, and so we cry out to God, Come and Save us. Advent 2 we will hear in Isaiah that God lifts every valley and makes the mountains low, and so we cry, Change and Reorder our lives towards you, O God. Advent 3 Isaiah promises good news to the captives and we see how God is the light in the Darkness, for us who walk in that Darkness, a light has dawned. And so we cry, Clear the Darkness, O God. And finally, with Mary, we call out Count us in, O God. Mary hears the Angels words and cries out, let it be with me according to your word, Count me in.

            This is the last Sunday of the Church year, we begin the year again next week, and yet the message is the same. God is with us, when we are the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the prisoner, the sick, whenever we are the least, God will come to us. God will save us through Christ’s death, and then come again and again to us in his birth. And as people who trust in that love, who have faith that God is with us, that God has died for us and been raised for us, we go out and see Christ in all around us, we see that all are created by God, we see that to God, and therefore to us, all people deserve to be seen as real. They deserve to be loved and cared for just as much as God loves and cares for us.

            As we get ready for Advent once again, be sheep, you people of God, be sheep who see God in those in need, and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, and care for the least.

            God bless you as you do so. Amen.