"Isn’t There an Easier Way, Jesus"

Matthew 25:31-46

Reign of Christ Sunday + November 20, 2011

Reverend Dr. David C. Brown
Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ

I really appreciate it when members of the church share with me recommendations of books and articles they believe I ought to read, movies Barbara and I should go see, television programs we should watch. Sometimes I am given copies of articles. In one case from a few months ago, Bill Higgins invited me to his home to see a fascinating video about a futurist named Ray Kurzweil. Sometime I hope a group of us could sit down to watch and discuss it.

Members have also shared with me funny stories or cartoons they found in magazines. Recently Joe Davis gave me a cartoon he had cut out of the New Yorker. One rather sour-looking man is saying to another: “I’m looking for an easier religion.” When I saw that cartoon I said to myself, “Who isn’t?” In my experience many people I have known, including myself(!), have been looking for a less-demanding religion. One of the ways this is often expressed is a question: “What do I have to believe or do in order to get to heaven?” To put it in words familiar to conservative Christianity: “How can I be saved?”

Sometimes the question comes when someone we care about dies and we wonder what will happen to them. Sometimes it comes when somebody spouting scriptures seems to know definitely who is going to be saved and who is going to be damned. Or, maybe we’ve seen one of those billboards out on the highway that shouts at us, “Where will you spend eternity?”

One way the Bible answers these ultimate questions is to paint the scene of the Last Judgment. That’s what Jesus is doing in this passage. There are other judgment scenes in the Bible and some don’t agree with this one. But this is Jesus’ vision, so I would take it seriously. “All the nations will be there,” which means everyone. Different religions will be there. Those of no religion will be there. The whole world will be there, before the Son of Man sitting on his throne.

Then Jesus describes the judgment by means of an analogy. He says it will be like a shepherd who at the end of the day separates the sheep from the goats, a common practice in that pastoral country where the flocks would use the same pasture. At the end of the day they would be separated. The shepherd will send the sheep to his right and the goats to his left. The sheep will go into the Kingdom of God and the goats into eternal punishment.

Now that’s a harsh description of the Last Judgment. I believe it is an analogy, so we should not take the details literally. The details are there so that we will take it seriously. That’s the way we are supposed to read the Bible, not literally, but always seriously.

Flannery O’Connor is one of those southern writers classified as a Gothic writer. A Gothic writer is one who portrays the darker side of human nature. Some have described her writing even as “grotesque.” She answered this way. “For people whose eyesight has grown dim, you have to write in large figures. And for those who are deaf, you have to shout.” She does that, and so does the Bible, especially in scenes like the Last Judgment where there is an attempt to penetrate insensitive souls and dulled minds. Judgment scenes are painted in the Bible in large, bold canvases. They virtually shout at us to get our attention so that we will take them seriously, and, in turn, take the life that we are now living seriously. So when the Son of Man comes he will judge everyone as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats at the end of the day.

Jesus has our attention now. This is serious business. The question that is on everybody’s mind is: “Who are the sheep? Who are those who are shepherded into the Kingdom? Will I be in that number?”

Then he reveals it and it is indeed an amazing revelation. It breaks down conventional expectations. It shatters the standards that the world uses to determine who is going to be saved and who is not.

Jesus begins by describing those who are going to be saved: “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you visited me.”

That’s an amazing revelation because it shatters the expectations of this world. The world expects that judgment will be on the basis of our personal beliefs. Jesus says judgment will be on the basis of our relation to other people. We will be judged not by what we believe but whether or not we were compassionate. That’s revolutionary, but it should not have been a surprise to those who are gathered there to hear Jesus’ words. They had heard them from him before. From the beginning he had shocked the conventionally righteous by treating those labeled “unrighteous” as if they were human beings. The righteous said, “Those people are sinners, and therefore they deserve whatever they get.” Jesus replied, “None of us gets what we deserve in this life. Most of us get better than we deserve so be kind to all people.”

The conventionally religious said to Jesus, “If you love foreigners, and if you love your enemies, they will not return the favor. We will guarantee you that.” Jesus says, “You haven’t loved anybody if you do it for reciprocation. That’s not love, that’s bartering. Love gives without any expectation of return.”

They said, “Well, we want to visit those who are sick, and we want to give food to those who are hungry, but the rules won’t let us. And we should always obey the rules.” Jesus said, “That’s using the Law of God to run away from what God is really calling you to do. If someone is hungry, feed them. Don’t evaluate their worthiness. If somebody is in need, help them. If somebody is hurt, heal their wounds.” In other words Jesus says we will be judged not by our righteousness, but by our compassion.

But there is more. Those on the right hand are dumbfounded at this. They ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or when did we see you thirsty and give you drink, and when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothed you, or sick or in prison and visited you?” And the Son of Man will answer them, “Truly I say to you as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”

They can’t believe it. They are totally surprised. They don’t even remember doing those things. They can’t recall any of those acts of love and mercy. Which means they did them humbly. They did them not to get recognition and not to earn salvation; they couldn’t remember doing them because they didn’t do them for themselves. They didn’t do them for any reward. They did them out of compassion for somebody else.

I would guess there is another reason they couldn’t remember doing them because they were such simple, little things. No big deal really. The kind of things that after you do them you can’t remember them, but the person you did them for will never forget them.

Doing things like this don’t solve any of the world’s great problems such as hunger or disease. They just give somebody who is hungry a meal, and they treat a stranger or a foreigner hospitably, or an enemy decently. They just visit somebody who is sick and hold their hand. That’s all.

What Jesus seems to be saying is that those simple deeds have ultimate consequences. Not that saving the world doesn’t, not that that’s not important, but it means that even those who are busy saving the world will be asked the same question, “Did you help the person at your doorstep, or that person in your own family, or the neighbor down the street that nobody has heard from for about a month?”

That’s the meaning of the conclusion of this parable when those who were rejected asked, “When did we see you in such dire straits?” And he will say to them, “If you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”

Well, the goats are just as surprised as the sheep. They thought that they were doing great things, and maybe they were. It’s just that we can be so absorbed in doing great things that we miss the truly important things. Jesus makes it clear that the most important thing in this world is our neighbor in need. If we ignore him or her, then all of our other good deeds simply don’t matter. Why? Probably because if we ever stopped to look at it we could see that we often use noble causes, and even religious activities, to shield us from the harder and more demanding task of helping those who are closest to us.

Jesus was particularly hard on religious people with that criticism. His Parable of the Good Samaritan can be read as a condemnation of those who are so busy doi8ng important things, even religious things, that they don’t have time to help the person in real pain on the side of the road. Jesus taught that lesson consistently, but in case we didn’t get it, he spells it out in this scene of the last judgment. Some old goat asks, “When did we see you?” And he answers, “Every person that you refused to help was me.” Bishop Roy Nichols liked to tell how he grew up in a charismatic Black church where there was a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of shouting and jumping. Nichols said that his mother told him once, “It isn’t how high you jump, but what you do when you come down that matters to God.”

Jesus said the same thing. “By their fruits you shall know them.” He also said, “Not those who say, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but those who do the will of my heavenly parent will be in the Kingdom.” And he told the parable about two sons who were sent into the field to work. One son said, “I will go,” but he did not go. And the other said, “I will not go,” but he went. Now which one, Jesus asks, did the will of the father? He said it over and over again. He says it here again in this parable: what we say religiously in church is not as important as what we do compassionately in the world.

Carroll Simeon tells of the time some years ago when he was in Damascus in Syria. He was in the hospital there for a very painful attack of kidney stones. I understand from those who have suffered it that is an incredible pain. It occurred when he was alone in a hotel and asked for a doctor. The desk called. The doctor said he wouldn’t be there until the next morning.

In the early morning he was writhing in pain on his bed when the chambermaid walked in to clean the room. She saw him there on the bed. Her expression was of horror and terror when she saw his pain. As she came close to the bed her expression changed to compassion. She stretched her hands upward and said, “Allah!” as a kind of prayer. Then she said to Simeon, “Good soon.” Then she left the room. She returned with a cup of tea. No words were spoken. She lifted his head, put the cup to his lips, and he drank. He said, “The Lord stretched His hand to me through a stranger of another faith. It was like communion. I recalled what Christ said, ‘If you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it to me.’” In that situation, in that country, five thousand miles from home, all alone, he said, “I was the least of these.”

“When the Son of Man comes with all of the angels, he will sit on his glorious throne. And before him will be gathered all of the nations.” They will all be there: Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, believer, non-believer. And he will ask just one question: “Did you help the least of these?” That’s as easy and as difficult as it gets.