Reign of Christ - now

Reign of Christ – now 112011

Matthew 23:31ff

Margaret Scott

Children’s message

Mirrors—see yourself.

Screen—see all the children

Out into congregation—see everyone

God wants us to see everyone, notice if they’re happy or sad, and try to help them.

Sermon

In the Christian tradition, this day is the high point the culmination of the Christian year. It’s the day we celebrate the Reign of Christ, sometimes called Christ the King Sunday, when the year that begins with the anticipation of Jesus’ birth ends with his return as King of all creation.

Some people have seen this as some future time when he’ll come back and in one fell swoop fix the world—condemning some of it to endless torture and rewarding some of it with endless life, when the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven. That’s sort of what our text today suggests.

Yet we are also people who believe we are called to bring about the kingdom, or kin-dom as is more realistic and more challenging, here and now. It’s in this way that I am most challenged and comforted by this story Jesus tells.

Whether you read this text as being about a future or after-death judgment, or hear it as a judgment on your behavior now, it’s still judgment.

Like it or not, judgment is a fact of life. Break the law, society judges you. Live a lifestyle of constant stress or abuse of substances or abuse of time, our bodies and our souls will judge us.

But let me be clear about something. This is not a story, nor is this a sermon, intended to be about guilt. I overheard someone say, oh that’s Margaret trying to guilt you into something.

Oh sure, guilt has its uses , but the church is NOT about guilt. We are not called to operate on guilt and threat—if it feels like that then we need to listen to what that says about our lives and how we’re influenced by the culture, which DOES operate on guilt and threat.

WE ‘re about love. Because we try to follow Jesus, we are called to love God and serve others.

Our culture has those two tools, guilt and threat—ours are love and service

listen to how coaches coerce while Jesus invites

notice how bosses bully and God embraces

see how politicians function on fear and disciples function on trust.

Love and service, this is what we do as the people of God. Not because of guilt, when our ‘doing’ becomes a burden, nor because of fear, of that eternal damnation or some rejection more immediate, but because it’s who we ARE, or at least who we are becoming.

Which brings us to the story.

We’ve always heard, around here at least, that we’re supposed to see Jesus in everyone we meet. And while that’s one part of growth in the spiritual life, lots of us ain’t there yet. And that’s not the judgment in this text. There’s no emphasis on Jesus, on the Christ, on the king himself even.

Did you notice in Jesus’ storytelling that neither group recognized Jesus in the hungry, sick imprisoned and so on? Both are equally puzzled by the king’s comments. “When did we see you…?”

Many of us still have to learn to see EACH OTHER, let alone Jesus. Let’s not worry about seeing the face of Christ in everyone we meet until we can see the face of everyone we meet, and see what need is reflected in it. Only then might we meet Jesus.

Do I recognize when someone is lacking something, hungry or thirsting for something more? Do we notice someone who is imprisoned by their lifestyle or behavior? Can I recognize the sick at heart?

When we can see that so and so is hungry, that that village has no clean water, or that family has no electricity, that such and such a person I work with is sick and weary of life…..then we’re on the way to becoming the people of God.

But that’s not the judgment in the text either. We’re not judged on whether we have observant eyes or not. BOTH groups saw the hungry, the stranger, the imprisoned, the sick.

The judgment lies in how we treat the people we see, those who are usually considered ‘the other’, different, the least and last in our society…or in our social circle…or even in our classroom….or, gasp, even in our family……..or even in our own soul.

John said last week that becoming the people of God means being intentional not just about our beliefs, but also about our practices.

The judgment on us in this story is on how we respond, act, offer help, to the stranger, the thirsty, the sick and so on.

The judgment, whether on some final reckoning for the “Left Behind” folks, or on me today, isn’t about whether I can claim Jesus as my Lord (Christ the King of my life), but on simple acts of compassion, which is how I act out my belief in Jesus as Lord of my life.

That might be enough of a sermon to chew on, but it doesn’t go quite far enough for the text. You see there’s this other troubling little phrase in what the king in the story says, you did it, or you did NOT do it, to the least of these who are members of my family.

There’s two ways to look at that definition of the God- family. We can say that we have to be compassionate and charitable to the hungry and stranger and sick in the church; we are God’s family, and we must behave tenderly toward one another.

But this can also be read to say, the least of these suffering people are members of my family. Maybe it’s the human family, not the holy family.

I believe in this story God is challenging us to draw the circle wide.

Those, anywhere, who hunger, for food or for love, belong to the family

Those who are thirsty for clean water or for meaning, are members

Those who are sick in body or in spirit,

Those who are imprisoned by society or by the calendar

We might start that circle small and face up to the fact that God’s family includes you and me, personally: God cares about how we treat our own strangeness, our hungers and thirsts, our sickness, our prisons. Maybe in you there’s a hunger you need to attend to, a hamster wheel that imprisons you. Name it, address it, and maybe you’ll meet Jesus there.

Then draw the circle wider to include most of the people we know: the folks who SEEM to have their act together, the middle class and well educated, the gainfully employed or sadly unemployed, or the happy homemaker

Can you see the need? Will you address it? Maybe you’ll meet Jesus there.

Then draw the circle wider still

In the pew beside you someone needs a word of welcome,

up ahead someone is hungry

Over there someone is hurting

Can you see that everyone here belongs, deserves love and respect, needs something you can offer, or has something to offer you.

Maybe you’ll see Jesus there.

Then draw the circle wider still and see everyone beyond your private world that includes church. Go into the school and workplace and store and gym and shelter and tutoring sites: look! see what you can see, then see what you can do

I KNOW you’ll meet Jesus there.