Matthew 25:31-46
Christ the King
November 23, 2014
William G. Carter
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all
the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and
he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from
the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand
and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right
hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world; 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, 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.’
This is how everything will end. It is a scene of the
second coming. This is obvious in the first phrase: "When the Son of Man comes
in his glory.” That is code language for the end of time, for the day of the
Lord, for the final judgment. Biblically speaking, it points to the same
event. Various Bible writers all share different glimpses of the ultimate
revelation of God in Jesus Christ. It will be the end. The Second Advent.
It is an appropriate
picture on a day we proclaim the kingship of Christ, when we sing of the
dominion of Jesus. His final coming will be an event of great rejoicing,
particularly for those who have been waiting for it and for those who have been
put down by the cruelty of the world. Everything will be made right. That is
the sovereign true truth of God's kingdom.
To listen to many
Christians speak of the second coming of Christ is to hear great excitement.
Some are so excited that, in their anticipation they hunt around for a lot of predictions
and string them together so they can know with clarity when he will come. They
don't really know the time or place, but they make it sound as if do. Even
Jesus says he does not know the time or the place when the second coming will
occur, but some people down in Texas will announce to you what Jesus himself
doesn't even know. Take this as a sign of their excitement.
To read this final
decision in the 25th chapter of Matthew is to learn of a great surprise. And
here is that surprise: Jesus has been among us all along. Isaiah promised this
when he announced the Christmas Child. “He shall be called Emmanuel,” that is,
God with us.[1]
And the grown-up Jesus announces it in his great commission as he says, “I will
be with you always, even till the end.”[2]
In today’s vision of the
end, Jesus reveals where he is hiding. He is in the poor. He is in the
prisoner. He is in the hungry. He is in the stranger. It is a great surprise,
even among those who wait for him to come. According to the text, everybody
does not see Christ the King when he is already among them.
Maybe that sounds
strange to you. But it is the universal truth, according to Jesus. Nobody sees
the King. John the Baptist didn’t see the king. According to Matthew, John was
in prison and sent a question, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we
wait for another?” In spite of his fiery sermons, he had his doubts. Jesus
replied, “The blind get their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the
deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news given them. Go and
tell John this.”[3] We
don’t know if John understood.
And John isn’t the only
one. Jesus goes on to say, “This generation is like children in the
marketplace, playing a game, and calling out, ‘We played the flute for you and
you did not dance. We wailed and you did not mourn.” The people who wanted a
Messiah were not expecting Jesus, who ministered to those in pain.
What were they looking
for? What was John waiting for? Someone grand and glorious? Someone mighty and
triumphant? The Christ they get will go to the cross, immediately after
speaking of the sheep and the goats. It
takes a miracle to understand the mystery that the apostle Paul once described
this way: “Though the Lord Jesus was rich, he became poor, so that by his
poverty you might become rich.”[4]
It is easy to miss.
According to the parable, everybody misses Jesus for he hides among the poor,
the outcast, the people with the greatest needs. And anybody who focuses on the
glamour and excitement of the Second Coming will probably miss the First
Coming. Remember the first coming? Jesus was born a peasant, lived in a small
village for thirty years, and spent the remaining years of his life healing the
sick, feeding the hungry, and telling the Gospel truth to the mighty and the
self-satisfied. The one chance he had to ride a strong white horse, he selected
a humble donkey.
And it’s easy to miss
him because of our own tangled spirits. Ever notice how easy it is to dodge the
humanitarian question? See the man without a job, judge him as lazy, and never
invite him to eat at your table. See the young woman pushing kids in a cart
through the dollar store and comment on how dirty are their faces, when you
could approach them and ask their names. It really comes down to this: do you
care for others in tangible way or are you avoiding them?
As we discovered this autumn,
Matthew is addressing a lazy church. He shares the words of Jesus to people who
say the right things, yet they bear no evidence that they believe them. In
Matthew’s congregation, it's a hundred times easier to talk about forgiveness
than to forgive. It's a thousand times easier to cheer on generosity without
ever reaching deeper into your own pocket. Yes, you are the chosen ones of God in
a self-destructive society, yet you yourselves persist in the world’s selfish
ways.
So Jesus says, again and
again, “Not everyone who says ‘Lord Lord’ will get into God's kingdom.” How can
he say this? Because it is God's kingdom and God sees perfectly what is on the
human heart. He wants us to change, and this last story in Christ’s ministry is
our warning.
Here is how everything
will end. The king will come and sit on the throne. Then he will separate the
sheep from the goats. All will be sorted on the basis of one question: Did you
care for those in greatest need? This is how world will end, not with a whimper
or a bang, but with the king and a question.
The king will not care
where we live; what he sees is whether we have extended ourselves to those in
need. He will not take notice of how much money we have saved, but see he sees
perfectly if we have used our money to alleviate human suffering. The king is
indifferent to whatever political party we affiliate, but he is crystal-clear
in seeing whether we have made a difference for those who are in pain. He
doesn’t care if we call yourselves “liberal” or “conservative;” what he looks
for is whether we have ever actually put ourselves out for people who need
help. There is no escaping his question.
This is the king, Christ
the King, who tells us that he dwells among the hungry and the thirsty and the
stranger. He cuts through every excuse and slices through every sidestep. He
already knows whether the content of what we do is matching the content of what
we say we believe. In case we forgot the question, here it is again: did you
care for those in greatest need?
It is a question that is
always current. Did you see the recent survey on generosity in America? We live
in a time when the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing exponentially.
The survey reveals that the ultra-rich are giving less of their income to
charity than they ever have, and those who are poorest are contributing a far
greater percentage of what they have. The principle seems to be the closer we live
to those in need, the more we extend ourselves to them. But if we remove ourselves
in protective comfort, we leave the most vulnerable brothers and sisters to fend
for themselves. And Jesus the King is watching.
Do we care? Does our
faith find expression in specific works of compassion? It’s going to take
much more than throwing money at those in need. It’s going to take some time.
Caring means to learn somebody’s name, to listen to their stories, to discern the
truest need, and to care in the most appropriate way. We don’t want to enable
but to empower. We can give those in need the dignity that comes with being
children of the king. That takes a lot of work. It is easier to play it
safe and do as little as possible.
I remember a painful
moment when I was a theology student, working part-time in a church in
Plainfield, New Jersey. Right before I was to assist with a worship service, a
stranger appeared at my door. It was the door of the closet that we called the
Intern’s Office. This man was in bad shape, hadn’t slept, had nothing to eat.
He gave me the whole story. But I was in a hurry to put on my robe and get into
the church service, so I reached into my wallet, gave him a ten dollar bill,
and went off to worship Jesus.
After the benediction I
told my boss what I had done. He looked annoyed. Far more savvy in the ways of
city streets, he asked me three questions. First, “Why did you give him cash,
which he could use for anything?” That never occurred to me. Second, “Did you
feel manipulated that he showed up precisely when you had little time to help?”
Well, yes, I did. Then came the devastating third question: “What was his
name?” I never asked his name; I gave him the money to get rid of him.
“Don’t worry,” my wise
old pastor said. “I’ll tell you his name. His name was Jesus and he will give
you a second chance.” He was right about that.
Contrast that to the
story someone told in an adult class on Wednesday night. In retirement, a woman is
assisting elderly people who have concerns about health insurance. They are
fearful about their future, worried about their needs. And our friend sits down
to listen to their fears and to help them discover the resources that they
need. She said, “It is one of the most satisfying things I have ever done with
my life.” She cares.
Jesus says all of us
will face the same final exam. Remember the final exams you have taken? Well,
this one will consist of one question: did you care for those in need? That single question reshapes every moment of
our lives as a test. If Christ is with us always, if he is hiding among those
in greatest need, how will we serve him today? And what will we do tomorrow?
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