Christ the King
November 22, 2020
“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.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, 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.’
Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
In the opening weeks of the Second World War, the poet W.H. Auden created a new poem. He titled it “September 1, 1939,” after the day that Germany initiated the war by invading Poland. The poem is long enough that I’m not going to read the whole. But I will give you the next to last stanza.
Auden reflected on how wars begin. “Waves of anger and fear / circulate over the bright / and darkened lands of the earth, obsessing our private lives.” He had a grim view of arrogant politicians. He thought little of the inattentive folk who ignored what is going on in their own country, and ignorant of the games other countries were playing. And then there is this stanza. Listen:
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual
man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the
State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or
die.
Jesus lays out this vision of how God will judge the earth. It comes at the end of a series of parables, so some regard it as a parable, a veiled story about the dominion of God. But it is more of a vision, a revelation of what it really going on and what is ultimately true.
I know we have heard it several times, so let me call attention to a few details.
First, there is a clear difference in people. These are not red, blue, and purple in-between. No, they are split into two groups. No confusion about it. No blurring of the lines. No grading on the curve. We are placed either here or there – and we don’t get to choose. We are sorted by the King on his throne. Not just any king, but The King who sits on The Throne.
Now, anybody who has been listening to Matthew’s Gospel knows this is coming. Way back in chapter 13, he reports Jesus as declaring the kingdom of God is like a net that catches every kind of fish. There are goldfish and guppies, stingrays and sharks, and every conceivable type of fish. And when the net is full, says Jesus, it is pulled ashore and all the fish are sorted. (13:47-50). It is a glimpse of what is coming at the end of the age: sheep on the right, goats on the left, and nobody in the middle.
Second, the basis of the sorting is a single determining issue. Here it is: did you care for others in their time of need? Yes or no. There’s no room for a “maybe.” No room for an apology. No room for good intentions.
Again, this will be no surprise for anybody who has been working through Matthew’s lessons in discipleship. This is the book where Jesus blesses the meek of the earth. And he says, “If you give a cup of cold drinking water to the little ones (that is, those with the greatest needs), you will keep your reward.” (10:42). Since this is one of the later books in the New Testament, perhaps written 50 years after the resurrection, it sounds like old Brother Matthew is confronting a lazy congregation. They have theology in their heads but no love in their hearts.
And this is the very last teaching that Jesus offers before he dies. Matthew puts it at the end to stress its importance, as if to say, “If you have forgotten everything else, don’t forget this.” It is the final exam for the course of life. The single question: did you care for others? Yes or no.
And the third detail, perhaps the most unusual, is that Jesus is hidden among the needy. The One who will judge us is standing in the bread line, hoping for a meal. The One who sits upon the governing throne at the center of the universe is standing in the check out line at the Dollar Store, wondering if he has enough pocket change to buy a can of pork and beans.
Nobody will recognize him. Not those on the right, not those on the left. It’s just as well. He was not looking for preferential treatment. Listen to the Final Vision of Matthew 25. Nobody could say, “If I knew you were here, I would have paid more attention.” Nobody is permitted to push back and say, “If only I realized it was you, I would have shown you some care.” Oh no.
Both sheep and goats share the same question, “Lord, when did we see you?” Both get the same answer: “You didn’t.” It doesn’t matter if anybody recognizes Jesus or not. His hidden presence exposes the truth about out: either we care, or we don’t. Either we love or we perish.
So if that is the single question on the final exam, our challenge is to prepare for it. And it will take some preparation. You know as well as I that some folks are easy to love and other folks are a lot more challenging. Some people will accept help and accept it graciously. Others are conditioned to say, “No thanks; I can do it myself; I will be OK.”
About a dozen years ago, we sent a few teams to clean up after Hurricane Katrina. We wanted to help, and not sit it out on dry land, and say, “Isn’t it too bad what happened to those poor people?” So we went.
One day, they sent a few of us over to Dina Drive, a suburban cul-de-sac. We started knocking on doors to assess if there was something we could do. One warm-hearted couple invited me in, offered me cold drink, and told me how the winds blew the roof off their house. They were OK, but the roof was gone. Fortunately, they had an emergency savings account. When a roofing contractor stopped by, they asked him to do the work, emptied out their account to give him a deposit, and he never came back. That was two months ago. The blue tarp was still on the top of their house. What could I say or do to improve that situation? I listened, they wept, we prayed.
Across the street was a single father named Jack. He worked as an engineer on an offshore oil rig. He and 12-year-old Jack Jr. lived in a FEMA trailer parked in front of what was left of his house. He wanted nothing to do with our work crew. “No way,” he said. “No offense,” he said, “but a group like yours comes down here, put up the dry wall and doesn’t keep it straight. The next youth group comes to paint it and does a lousy job. Both groups leave, most of them feeling better about themselves, and I tear out their work to do it right myself.” All I could do it listen. Let him unload for a few minutes. Let him know there was a fellow human being who heard his story.
It's hard work to care for other people, especially if you can’t fix their situations. Especially if there is little we can do to take away their suffering.
Early on in my ministry, in my ceaseless desire for people to like me, I would make all kinds of promises. Let me get you some groceries. Do you need some money? How about if I call you once a day? Is there something I can do? So on and so forth. You can guess how these promises turned out, especially if you have ever made them to somebody that you cared about. And let me offer a blanket apology to all the people I’ve let down. None of us can fix all the hurts and troubles of another person.
But here is what we can do: we can join them in their humanity. We can be present, completely present. We can be still in our own anxiety and listen. If we speak, we can offer open-ended questions, such as “How are you today?” and “What does it feel like to go through what you’re going?” Hush and let them tell us. Don’t worry about being an expert or a fix-it man. Settle in and be a human being.
I’ve taken courses and workshops in counseling. I’ve spent time with counselors myself. Yet the best training I’ve ever received was from a professor in a class that had nothing to do with counseling. We were all new at this caregiving stuff, and a classmate asked, “What do we do when somebody calls to tell us about a tragedy – a death or an accident or something like that?” He looked over his spectacles and simply said, “You go.” But what if you don’t know what to say? And he replied, “You aren’t there to speak; you are there to be there.” It was subtle but brilliant advice.
The alternative is to not go. To hold back. To stick to yourself. To choose isolation. To risk falling into indifference. To let your heart grow cold and surrounded by thorns.
Now, these are the days of Covid-19. The virus is real. It’s not a joke. So we must find ways to “go” without physically going. It might take a bit of imagination. Maybe it’s a phone call. Or an email. Or reaching into that desk drawer full of greeting cards that you haven’t sent in a while. Or – and imagine this – handwriting a personal letter to someone. Imagine what that would mean! When was the last time you got a handwritten letter? Just imagine what that would mean to somebody else.
One of the truths about caring for another is that it is reciprocal. True caring is never from a position of power. It works best side by side. Not by towering over someone, but by pulling up alongside. No need to fix something, especially something not easily fixed. But you can choose to be present, even from miles away.
The other truth about caring is that it becomes the means by which the Risen Christ reaches all of us. Two things we know presently about Jesus: He is alive, and he is hidden. As we reach sideways to one another, the Mystery is that he reaches through us. Sometimes we might even catch a glimpse of him at work.
This takes some practice, of course. All important things take practice. But one thing I know: if we extend our love to one another, particularly those in need, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, we won’t ever ask, “Lord, when did we see you?” We will know. Oh yes, we will know.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
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