Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46
Reign of Christ
That’s a pretty dramatic image: two groups of people separated at the culmination of history, one group on the right, the other on the left, each one awaiting a determination as to their place in eternity. It’s a little off-putting, if we take it literally, as though this is a message about a divine blueprint and the consequences of our obedience or disobedience.
Even if we don’t take it literally, though, the worry, to put it bluntly, is: have we done enough? Have you and I been sufficiently responsive to the mandate of Christ that we will pass muster in God’s eyes? Or will our sometimes scanty compassion mean God looks at us, instead, as having failed in our primary task?
Matthew has been gradually and systematically unfolding the story of Jesus’ ministry. And the way Matthew tells it, this is the last episode in Jesus’ life before Jesus begins that awful journey into suffering and death. So, because this is the last teaching of Jesus, it has a special weight. By placing it last, Matthew is conveying that these words are crucial. In the same way that a joke has its punch line or a good-bye may have its poignant last words, so this episode in Jesus’ life is a culmination of sorts. It reminds us what’s central in a life of discipleship. It lifts up the core of what it is to follow Jesus.
Not only is this bracing story the last teaching in Matthew’s gospel, but today is also the last Sunday of the church year. Next week, with the first Sunday of Advent, begins a new church year. Today, though, the church year accents what Matthew is doing in his gospel. We are lifting up the story of the last judgment, the story of the sheep and the goats, as a particularly revelatory image in what it is to be true to Christ.
If you’ve been a long-time church-goer, this story is likely familiar to you. Its images and phrases are ones we know. The sheep and the goats; the need to tend to those who are hungry and thirsty and alien and naked and sick and in prison; that recurring, haunting question, “Lord, when was it that we saw you . . .?”; that repeated phrase, “the least of these”; and Jesus’ telling revelation that, in ministering to others, we have ministered to Jesus. These words and images have had a prominent role in shaping our faith.
As familiar as we may be with these images, though, I suspect they still have an ability to jar us and shake us into a new place. Let’s lift up some of what’s striking in the story. First, it’s noteworthy that the Jesus we see here isn’t some far-off God who is only dimly apprehended in ethereal moments and in some otherworldly way. The Jesus who tells this story is a Jesus who is right in the midst of our everyday lives. In some corners of the church, Jesus is imagined primarily as reclining on some pillowy cloud in the afterlife. Not so for Matthew. In this scene, Jesus is right there in the rough and tumble of everyday life. He’s not so much enthroned as he is engaged—in a thorny work problem, in a difficult family moment, in a soccer game or a shopping trip or a satisfying hobby. No “pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye” Jesus for Matthew, but rather a Jesus who walks our gritty streets and frequents our sometimes desolate soup kitchens and sits in our all-too-often forlorn hospital rooms. To see Matthew’s Jesus, we climb down from heaven and live fully the lives we have been given on earth.
This story makes it really clear what kind of scene is particularly revelatory of the presence of Christ. The phrase that has had such a rich cultural resonance is that haunting one: Jesus says that what you have done to “the least of these” (25:40, 45), you have done to me. What a striking phrase, and one that has become part of the way we see things in the faith. The least of these, meaning the ones who are the most needy, the most vulnerable.
What we tend to hear in a cursory reading of this story is this: be nice to those who are less fortunate; give to them; minister to them. That, we assume, is what it is to be Christ-like. And there is something good about that sort of ministry. What could be wrong with caring for those who have less, after all? The trouble is this: labeling some as “the least” has a way of distancing them from us, and, subtly, conveying our superiority. If we’re caring for “the least,” that means you and I are “the most.”
Susi reminded me this week of something Leslie Penrose said when she preached here several years ago. Leslie, who founded JustHope, the parent organization of our mission partner StitchingHope in Chacraseca, Nicaragua, said that many of the people with whom she works in Central America are tired of being thought of as “the least.” In their minds, they’re not at all “the least.” From their perspective, it feels demeaning when people from the admittedly wealthier North refer to them as “the least.” They’re just as “most,” just as special, as we comfortable North Americans are.
So when we spend time with this story, it’s crucial to remember the deeper sense of that phrase, “the least.” “The least,” in this story, means, not people who are, in some objective sense, less than we are. It means, instead, something more like ‘the ones we have treated as unimportant or insignificant.’ We have to be as clear as we can here. It’s not that impoverished people in the Hough neighborhood or Chacraseca or Soweto are the least—somehow unimportant or insignificant. It’s that, given our limits and sin, too often we tend to see sick or impoverished or imprisoned people that way, as somehow less than we are. If we think of them as “the least,” it allows us to think of ourselves as “the most,” something akin to saviors rescuing pathetically incomplete people. It’s certainly not everyone who thinks that way, but it is a common undertone in some quarters. We are the lordly, privileged ones magnanimously bestowing our bounty on those who are somehow “less than.”
It’s crucial that we question that way of looking at these relationships. As we share resources with poorer others—even with the best of intentions—are we imagining ourselves as the saviors, the saints, the “good” ones who are behaving as Christ would? If that’s the way we’re seeing ourselves—as the Christ figures—then we’ve entirely missed the boat, at least as Jesus construes God’s world.
Remember the way the story gets told. As the sheep go about their work of sharing with those who may be struggling, the twist in the story is that the Christ figure is not the one doing the giving. It’s the one in need who is receiving. We’re so practiced in equating giving with “what Jesus would do,” that it takes a mind-bending second look to remember that the Christ figure in this story is anyone who is bent. The Christ figure is anyone who is broken. The Christ figure is anyone who is struggling. The one who’s said to be Christ is not the healer, not the benefactor, but the one in the ditch or struggling with an addiction or languishing in prison or starving for food or water. In any scene in which one person gives to another, the one to be recognized as Christ is not the donor. The one to be seen as Christ is the one who is careworn and besieged.
This goes so against the grain that many of us have a hard time really taking it in, it seems to me. We’re steeped in a way of thinking that says: Christ is the one whose hands and feet do the work of caring and tending. Christ is the one who serves. Give, serve, donate: this, we’re taught, is what will make you Christ-like. So it takes a total redirection to invert this whole model and say instead: you who are poor and hungry and without clothes and thirsty and in prison and sick—you are Christ. When we get at this deeper truth, then it’s no longer a question of superiority and inferiority. We erase distinctions of worth and simply realize that those who may have fewer things and are on the receiving end of a material donation are just as worthy, just as special, just as “most,” as the ones who may be in the position to give materially. These receivers, these impoverished ones, are, in truth, Christ.
So where does that leave those of us who have the wherewithal to be able to give? Are we on the outs? Does Jesus not care about us? Are we somehow less than? Remember this, though: the story doesn’t say that givers are not Christ. It only says that, contrary to expectations, receivers are Christ. In the eyes of Jesus, there is no such thing as a person without worth. The givers, after all, are the ones welcomed into eternal life. All are welcome, the story seems to say, all are special, all are ones in whom Christ delights. So by the mysterious calculus of God, not only is Christ embodied in those who receive, but so also is Christ embodied in those who give. Both giver and receiver share in the Christ energy. Both giver and receiver reveal the love and grace of God. Both giver and receiver are welcomed into eternal life. Not only that, but we’re all both givers and receivers. There’s a divine rhythm, a back and forth, a teeter-totter of love that never ceases to flow, and in which we all share.
Let’s try to convey the beauty of this holy rhythm this with some images. We’re going to see some photographs, some involving Federated people. As you gaze at them, keep in mind the image of the Last Judgment, and Jesus’ injunction that those usually thought of as being ministered to, and frequently dismissed as “less than,” are, in truth, Christ figures. But also, those usually thought of as the ministers, by virtue of their being in relationship with Christ-like people in material need—they, too, are figures representing Christ. Barriers are broken down. No one is “the least,” no one “the most.” Everyone in these pictures is an embodiment of Christ in what is often a broken world.
Behold the living Christ: in Chacraseca, Nicaragua, where Federated members and friends take supplies and help build and teach and set up best business practices. Christ is in Nicaraguan women and men, as well as in Federated people who visit and become one in community.
Behold the living Christ: on the near west side of Cleveland, in people whose limited financial resources mean they benefit from meals donated to them, and in suburban church people who share food and time and presence, and who break down walls of division.
And we can extend this beyond this church community and its direct missions. We live in a world that is dangerous and unwelcoming to numerous people, for any number of reasons. We relegate countless people to the realm of “the least.” Behold the living Christ: in women who have too often been abused and assaulted. Behold the living Christ: in immigrants, such as Leonor Garcia, who have been dismissed and greeted with scorn, and who have needed to seek sanctuary in houses of worship. Behold the living Christ: in victims of recent hurricanes who have been buffeted and stricken, and whose need for housing and food and electricity is huge. Behold the living Christ: in transgender people reduced to “detestables” simply because they have been born in bodies that don’t seem to fit their deep identity. Behold the living Christ: in peaceful Muslims unfairly distrusted and loathed because of fanatical adherents of their religion. We can honor and celebrate the integrity of Islam and not seek to convert them to Christianity, but still know, from our Christian angle, that whenever people are distrusted and dismissed and castigated, they represent the Christ with whom we need to be in relationship. We have made various people into “the least.” Behold the living Christ: in mistreated women and people from other cultures and victims of hurricanes and transgendered people and Muslims, as well as those who are in relation with them. All of them the living Christ.
I have a niece who lives in Maine. Skyler turned thirteen last month, and for her birthday, her mother gave her a trip to Chicago. The two of them went there to see the musical “Hamilton.” This was a fantastic present for Skyler, and she looked forward to it for more than a month. Two weeks ago, Skyler and her mother flew to Chicago. They walked along Michigan Avenue. They saw the striking silver egg in Millennium Park. They took in the sights and anticipated seeing the musical. And as they walked through the city, this is what Skyler did. Before they left Maine, she had packed fourteen care bags. She took them to Chicago with her. Each bag had food and toiletries and treats in it. And as she walked the streets, when she came to a person living on the streets or struggling in some way, she would stop and give the person a care package. Until all her bags of goodies were gone.
I think Skyler knows how special each of these people is. I think that, if she heard today’s story from Matthew, she would know that each of them is a manifestation of the living Christ. To Skyler, these people are not just objects to be pitied or helped, from “on high.” To her, I think, they are holy. They are Christ incarnate, Christ made manifest right there in front of her.
Skyler is uncommonly sensitive and gracious. And I am moved and grateful for her witness. But it’s her recognition of the specialness of the people she meets that has about it a particularly holy quality. In these impoverished receivers is the fullness of Christ. And in Skyler’s giving nature is the fullness of Christ, as well. It’s a match made in heaven. May we all be so wise, so full of the living, reigning Christ.