Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46 Who Reigns in Your Life?

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My daughter, Linnea, has a knack for suggesting new t.v. shows for me to
watch. The latest on the hit parade is “The Good Place” about a woman who has
just arrived in a version of heaven, only to find she is there by mistake. The show
is really well done, and very funny. I am mostly struck by how it resonates with
our recurring question: “what happens when we die?” Am I going to the good
place or the bad place?
The parable of the sheep and the goats doesn’t really answer that question
for us individually. You and I after hearing the parable still ask, in the end, will I
be judged to be a sheep, sitting at the right hand of Jesus, or a goat on the left?
[this is a conundrum for me – most of you know that I tend to lean left…] We ask,
“Will I be the one who ultimately gets points for helping others, or am I going to
get left behind because I didn’t do what I was supposed to do.” Hearing the
parable in Matthew inevitably leads the hearer to ask, “what about me?”
We want to be judged to be good. But it gets complicated by what our
motivations are, what the difference is between our intent and the outcome of
our actions, and whose well-being is at the center of it all. Do we feed the
hungry, clothe the naked and visit the prisoner to assuage our own guilt? To make
us feel better about ourselves, to follow the rules, or simply because the hungry,
naked, and imprisoned are our brothers and sisters?
Last Wednesday night, I was invited to call for the offering at the Interfaith
Action of Evanston annual Thanksgiving service. I reflected on the fact that every
faith and humanist organization has a mandate to care for others. In the face of
urgent, overwhelming tragedy, we know how to rally and respond with heroism,
compassion and support.

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 What makes Interfaith Action unique, is the fact that we members of this
organization are in it for the long haul. We do not rise to serve only when the
need is acute, we serve in the face of the chronic, protracted tragedy of hunger
and homelessness. As a member congregation, this week we are prepared to
open the doors of this sanctuary for overnight shelter from the bitter cold. We
respond to the ongoing disaster, not just the ones that are urgent and high
profile. We respond not because there is an underlying threat of the bad place,
but because our actions reflect who we are or who we strive to be: more like
sheep than goats.
As is often the case, we find that across the span of our lifetimes, we gain
the insight that we are both goats and sheep. We do well, but we are not perfect.
We are subject to be judged for our failures and our successes, deserving neither
to end up only in one place or the other, good or bad.
It is also often the case, that it is not about us. The parable and the
letter to the Ephesians are not about us. The point is not whether or not
we act appropriately when encountering people in need. The point is,
where do we encounter Christ in the world. One of the most poignant
illustrations of where Christ can be found I read in Henri Nouwen’s book,
The Wounded Healer. He includes in his text a well known story among the
Hebrew people concerning a Rabbi who came across the prophet Elijah and
said to him:
“Tell me—when will the Messiah come?”
Elijah replied, “Go and ask him yourself.”
“Where is he?” said the Rabbi.
“He’s sitting at the gates of the city,” said Elijah.

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 “But how will I know which one is he?”
The Prophet said, “He is sitting among the poor, covered with wounds. The
others unbind all their wounds at the same time and bind them up again,
but he unbinds only one at a time and binds them up again, saying to
himself, “Perhaps I shall be needed; if so, I must always be ready so as not
to delay for a moment.”1
Christ, in this illustration, is among those who are poor and tending to the
injuries wrought by life. When we tend to “the least of these” we are tending to
Christ… Though it may not be that simple. Theologian and author Barbara Brown
Taylor raises a caution: she points out that sometimes those of us who intend to
“do good” will superimpose the guise of Jesus on those in need with the intent
not to see the people in need.2 There is a risk of mentally saying too quickly, “I am
serving Jesus by giving assistance in this situation,” rather than meeting the
person standing there. The individual ceases to be a person in his or her own
right, when treated as though they are cloaked in divine cloths. I know this may
sound confusing, but we can miss the boat when we skip the part about meeting
people where they are, as they are – when we meet each other where we are, as
we are. Barbara Brown Taylor encourages us to practice love BEFORE we see God
there. And when we practice love, we then see God emerge in the paradoxical
coexistence of love and suffering.
There was a time when it was a surprise to hear that Jesus is found among
people who are poor, sick and imprisoned. To hear that message or parable
would elicit an audible and collective *gasp* around any crowd. But this is not a

1
Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, 1979.
2
Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World, 2009.

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new and surprising image for us any more. It is rather familiar... Now, would I
leave you without a surprise??
The unexpected twist for us today is not that Jesus is found among those
for whom we feel least responsible, today we are surprised to hear that Christ is
the King! This is the jarring message for a group of people like us who are guided
by principles of democratic decision making, collective reflection and cooperative
engagement. We actually go out of our way to create systems where all voices
are heard, where we follow the mandate to treat each other as friends, and
where no one person holds all the power. How does this value fit in with a
hierarchy in which Jesus is at the top? And not only is Jesus at the top of the
church, according to Scripture, he is at the top of everything everything. He is in
charge of the cosmos, all of creation, even those people who don’t believe or who
believe differently. How does humanity fit into a royal set-up of ruler and
subjects, master and servants?
We fit in when we acknowledge that we are not in charge. We do not get
to decide who goes to the good place and who goes to the bad place. We don’t
even get to guess or hint at judging each other, because we are deserving of
either fate. The king, the ruler, is the one who gets to decide what the criteria are
at every decision making level – the Good News of the Gospel is that this
particular ruler, Christ, tells us that the criteria is love. As we mentioned last
week, following the rule of Christ, living in the realm of Jesus is as simple and
complex as asking, “what does love require of me in this moment?” We are
subject to the authority of love – an authority that is represented as divine royalty
and as a forgotten human on the side of the road.

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 Jesus reminds us over and over again, that any time there is someone in
need, that is where there is a spiritual presence. In that moment, the rule of
Christ is the only rule that matters. It’s not easy to follow a king and give up our
illusions of control. It’s not easy to follow a homeless and hungry child, and give
up our ideas of how the world should be. But that is exactly the tension we are
entering in the season of Advent, when we meet the homeless Christ child king in
the manger.
Amen.

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Ephesians 1:15-23
I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this
reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation
as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what
is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among
the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according
to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him
from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and
authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age
but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head
over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Matthew 25:31-46
“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.”