Letting the King be King
Text: Matthew 25:31-46
I have to admit, last week when I was listening to the sermon of our guest preacher, I got a little bit nervous that he was going to steal my thunder for this week. We invited the Rev. Sherif Garas from the Arabic-speaking Almnarah Presbyterian Church here in Mississauga for our anniversary service, and to talk about Spirituality. For those of us who know Sherif through the Presbytery, he exudes this with great passion. When Sherif and I had spoken earlier in week in preparation for the service, he had asked me to read the story of Mary and Martha from the Gospel of Luke as his primary text. This was fine, but as he was preaching, he also made several references to a passage in Matthew. Given that I had done some reading ahead, I knew that this was the passage that I planned to preach on today.
Fortunately the well of Scripture is deep enough that I should never have to worry about another preacher stealing my thunder, and after all, it’s not my thunder to steal… it is God’s to give. We’re not in competition.
Today is the last Sunday in the Christian Calendar… next week is the first Sunday in Advent, and the cycle begins again. Today, we celebrate the “Reign of Christ” or “Christ the King.” It’s perhaps the one Sunday where we really do have license to be triumphant, to lift high the cross, and celebrate the unique witness of Jesus Christ as the cornerstone of our faith.
Yet this is not a “park-your-brain-at-the-door” kind of celebration. This is not a “just Jesus and me” kind of party. It is a celebration of God’s promise, to be sure, but it really does give us pause and to really ask what it means to let Jesus Christ be King in our lives.
Especially in light of the story from Matthew: the Last Judgement.
Maybe you’re familiar with this story? It doesn’t go into a lot of the details of the lead-up, but it doesn’t need to.
“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. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.”
We shouldn’t get hung up on when this will be, because that’s not the point. Matthew is making a case that is extremely challenging. It is a counter-point to something taken for granted.
The passage continues,
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; 35for 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, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
There are two things that I find fascinating about this part. The first is in the point that how we treat one another is directly tied to our salvation… and not only that, those who are called the “righteous” are a bit puzzled by this.
They respond:
“Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”
In other words, they had no idea that they deserved this honour. They seem completely shocked by it.
The reply is simple:
“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.”
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.
Notice that nowhere in this does Jesus put in the pre-condition for belief as being members of his family. Instead, it’s their condition in life: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned… It cuts against the notion that proper doctrinal belief is what determines our relationship with God, and ultimately our end state.
Our salvation is not dependent on whether or not we get our facts right. What is important is our relationship with God, with Jesus Christ is directly tied to our relationship with one another. This passage challenges us to realize that we encounter a healthy relationship with God when we have a healthy relationship with one another. Our personal relationship with Jesus Christ, is very much tied to how we relate to those around us.
The hard part of course is the flip side, where we have the Lord sending away the unrighteous. Again, belief, in this passage, has nothing to do with it. It depends entirely on their relationship with others. They are just as confused, and perhaps more desperately so, asking for an accounting as to where it was they had seen Jesus and not done the right thing. Maybe they try to justify themselves by saying “had we known it was you, we would have done it differently…” But even then, any such relationship would have been entirely selfish and self-serving… rather than a genuine healthy one.
It is a reminder that in the people that we encounter every day, we potentially encounter the living Christ in every last one of them. It is not up to us to make that judgement call on someone else… because if we do, we may find that we are trying to pass judgement on God.
A colleague of mine once told me a story of arriving to serve at a new congregation. As he was getting settled in, sitting on his desk was a notebook, given to him by one of the members of the congregation. As he opened up and began to look through it, it was very carefully kept, with the names and addresses of all the people in the congregation.
A useful piece of information to be sure… but as he began to look closer at the book, he noticed letters beside each of the names. Some had C’s… some had B’s… Several F’s… He was trying to figure out what those letters meant.
And then as he read further, he discovered much to his horror, those letters next to each name were Spiritual “Grades.” Like a high-school report card, this individual had assigned letter grades to each of the members of the congregation as to their relationship with God. In other words, someone had taken it upon themselves to pass judgement on the members of the congregation, and grade others on their relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Upon that discovery, the notebook went promptly into the garbage can.
It’s a true story, and a very disturbing one… but I think perhaps many of us have been in a position where we may have encountered something like that. Perhaps we ourselves have been tempted to judge the faith of another.
If anything, the story from Matthew reminds us that we never know when we really do come face-to-face with the living Christ. We have the potential of encountering Christ in every person we meet… and it’s not up to us to determine which encounter that might be. or who it is. As we learn in the story from Matthew, we may not know that we have encounter God until well after the fact. It is a challenge, because even the people that annoy and frustrate us, may on some level reveal something about Christ in our midst. Remember that Jesus said that we can encounter God through visiting someone in prison. Notice he’s not specific on whether they’re guilty of a crime or not. It is not up to us to judge, because that belongs entirely to God. Our role is to treat everyone we encounter as if we are having an encounter with the living Christ. As Christians, our challenge is to grant everyone we encounter with respect, dignity and hope… even if they annoy us.
It’s one of the reasons that as a congregation, we will be Passing the Peace from here on in. We introduced it with the children, but next week it will happen immediately after I offer the assurance of pardon. It serves as a reminder that our personal relationship with God is reflected in our personal relationship with one another.
Frankly… we cannot even fully judge our own relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s up to Christ. After all, our own personal relationship with God is not isolated from our relationship with one another. True, that it is personal, and it is not for someone else to judge… but the challenge is that we cannot make so personal that we are afraid to share. If we take our relationship with God as being so personal that we become isolated from one another, we will no longer be able to recognize the face of Christ in someone else… and the warning from Matthew about that is rather stark:
“For just as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to me.”
On this Reign of Christ Sunday, it is a reminder for us to let the King be the King. We place our lives, our hopes, our dreams into God’s hands. Christ is the judge of all that, not us. Maybe we need to get up from these pews today, and realize that the next person we encounter could be an encounter with God.
Amen.
I have to admit, last week when I was listening to the sermon of our guest preacher, I got a little bit nervous that he was going to steal my thunder for this week. We invited the Rev. Sherif Garas from the Arabic-speaking Almnarah Presbyterian Church here in Mississauga for our anniversary service, and to talk about Spirituality. For those of us who know Sherif through the Presbytery, he exudes this with great passion. When Sherif and I had spoken earlier in week in preparation for the service, he had asked me to read the story of Mary and Martha from the Gospel of Luke as his primary text. This was fine, but as he was preaching, he also made several references to a passage in Matthew. Given that I had done some reading ahead, I knew that this was the passage that I planned to preach on today.
Fortunately the well of Scripture is deep enough that I should never have to worry about another preacher stealing my thunder, and after all, it’s not my thunder to steal… it is God’s to give. We’re not in competition.
Today is the last Sunday in the Christian Calendar… next week is the first Sunday in Advent, and the cycle begins again. Today, we celebrate the “Reign of Christ” or “Christ the King.” It’s perhaps the one Sunday where we really do have license to be triumphant, to lift high the cross, and celebrate the unique witness of Jesus Christ as the cornerstone of our faith.
Yet this is not a “park-your-brain-at-the-door” kind of celebration. This is not a “just Jesus and me” kind of party. It is a celebration of God’s promise, to be sure, but it really does give us pause and to really ask what it means to let Jesus Christ be King in our lives.
Especially in light of the story from Matthew: the Last Judgement.
Maybe you’re familiar with this story? It doesn’t go into a lot of the details of the lead-up, but it doesn’t need to.
“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. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.”
We shouldn’t get hung up on when this will be, because that’s not the point. Matthew is making a case that is extremely challenging. It is a counter-point to something taken for granted.
The passage continues,
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; 35for 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, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
There are two things that I find fascinating about this part. The first is in the point that how we treat one another is directly tied to our salvation… and not only that, those who are called the “righteous” are a bit puzzled by this.
They respond:
“Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”
In other words, they had no idea that they deserved this honour. They seem completely shocked by it.
The reply is simple:
“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.”
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.
Notice that nowhere in this does Jesus put in the pre-condition for belief as being members of his family. Instead, it’s their condition in life: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned… It cuts against the notion that proper doctrinal belief is what determines our relationship with God, and ultimately our end state.
Our salvation is not dependent on whether or not we get our facts right. What is important is our relationship with God, with Jesus Christ is directly tied to our relationship with one another. This passage challenges us to realize that we encounter a healthy relationship with God when we have a healthy relationship with one another. Our personal relationship with Jesus Christ, is very much tied to how we relate to those around us.
The hard part of course is the flip side, where we have the Lord sending away the unrighteous. Again, belief, in this passage, has nothing to do with it. It depends entirely on their relationship with others. They are just as confused, and perhaps more desperately so, asking for an accounting as to where it was they had seen Jesus and not done the right thing. Maybe they try to justify themselves by saying “had we known it was you, we would have done it differently…” But even then, any such relationship would have been entirely selfish and self-serving… rather than a genuine healthy one.
It is a reminder that in the people that we encounter every day, we potentially encounter the living Christ in every last one of them. It is not up to us to make that judgement call on someone else… because if we do, we may find that we are trying to pass judgement on God.
A colleague of mine once told me a story of arriving to serve at a new congregation. As he was getting settled in, sitting on his desk was a notebook, given to him by one of the members of the congregation. As he opened up and began to look through it, it was very carefully kept, with the names and addresses of all the people in the congregation.
A useful piece of information to be sure… but as he began to look closer at the book, he noticed letters beside each of the names. Some had C’s… some had B’s… Several F’s… He was trying to figure out what those letters meant.
And then as he read further, he discovered much to his horror, those letters next to each name were Spiritual “Grades.” Like a high-school report card, this individual had assigned letter grades to each of the members of the congregation as to their relationship with God. In other words, someone had taken it upon themselves to pass judgement on the members of the congregation, and grade others on their relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Upon that discovery, the notebook went promptly into the garbage can.
It’s a true story, and a very disturbing one… but I think perhaps many of us have been in a position where we may have encountered something like that. Perhaps we ourselves have been tempted to judge the faith of another.
If anything, the story from Matthew reminds us that we never know when we really do come face-to-face with the living Christ. We have the potential of encountering Christ in every person we meet… and it’s not up to us to determine which encounter that might be. or who it is. As we learn in the story from Matthew, we may not know that we have encounter God until well after the fact. It is a challenge, because even the people that annoy and frustrate us, may on some level reveal something about Christ in our midst. Remember that Jesus said that we can encounter God through visiting someone in prison. Notice he’s not specific on whether they’re guilty of a crime or not. It is not up to us to judge, because that belongs entirely to God. Our role is to treat everyone we encounter as if we are having an encounter with the living Christ. As Christians, our challenge is to grant everyone we encounter with respect, dignity and hope… even if they annoy us.
It’s one of the reasons that as a congregation, we will be Passing the Peace from here on in. We introduced it with the children, but next week it will happen immediately after I offer the assurance of pardon. It serves as a reminder that our personal relationship with God is reflected in our personal relationship with one another.
Frankly… we cannot even fully judge our own relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s up to Christ. After all, our own personal relationship with God is not isolated from our relationship with one another. True, that it is personal, and it is not for someone else to judge… but the challenge is that we cannot make so personal that we are afraid to share. If we take our relationship with God as being so personal that we become isolated from one another, we will no longer be able to recognize the face of Christ in someone else… and the warning from Matthew about that is rather stark:
“For just as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to me.”
On this Reign of Christ Sunday, it is a reminder for us to let the King be the King. We place our lives, our hopes, our dreams into God’s hands. Christ is the judge of all that, not us. Maybe we need to get up from these pews today, and realize that the next person we encounter could be an encounter with God.
Amen.
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