"...The Least of These..."

I owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Girardian Lectionary site, as well as Fred Niedner and Terry Cranford-Smith.

The ink to the article I read in the sermon is here.



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.”


This is the Word of the Lord.


This past two Sundays, as we've journeyed through the 25th chapter of Matthew, we've seen some different ways to look at parables like the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids and the Parable of the Talents. And I said something last week, and maybe the week before, about our reading today – that it isn't a parable but a prediction of the end of days, a foretelling of the Final Judgment. 


I have always really liked this passage. I have quoted that whole “I was hungry and you fed me” part hundreds, if not thousands, of times. This passage gives me a chance to count myself among the sheep and point to other people as goats, and feel good about myself. After all, I am a fan of social justice. I think the right things about the poor and marginalized. I like that, in this passage, Jesus makes following him not about what creeds or doctrines we believe, what prayer we recite, or what church we go to, or how wet we got when we got baptized, but about how we treat the poor, how we regard the forgotten, how we reclaim the marginalized.

I can say, confidently and without equivocation, that in regards to our reading today, I am a sheep.


Except sometimes I am not. Sometimes, in regards to our reading today, I am a goat.


Yes, I have participated in feeding the hungry. If I am honest, though, I have, much more frequently, ignored the hungry. I have, on occasion, participated in giving the thirsty something to drink. But I've also not done that. I have welcomed the stranger, but more often I have feared and excluded the stranger. I've given clothing for the underclothed, and I've also ignored their shivering. I've provided care for the sick, and I've also said, “I'll pray for you!” as I walk away and forget all about them. Yes, I've visited people in prison, heck, I've visited Death Row at a maximum security prison! Surely that gets me some Brownie points with God, right? But I've also actively chosen not to go, not to visit, not to care.


Could it be that I will be approved or condemned based on what kind of day I'm having? Am I a sheep or a goat based on some kind of divine calculus, is there a percentage of sheep-ness I need to achieve to make the cut?


And, if everything is based on an algebraic formula of sheep-to-goat-ness, if I am approved or condemned based on how often I have fed as opposed to how often I have not... why even be a Christian? Doesn't it become a matter of following rules to obtain God's favor rather than relying on the grace of God through the risen Christ for my salvation?ybe I was wrong


And and, what's with this dividing people up in the first place? Us versus them, Jesus, really? What about that passage in Galatians – the same Bible that today's reading is in, by the way – that says, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”?


And and and, you're telling me that, one, neither group knew which they were – sheep or goats? And the sheep, whose life is defined by compassion, did nothing while this entire other group perished at the hands of the One they served?


Maybe I was wrong last week. Maybe this passage has less to do with how time will end, and more to do with how we spend the time we have.

Fred Niedner looks at this passage and imagines that, in that moment of separation, the sheep look across the gulf...


“...their eyes wide not with rejoicing or satisfaction, and surely not with gloating, but with astonishment and the kind of fear the compassionate have when they see others in danger. For over there, on the other side, among the goats, are so many of those for whom they have cared all this while, and now what will become of those others? Are they to be separated forever? Who will care for them now?


“The sheep know about many kinds of starvation, illness, and imprisonment. They have fed the hungry with bread made from wheat and given water to the thirsty. They have visited those with pneumonia, cancer and AIDS. They have visited in penitentiaries. But they have ministered to others in need as well. They have provided sustenance for to fill spiritual hunger and the awful thirst for meaning, the very cravings that drove the goats to selfishness and seemingly unconcerned arrogance. The sheep have welcomed and befriended the goats when the goats were so estranged they'd become strangers even to themselves. And the sheep kept visiting the cells of those imprisoned in hatred, the goats who hated everyone, and themselves most of all. And the naked who lived without any chance of another's love to clothe them, or to adorn their faces with gladness, those the sheep had clothed with their own humble garments of affection and care. To those sick to death with the boredom of their world's routine, the sheep had come with the bread of encouragement.


“The sheep had given so much of themselves to those others. How could someone now separate them forever from those others? How could the Son of Man in this moment call them "blessed?" How could they rejoice over their inheritance as they looked across the chasm, toward those who remained lost, sick, naked, and imprisoned in their own pitiful selfishness? How could they ever again sing a glad song?”


In Niedner's retelling, the “Sheep and Goats” becomes, not a foretelling of the end of the world. Rather, the sheep remind Jesus of who he is and why he came, and ask him – well, compel him, really – to go and find those lost sheep, those goats who didn't know they were goats.


“'...You cannot end all this in a stroke of vindictive justice. Son of Man, we cannot in this moment do nothing. We must go across to them,' the sheep insist. 'You must let us go to them."


“The son of man studies them and calmly says, 'You cannot go across. It is too late. For you there is no more time.' For a moment there is stillness.


“'Then you must go,' declare the sheep. 'Son of Man, you must remember now how your own heart quivered in horror in the instant when you saw in Cain's eyes what came bursting from his heart, and his strong hands were upon you. Son of Man, you must remember the moment when the soldiers pinned you to the cross, pounded in the nails, and you were condemned. You must remember the thirst out of which you cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Remember the torture of abandonment! You must go to them, Son of Man!'


“A deep and heavy silence comes over the judgment scene. The Son of Man says nothing. He looks at the sheep, his own eyes now wide, looking like theirs. Then he turns, and he steps across. How could he not heed their voices? He had taught them to talk like that. They were using his own best lines on him. He would go. He could not judge from vengeance. He would have to go -- to Bethlehem, to Calvary, to Antioch, to Rome, to Kansas City, to Calcutta, yes, even to hell. He would spend eternity, if it took that, like a shepherd forever in search of lost sheep, working restlessly to slake the final thirst and break down the last prison. Some might hide from him forever, but his heart told him, and the look in the eyes of those sheep told him, he could never give up. If he was to be king, he must be a shepherd king, a tireless, searching king, a king with holes in his hands and crowned forever with thorns, scouring endlessly the depths of hell, looking, calling. . .”


I'm not saying that we've been reading this passage all wrong, that we aren't called to feed and clothe and welcome and visit, please don't hear that. What I am saying is that nobody is ever just one thing – even the worst of us do good things, and the best of us do terrible things on occasion.


What I am saying is that we get nowhere in life, nowhere especially in our faith journey, if we exist in a realm of “us versus them.” After all, what is it that the praying Pharisee says in the 18th chapter of Luke? “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” And that tax collector the Pharisee mentions? “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” Jesus tells the story and concludes, “I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”


We get nowhere by being better than someone else.


In the end, I can't get away from the fact that neither the sheep nor the goats knew what they were doing... “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison...”


Rather than adhering to a set of laws which governed their actions – laws of love on the part of the sheep, and laws of fear on the part of the goats – these groups acted out of what was already in them, be it love or fear. It isn't what they do or do not do that makes them who they are, it's who they are that makes them do or not do what they do.


And this brings us to another dilemma, doesn't it? If I am a goat, and if I can't just look at this passage and decide, “Well, I'll do good stuff and be OK,” what hope is there?


I have to go back to that Max Lucado quote from last week. “God loves you just the way you are, but too much to let you stay that way.” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus never told us to be the light of the world or the salt of the earth. He said we are the light of the world and the salt of the earth.


What it comes down to, I think, is a choice. Be foolish and unprepared like the five foolish bridesmaids, and live in fear of lack like the five supposedly “wise” bridesmaids... Live in fear like the third servant, who buried the talent, or live seeking gain and recognition at the expense of others like the other two servants, and certainly like the traveling slave owner... or turn our gaze outward, away from ourselves, and see the opportunities for grace in the world.


NPR recently reported on an assisted living home in California which shut down last fall. Many of its residents were left behind, with nowhere to go.


The staff at the Valley Springs Manor left when they stopped getting paid — except for cook Maurice Rowland and Miguel Alvarez, the janitor.


"There was about 16 residents left behind, and we had a conversation in the kitchen, 'What are we going to do?' " Rowland says.


"If we left, they wouldn't have nobody," the 34-year-old Alvarez says.

Their roles quickly transformed for the elderly residents, who needed round-the-clock care.

"I would only go home for one hour, take a shower, get dressed, then be there for 24-hour days," says Alvarez.

Rowland, 35, remembers passing out medications during those long days. He says he didn't want to leave the residents — some coping with dementia — to fend for themselves.

"I just couldn't see myself going home — next thing you know, they're in the kitchen trying to cook their own food and burn the place down," Rowland says. "Even though they wasn't our family, they were kind of like our family for this short period of time."


For Alvarez, the situation brought back memories from his childhood.

"My parents, when they were younger, they left me abandoned," he says. "Knowing how they are going to feel, I didn't want them to go through that."


Alvarez and Rowland spent several days caring for the elderly residents of Valley Springs Manor until the fire department and sheriff took over.


The incident led to legislation in California known as the Residential Care for the Elderly Reform Act of 2014.


"If I would've left, I think that would have been on my conscience for a very long time," says Rowland.



We may well choose to waste the one chance we get to live as the flesh and blood of Christ on this earth by living a whole life unmoved by compassion for another human being. But we who claim the name of Christ may also choose to visit those others on their sickbeds of selfishness and to feed those who are starving to death because they have no idea how to give of themselves. We may choose both at different times and for different reasons, but through the Holy Spirit, God calls upon us to strive daily to grow into Christ, to become more like the One who gave himself for the poor, the marginalized, the despised, the forgotten.

Love Never Fails...

A bit of a reworking of an old sermon, but I dearly love any opportunity I have to tell the story I've included from author Robert Fulghum.  I found amazing insight on eros-love vs. agape-love at "Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary," and especially a linked excerpt from Robert Hamerton-Kelly's "Sacred Violence: Paul's Hermeneutic of the Cross."

I almost named the sermon "Buddy Bars and Bacon..." Almost.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Our reading this morning comes from the part of First Corinthians which is often called the “Love Chapter.” We’ve heard readings from this chapter at weddings and such. It's one of those passages I love to read out loud simply because it is so poetic and lovely. Reading it makes me wish I had the voice of James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman… I’d settle for Sam Elliot in a pinch. But since this is Scripture, nothing's ever just poetic and pretty for the sake of beauty and poetry, especially when it comes to the Apostle Paul... and this is especially true of his letters to the church at Corinth.

The church at Corinth had so many problems, and was doing so many things wrong... well, if the Jerry Springer Show married every reality-TV program ever created, the Corinthian church would be their child. This church fought over who was “better” based on who got baptized by who, members were getting drunk during the agape meal, there were weird love connections going on, and in the midst of all of this they were forever at each others' throats over who was more spiritual.

The Corinthian church was broken, sick, and an embarrassment. Things were so bad that you really couldn’t have blamed Paul if he had thrown up his hands and walked away when he heard about the mess they had created and were wallowing in. He was, after all, a man on a mission, and there were far more areas which needed to hear the message of new life in Christ. These folks knew better, why not tell them to wash their own dirty dishes?

Instead, Paul sat down and dictated a letter. It must have taken hours, carefully picking at the knot they had created, slowly untangling the mess they had made.

There were actions they needed to take, tough decisions to make, changes to enact. One example is with the Agape Meal I mentioned – following worship, members would share in a meal, a practice that grew out of the final meal Christ shared with his Apostles. The idea was similar to a potluck, where everyone got something to eat, fellowshipped and generally enjoyed time in community. What it had become was a cliquish gathering, where the folks who had plenty of food ate and drank themselves under their table, while next table over they watched and listened to their empty stomachs grumble.

Paul took it back to its basics… we know his solution as the Words of Institution for the Lord’s Supper. Bread, wine, and remembrance.

But for the underlying problem, the deep divisions, the hurt and the anger and the separations that were tearing this young church apart at its seams, there was only one solution. The solution was not an easy one - no disbanding the church, splitting it up and starting two or three factions somewhere else; it wasn't to declare one “side” right and the other wrong, and it wasn't to come in screaming and breaking chairs over the offenders’ heads.

The solution was love.

The English word “love” embodies a wide variety of ideas and experiences, and it’s used, and misused, in wildly diverse ways. I love my wife and my daughter, I love my mom. I also love my dog. I’ve been known to say I love bacon and Buddy Bars, too. And considering where I am at and where I am standing, it is not at all controversial to say that I love God.

In each of those instances, though, I mean different things, don’t I? I mean, if I loved God like I love bacon, well, that’d just be weird.

In Greek, there are three words we most commonly translate “love.” “Philos” is the kind of love we feel for friends, a “brotherly love,” if you will. Then there is “eros,” which we commonly view as romantic love, but which has a deeper meaning.

Eros, in its finest form, was seen by the Greek philosopher Plato as “the desire of the soul for good.” Scholars and poets alike have defined eros-love as a triange between the lover, the beloved, and the obstacle or challenge separating the lover from the beloved: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy fights to regain the girl, boy and girl live happily ever after.

Yet eros-love, even defined Platonically, is less a triangle than it is a tight circle, and at the center of that ever-spinning circle is the self. The desire that drives eros is for self-fulfillment, overcoming obstacles to attain romantic companionship, yes… but eros also encompasses the desire for affirmation and recognition and wealth and security and control and authority and power… all in service to the individual, the self. Eros-love views the individual as a container that must be filled – whether the need is for love or for material possessions or for security, eros-love is lack-driven – we cannot have too much romance, too much money, too much recognition or security or power or entertainment. There is never enough because, as containers, we are broken, leaky… we attain that which we desire and find that it is not enough, we need more.

If the Corinthian church knew and practiced love at all, it was most certainly this eros love… and in their struggle to fulfill themselves, to be recognized, to be special, to be first, to be better than that person, more spiritual than him, more important than her, more right than them, the Corinthians had become impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, arrogant and rude, they insisted on their own way, were irritable and resentful, they celebrated wrongdoing, and avoided any truth that didn't agree with their preconceptions. They used spiritual gifts and manifestations of the indwelling Holy Spirit as badges of honor.

This brings us to the third word we translate as “love:” Agape. Like eros-love, agape-love can be seen as a triangle – only the agape triangle is lover and beloved, and at its apex is God. Where eros-love is lack-driven, always wanting – or more honestly, needing – more, driving against obstacles real and imagined to gain that which it does not have, agape-love is predicated on the knowledge that, through the provision of our loving creator-God, all of our needs are fulfilled. If I may be forgiven for overworking an analogy, when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, our brokenness, our leaks, are repaired. There is no lack.

 Love, Paul writes, “is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

I rather like the way the New American Standard translates that last sentence: “Love never fails.”

Eros is an imperfect, inwardly-focused love. Agape turns love outward!

One of the earliest names given to those who followed Jesus was “Christian.” This was meant disparagingly, and it translated originally as “little Christs.” The idea was that these early believers were acting like little replicas, little reflections of their God. Not “love cups,” not “masters of their own domain,” or “first among equals,” not “the most spiritual person,” but reflections.

If you’ll bear with me, this idea of being reflections of the love of God is related beautifully in a story shared by author Robert Fulghum:

“Are there any questions?” An offer that comes at the end of college lectures and long meetings. Said when an audience is not only overdosed with information, but when there is no time left anyhow. At times like that you sure do have questions. Like, “Can we leave now?" and "What... was this meeting for?" and "Where can I get [something to] drink?"

The gesture is supposed to indicate openness on the part of the speaker, I suppose, but if in fact you do ask a question, both the speaker and the audience will give you drop-dead looks. And some fool-some earnest idiot always asks. And the speaker always answers. By repeating most of what he has already said.

But if there is a little time left and there is a little silence in response to the invitation, I usually ask the most important question of all: "What is the Meaning of Life?"

You never know, somebody may have the answer, and I'd really hate to miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask. But when I ask, it's usually taken as a kind of absurdist move – people laugh and nod and gather up their stuff and the meeting is dismissed on that ridiculous note.

Once and only once, I asked that question and got a serious answer. One that is with me still.

First, I must tell you where this happened, because the place has a power of its own. In Greece… [on] the island of Crete sits a Greek Orthodox monastery. Alongside it, on land donated by the monastery, is an institute dedicated to human understanding and peace, and especially to rapprochement between Germans and Cretans. An improbable task, given the bitter residue of wartime.

This site is important, because it overlooks the small airstrip at Maleme where Nazi paratroopers invaded Crete and were attacked by peasants wielding kitchen knives and hay scythes. The retribution was terrible. The populations of whole villages were lined up and shot for assaulting Hitler's finest troops. High above the institute is a cemetery with a single cross marking the mass grave of Cretan partisans. And across the bay… is the regimented burial ground of the Nazi paratroopers. The memorials are so placed that all might see and never forget.
Hate was the only weapon the Cretans had at the end, and it was a weapon many vowed never to give up.

Against this heavy curtain of history, in this place where the stone of hatred is hard and thick, the existence of an institute devoted to healing the wounds of war is a fragile paradox. How has it come to be here? The answer is a man. Alexander Papaderos.

A doctor of philosophy, teacher, politician, resident of Athens but a son of this soil. At war's end he came to believe that the Germans and the Cretans had much to give one another--much to learn from one another. That they had an example to set. For if they could forgive each other and construct a creative relationship, then any people could.

To make a lovely story short, Papaderos succeeded. The institute became a reality--a conference ground on the site of horror--and it was in fact a source of productive interactions between the two countries.

At the last session on the last morning of a two-week seminar on Greek culture, …Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out. We followed his gaze across the bay to the iron cross marking the German cemetery.

He turned. And made the ritual gesture: "Are there any questions?"

Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence. "No questions?" Papaderos swept the room with his eyes. So I asked.

"Dr. Papaderos, what is the Meaning of Life?"

The usual laughter followed and people stirred to go. Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was.

"I will answer your question."

Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter. And what he said went like this:

"When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.

"I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine--in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.

"I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of the light. But light --truth, understanding, knowledge--is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.

"I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world--into the black places in the hearts of men--and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life."

And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk.

Much of what I experienced in the way of information about Greek culture and history that summer is gone from memory. But in the wallet of my mind I carry a small round mirror still.

Love that bears all things and believes all things is not found in how spiritual we are, how pure our theology is, or how rigidly we hold to doctrine.

Love that hopes all things and endures all things is not found in taking care of number one, and is not a commodity we can own. The love that never fails is a thing to be done, and to be pursued, and shared, and enacted. Done. Reflected.

Are there any questions?

Let us pray.