November 24, 2002 (The Last Sunday after Pentecost)
Ezekiel
34:11-17
Psalm 95:1-7
I Corinthians 15:20-28
Matthew 25:31-46
Today is the last Sunday of the year. Yes, it really is—of the church year anyway. Next Sunday is the first Sunday of the church year, the first Sunday in Advent, the season of waiting for the birth of our Savior, as well as the season we think about the second coming of Christ. But today is the ending of something, the culmination of the church year. It has been called Christ the King Sunday. Christ the King. Is your image of Christ a kingly one? How do you envision Christ? As a teacher, a companion, a friend, a brother? Last weekend, we held a memorial service for our children’s education coordinator, Louise Barton. In that service we used the image of Christ as shepherd, the good shepherd. And this is an image that is easy for us to accept because Christ lived in a pastoral atmosphere, many of the illustrations in his parables are sheep, and it is comforting to think of ourselves as “sheep of His pasture.” The sheep in both the Ezekiel and the Matthew passages today, however, are not the bucolic symbols found in other sections of scripture. And Jesus is not the gentle shepherd. He is a king; His sheep are inheritors of the blessedness prepared by God for all eternity. And the expectations are stringent.
When the Son of Man sits on his throne of glory, he will separate those who have served Him in others from those who did not. He will acknowledge those who reflected His love and reached out to those in need. He will acknowledge those who fed the hungry because there were hungry to feed, who opened their doors to the homeless because there were those in need of shelter, who visited the sick and offered fellowship to prisoners and outcasts. And the kicker is that these people offered all this service without any expectation that similar care would ever be returned to them.
One of the most interesting parts of the entire gospel passage is that those who served the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, were as unaware of what they were doing as those who did not serve others. When Jesus said, “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,” both were taken by surprise. Those who reach out to others do it because they have an attitude of caring; those who don’t have a hundred excuses.
This is the season when the church is asking us to offer our gifts to the church—our talents and our resources as well. Stewardship involves the monitoring of our gifts; it involves decision; it involves priorities; it involves expectations. We are called to consider carefully, in the light of scripture, where we place our priorities.
OK, OK, we’ve heard this before. We know that which is expected of us, and many of us would like to live a live of service. But there are so many needs, so many suffering, so many hungry, so many homeless, so many lonely people that one is overwhelmed with the needs of the world and even with the needs of one’s own family, of one’s own self. The world cries out to us from Haiti, from Africa, from our companion diocese of Venezuela, from our own neighborhood in poverty, turmoil disasters, needs of all kinds.
I have a sister who thinks globally. She and her husband have served in the Peace Corps in the Solomon Islands; she was one of the first to serve at Ground Zero last year. Earlier this year she went to Texas with the Red Cross to assist those who were homeless after the devastating floods. No sacrifice is too great for her. She serves others and expects no return. She is, indeed a servant of Christ. We all know people like her. It makes me tired even to think about her deeds. And I can become beset with the enormity of the mission, with my inability to help very much, with the absolute size of the task of serving Christ through others.
And then I remember the much-told story about the young man on the beach. From a distance it was difficult to see what he was doing--bending, reaching and throwing. The stranger walked closer to see what was going on. “What are you doing?” asked the stranger as he drew near the young man. “The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach, and they cannot return to the sea by themselves,” the young man said. “When the sun rises, they will die and the people come from town to pick them and sell them in the market place. I throw them back to the sea so they might live another day.” As the stranger looked at the vast expanse of beach, stretching in both directions beyond his sight, he saw starfish scattered on the shore in numbers beyond calculating. The young man’s task seemed inconceivable. “But,” the stranger said, “there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference?” The young man considered the question momentarily, then picked up another starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He said, “I made a difference to that one.”
Each of us has gifts that we have been given by our Creator. The beauty of these gifts is that each gift is unique. We have gifts not only of physical abilities, but we also have gifts of personality and purpose. Our lives have brought us to this place from many different directions. Some of us may undertake great tasks and even save lives. Others of us will struggle with even minor tasks. Mother Teresa said, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can all do small things greatly."
The object is to see the world through Christ’s eyes. The trick is to consider the needs of the human family and offer ourselves as a gift in whatever situation we find ourselves. The goal is to see the holy in the ordinary and then to act in the Name of Jesus—not as a representative of Jesus, but in intimate communion with him. Just as all Jesus’ words and actions emerge from his communion with his Father, all our words and actions must emerge from our communion with Jesus. We act, as Henri Nouwen says “from the place where we are united with Jesus in love.” When we do this, it will be Jesus himself who acts in and through us.
When we stand before the King of heaven, we will not be asked why we didn’t accomplish as much as someone else or why we haven’t done more. We will be asked if God’s word has been lived through us every day, every moment of our lives. Yes, this is the last Sunday of the year; the new year is at hand. Let us with the firm resolve of new beginnings choose to be Christ in this world. Will we make a difference amid the huge needs? We will make a difference to Christ.