Sermon: Have you looked for Christ? (Nov. 23, 2014)

Christ the King Sunday (A)

November 23, 2014

Matthew 25:31-46

            This week in confirmation class we started learning about the 10 Commandments. I’m not sure I loved that unit as a confirmation student myself, but I have to say that now, as a Christian more mature in my faith and more invested in how it affects me and the way I live, what Luther has to say about those commandments is one of the most difficult, most important, and most relevant things in our Lutheran tradition. Suddenly, these commandments, which may appear archaic or irrelevant to us in our daily lives (after all, how often are you really tempted to kill someone?) become something that kicks me in the gut and forces me to really examine how I live my life.

            If you grew up Lutheran – do you remember these short, punch-throwing explanations? Take the 8^th commandment, for example: “You shall not bear false witness.” Luther explains: “You are to fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbors, betray or slander them, or destroy their reputations.” So far so good, but that’s only part of it. He goes on: “Instead, we are to come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.” Oh, that. Okay, I’m not quite as good at that, especially that last part, about interpreting things in the best possible light. I sometimes take offense too easily, assuming people meant the worst in what they said. I make people’s comments about me and then turn on the one who spoke them, using their words (which had nothing to do with me) against them. Can you relate?

            But the commandment that I have thought about especially this week is the 5^th: You shall not murder. Strange, right, since I just told you I have never been tempted to murder someone! This is the one commandment most of us feel pretty safe on keeping. But listen to Luther’s explanation: “We are to fear and love God, so that we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbors, but instead help and support them in all of life’s needs.” In other words, refraining from killing someone (or for Luther, hurting them in any way) is a good start, but if you are letting someone suffer without coming to their aid, you are still breaking this commandment.

            I think about this every time I get on or off 104 at Carter/Hudson, because there is always someone there with a sign in need of help. Usually my excuse is that the light is too short to get out any money, or I’m a couple lanes away. But recently I was right beside someone at a long light, with whom I actually made eye contact, who was holding a sign that said, “Homeless and losing hope. Please help.” And you know what I thought? “All I have is a 20.” And just for good measure, “He’d probably use it for drugs or alcohol anyway.” I hated myself for thinking that, but there it was, and

off I drove, leaving this hopeless man standing in the cold, because I needed to get to the Bible study I was leading.

            I’m no sheep. I’m a goat – a 5^th commandment-breaking goat. “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 the least of these, you did not do it to me.” As I drove off onto 104 E, this verse echoed in my head. Irony of all ironies, the Bible study I was about to lead was on this very text.

            Would I have stopped and helped the man, or handed him my 20, if I had known it was Christ asking? Of course! But, if I knew it was Christ, I also would know that he wouldn’t take advantage of me, that the money would be well-used, that I wouldn’t simply be enabling him. At least that is what I tell myself. “Listen, Jesus,” we say. “Helping people these days is a tricky business – it is different from when you were here. It’s very complex.  You have to understand that.”

But is it true?

            A couple weeks ago, Nov 11, was the Feast Day of St. Martin of Tours (from whom St. Martin Lutheran Church gets its name). The story that made St. Martin famous happened when he was but a teenager, shortly before he was baptized. One day, as a member of the Roman army, he was

 

riding his horse and saw a freezing beggar. Martin impulsively took off his cloak, used his sword to cut it in half, and gave half to the freezing beggar, thus saving his life. That night, Martin dreamt that he saw Christ wearing the half-cloak, and telling the angels that it was Martin who gave it to him. “As you did to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it unto me.” The legend of St. Martin has become the quintessential expression of this parable.

            Was life really so different in Jesus’ time, or in St. Martin’s time, from how it is now? Martin could have overthought his generosity, too, but he didn’t – he simply gave. I wonder: are we using all our various excuses for why we don’t help to hide the fact that there are some people we just don’t really want to help, that there are some people in whom we would rather not see Christ’s face? But that’s not what Jesus says in this parable. He doesn’t say, “As you did unto the least of these who are members of my family AND also deserve help, you did it unto me.” No, he self-identifies with all those who are hungry, naked, poor, in prison, etc. Author Kathleen Norris puts it starkly: “We are to act as if Christ is in other people, even the stranger whom we believe we have reason to fear, the prisoner whose acts we find reprehensible, the sick we’d rather condemn because we’re convinced

that their lifestyle contributed to their illness, the hungry who should have been able to fend for themselves. If we cannot recognize Christ in these others, what we have, to paraphrase the prison guard in Cool Hand Luke, is a ‘failure to imaginate.’”

            Ah, a failure to imaginate. It begs the question – if you have not seen Christ in those around you who are in need, is it possible you have not really looked? Martha Beck tells a story about a time when she was a college student, on her way to work. She saw what she thought was a piece of quartz lying on the ground, but when she knelt down to pick it up, she found it was only a piece of Styrofoam. What she thought was a treasure was only a piece of trash. But then she got to thinking: what she had first viewed as beautiful had not changed a bit. Only her perception of it had changed. She wondered what would happen if she changed her perception on other things. That day as she worked her boring job ladling out food in the school cafeteria, she decided to put aside all her preconceptions and her tendency to classify people, and look at each person she served with different eyes. “Of course,” she wrote, “this is nearly impossible, but I did make an effort – for a few minutes. After that I had to stop, because I was so overcome by the beauty of every person in that dining hall that my eyes kept filling with tears.” “I think maybe,” she concluded, “that's why we screen out so much loveliness. If we saw people as they really are, the beauty would overwhelm us.” [from Expecting Adam]

            I ask you again: if you have not seen Christ in “the least of these” whom you encounter, is it
possible you haven’t really tried? Why haven’t you tried? When you do try, you will find that Christ, indeed, is there. Just as Christ appears to us in the most unexpected place of all – beaten and bloodied and hanging on a cross – he appears to us even in the most unexpected of neighbors. As we move next week into the Advent season, we will dwell once again on God’s powerful promise to be “Emmanuel” – God with us. Where and how will you see God with us in these coming weeks? Where and how will you be surprised by this presence? How will it change your perception of the world and those around you? How will you respond?

            Let us pray… Christ our neighbor, you have told us where to find you: in the faces and lives of those who suffer. Help us to put aside preconceptions and judgment and to truly search for you in the needs of others. It takes courage and resilience to seek this, Lord; please grant it, so that we will be equipped to better know you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.