Flock of Mercy

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Matthew 24:29-44; 25:31-46

This passage reminds me of an old Sunday School song.  Maybe you folks know it.  Let’s give it a shot.  It goes:

I just wanna be a sheep. Baa, baa, baa, baa
I just wanna be a sheep . Baa, baa, baa, baa
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
I just wanna be a sheep.  Baa, baa, baa, baa

 

I don’t wanna be a goat, nope. I don’t wanna be a goat, nope
Haven’t got any hope, nope.  I don’t wanna be a goat, nope

 

I just wanna be a sheep. Baa, baa, baa, baa
I just wanna be a sheep . Baa, baa, baa, baa
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
I just wanna be a sheep.  Baa, baa, baa, baa

Well, that out of the system, I could just ask you which are you, a sheep or a goat, call it a sermon, and we’re done.  But that’s too easy and, believe it or not, this parable isn’t as straightforward as it seems.  It’s complicated.  Let me bewilder you for a minute.

If, as the parable says, history ends with Jesus coming back and judging between those who have or have not shown mercy to him by showing it to the “least of these”, well then, I’m a goat.  In truth, every one of us here is a goat.  We have our good moments for sure, but overall, we’re goats.  How do we know?  There are still people in the world who are not just hungry, but worse.  They are dying of hunger.   There are people dying of thirst, due to not having a well or some source of clean water in their village – a problem easily fixable.  Clothing the naked?  A good deal of the inexpensive clothing that we wear is made in a sweatshop somewhere in Southeast Asia by people who only have the clothes on their back.  Welcoming the stranger?  The refugee situation in the world today (that’s this very day) is the worst it has ever been.  Who’s going to welcome them?  Visiting the prisoner?  We tend to view prisoners as criminals getting what they deserve.  I was exposed to prison ministry in seminary.  From what I saw, prison contributes more to the problem than it does to the solution.  There’s very little compassion and a whole lot of dehumanization.  Caring for the sick?  Well, we try but it’s painfully obvious the wealthy areas have really good medical care while poor places and people get nothing.  

We are all participants in and contributors to the problems that perpetuate the harsh reality of there being people who are the “least of these” in this world.  Sadly, we as individuals do little to nothing about it.  We’re all goats.  Those whom Jesus could or would call sheep are few and far between.

So, there you have it.  Whether we mean to be or not, we’re all goats.  We can come up with thousands of excuses in an effort to shirk this basic human responsibility that we have to show mercy to “the least of these”.  We can blame the governments that ourselves we elect.  Blame the corruption in foreign governments as if it didn’t exist in our own.  Most frequently, we just blame the victim.  We can say we don’t have time or we don’t have the money or we just don’t know what to do. 

But, guess what?  The quick, easy test for how to tell if we’re goats is the fact that we make excuses in an effort to rationalize our neglect of the “least of these” and to self-justify in order to escape our guilty consciences.  In the parable, the goats do this rationalizing and self-justifying by blaming Jesus for hiding himself.  They make Jesus, God, their excuse for not caring for the least of these.  “If we had known that what we did or didn’t do for the “least of these” was done or not done to you, Lord, then we’d have been all over it.  But we didn’t know because you hid himself and it led to our neglecting the “least of these”.”  That’s pretty lame.  It’s like saying, “God, it’s your fault I’m the selfish jerk that I am.”

The sheep are the polar opposite.  They didn’t know they had something to gain by tending to the needs of the “least of these”.  Their motivations for showing mercy were unselfish, not motivated by some sort of eternal personal gain.  It’s just the way they are.  It seems the sheep are merciful, compassionate simply because that’s the way they are.  It’s their nature.

Well, if the reason the sheep are the way they are is that that’s just the way they are, well then, the case could be made that that’s the way God made them.  And here we’ve got another problem.  If the sheep are sheep and the goats are goats because that’s the way God made them, then we’re dealing with a huge theological problem called double predestination which was disavowed by the Presbyterian Church in 1904.  

Predestination by itself is problematic enough without having to double it.  Predestination deals with the question of why some people come and follow Jesus and others just don’t.  Predestination says that God predetermined before creation who would and who would not be saved.  Those predetermined – predestined – for salvation are called the “elect” or the “chosen”. There’s no room for personal decision.  In fact, they say sin has corrupted our decision-making capacity to the extent that there no longer is anything we could call free will.  That’s the Doctrine of Total Depravity.  So, we can’t of our own free will decide to follow Jesus.  We must chosen, predestined by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so. 

Predestination is problematic.  The language of chosen is scriptural.  Personally, I feel like God chose me and has been at work my whole life to draw me to himself and it’s been an irresistible pull.  But to say God chose me to be saved and decided not to choose somebody else is a bit further than I’m willing to go and I think it’s also a misunderstanding of what the Bible says.  If one carries predestination to logical rather than scriptural conclusions, one could argue that if you are not chosen, well, you can try your best to be a sheep and even be more sheep-like than those whom God has chosen but still not be one of the chosen and thus still damned to the fate of the goats.  So also, you can be the biggest goat there ever was, but because you’ve been chosen, you’re really a sheep.  You’ll still go to Heaven, but you’ll probably be working in the sewage treatment plant.  That’s assuming people will still have bodily functions.

Double Predestination is even more troubling.  It goes one step further than just saying all are damned yet God has chosen some to be saved.  Double predestination says God created some to be saved, sheep, but he also created some to be damned, goats.  Basically, God apparently created the majority of humanity so that he could destroy us in Hell.  That sort of thinking needs to be reined in.  1 Timothy 2:4 says that “God our Saviour desires for everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  If it’s God’s desire that everyone be saved, then why would he predetermine that some would not be saved and more so, why would he create some for the specific purpose of watching them burn?  I hope you feeling the bewilderment by now.

Well, let’s now throw the Gospel into the equation which is not spoken of in the parable.  This Gospel says “Well, let’s just admit that sin has made us all goats, even the Mother Teresa’s among us.  There are no longer any sheep.  We all deserve the punishment reserved for the goats.  But, God in his infinite love for us has made it so that we can yet be saved.  God the Son became human as Jesus and on our behalf, he lived the faithful life we are unable to live, died the death we deserve, but because he was innocent God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand from whence we await his return.  By making the personal decision to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and then living faithfully as his disciples from here on out we have the new way to be sheep.  Moreover, God gives us the Holy Spirit who works in us to heal and transform us to be more and more like him and also through us to heal and transform the world by showing mercy to the “least of these” while being a living witness to the goats of what this so very hidden God expects of them and the new and living way God has made available to them.  By the grace of God, it’s now again possible to be a sheep.  We may fail miserably, but in Christ we are sired anew or born anew to be sheep. 

But grace is not cheap.  If we are going to follow Jesus, then we must follow him.  Just saying I believe in him isn’t enough.  Faith without works is dead.  We who profess to be his disciples, more so than anybody else, must be the flock of mercy.  If we are sired anew, born anew sheep, then we must be sheep and above all else tend to the needs of the “least of these” among whom our Lord is hidden and abiding.  Unfortunately, the church has a track record of behaving like goats.  We’ve been overly concerned with trying to get people to join our Jesus Club, with being the morality police, with being the right beliefs police, with trying to rule the world of politics, with everything but showing mercy to the “least of these”.  If showing compassion to the “least of these is the way we the followers of Jesus are to show our love for him, we’ve largely blown it.

But as I said earlier, the proclamation of the Gospel is not part of the parable.  Jesus doesn’t mention it as the means to become a sheep.  That parable would indicate that sheep are sheep and goats are goats and that’s the way things are.  The parable simply says that Jesus will come back and judge between the sheep and the goats on the basis of how we showed mercy, loving kindness to the “least of these” and thus to him.  Jesus is the crux of human history and existence.  Everyone will answer to him.  He will return and hold us each accountable for how we have or have not shown mercy to the “least of these” and thus to him.  Whether we follow him or not, we must still give account for how we have or have not fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, took care of the sick, and visited the prisoner.  I don’t know about you, but I want to be a sheep and yet I’ve got a lot work to do.  Amen.

 

Mind Your Lamp

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Matthew 24:1-14; 25:1-13

So, Jesus and his peeps are walking out of the Temple at the end of what was probably the most tediously irritating day of his life.  He had been put to the test by all the religious authorities and they all just want him dead.  He shut them all up quite authoritatively I might add; but to no avail.  They just want him dead all the more.  So as they were walking out, the disciples quite bizarrely begin to comment on how magnificent the Temple was. “Look at that organ, those stained-glass windows, and those ceiling fans…ooo, Holy, Holy, Holy.”  With a hint of frustration, Jesus began to sing: “If I had my way.  If I had my way, in this cruel world.  If I had my way…I’d tear this old building down.”  That wasn’t quite what he said, but he did say not one stone would be left on top another.  They would all be thrown down.  In 70 AD the Romans did just that.

They walked on up to the top of the Mount of Olives to overlook Jerusalem.  Lit a campfire, put on a pot of beans, and reminisced about that scene from Blazing Saddles.  Small talk done; the disciples wanted to know when all the destruction was going to happen.  When’s the end going to be?  Like a good youth pastor, Jesus picked up a guitar and began to rap an almost incoherent rant, probably something like this:

That's great! It starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes, an aeroplane and Lenny Bruce is not afraid
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
World serves its own needs, don't mis-serve your own needs
Speed it up a notch, speed, grunt, no strength
Tell me ‘bout the rapture and the reverend in the right, right
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light
Feeling pretty psyched

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

And I feel fine.

Well, something like that.  Maybe y’all just don’t know the song – It’s the End of the World as We Know It (If Feel Fine) by a band called R.E.M.  In its full version it’s about four minutes of rapping and almost incoherent stream of consciousness rant about the state of the world in the 80’s.  A couple of its lines about low flying planes seemed to come true on 9/11 adding a bit of Twilight Zone effect.  But, comparing it to what Jesus said to his disciples about the end, I imagine what he said probably sounded just as much like an incoherent stream of consciousness rant about the state of their world at the time as did this song back in the ‘80’s.  But Jesus’ rant also pointed forward to THE END in which we could expect him to return to put the world to rights.  But when that day would occur was a big unknown even to him.  Only God the Father knows.  Until then they were going to have to wait faithfully, keep hope alive, spread the Good News, and keep awake.  And then he picked up his guitar again and began to sing. 

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.  

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.  

See what the Lord can do.

 

God’s people walked through the water.  

The people walked through the water.  

God’s people walked through the water.  

See what the Lord can do.

 

Jesus walked on the water.  Jesus walked on the water.

Jesus walked on the water. See what the Lord can do.

 

Jesus raised ole’ Lazarus.  Jesus raised ole’ Lazarus.

Jesus raised ole’ Lazarus.  See what the Lord can do.

 

Sister don’t stop praying.  Sister don’t stop praying.

Sister don’t stop praying.  The work is almost done.

 

Preacher don’t stop preaching.  Preacher don’t stop preaching.

Preacher don’t stop preaching.  The work is almost done.

 

Now children don’t you worry.  Children don’t you worry.

Children don’t you worry.  Jesus a-coming soon.

 

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.  

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.  

See what the Lord will do.

 

Well, so here we are some one thousand nine hundred and ninety years later and Jesus has still yet to return to set the world in order.  Over the years there have continued to be wars and rumours of wars, earthquakes, disasters, famines, plagues, and a whole lot of what would be called apocalyptic movements.  These are groups led by very charismatic leaders who believe we are at the end.  They are masters of taking a weird sounding Bible verse from here and another from there and use them to build a road map to the end times and this is where we’re at and these few things have yet to happen.  There was a lot of that going on back in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, but we’re still here.  The Berlin Wall came down.  The war to end all wars still hasn’t happened.  

I see people wandering and hear people wondering if we might be at the end now.  The war between Israel and Hamas threatens to become a much bigger animal…and then there’s Ukraine.  Australia, the Western US, and great deal of Canada have been seeing wildfires of apocalyptic proportion.  Weather events are getting profoundly more devastating.  

Covid was a scary, deadly beast in its first year and a bit…and who knows when, not if, the next pandemic is going to hit.  Some nasty virus came out of a rain forest that we shouldn’t have encroached on to eat a bat or an old virus coming from a methane belch in the permafrost thawing of Siberia or a newly engineered one coming from a lab accident because somebody thinks making and playing with deadly viruses is  fun and apparently necessary for national security.  Mother Earth is indiscriminate and brutal when she bites back and we got it coming.  

In economics inflation is rampant and you probably didn’t know it but we are in the midst of a global food crisis.  Today, right now, 783 million people are dealing with chronic hunger.  333 million people don’t know where their next meal is coming from.  That’s inexcusable.

The higher up the food chain you go in the world of politics, the crazier it gets.   It’s like Monday Night Raw with the WWE or media driven reality TV.  The political life on planet earth is really just an episode of Survivor.  The problems appear to be just too big to be solved without a major change to global lifestyle...and who wants that.  Times are ripe for an alien invasion or a Zombie apocalypse or something…or maybe, just maybe, we human beings might rise to the occasion and prevent a catastrophe.  We did it with the Ozone Layer.  If it’s true that power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately, then we shouldn’t look for powerful people to solve the world’s problems.  We should be looking for people like Rosa Parks who just wasn’t going to sit in the back of the bus that day.

I don’t know if it’s the end of the world or not, but if the world ends with Jesus coming back, then that’s a good thing…if you been minding your lamp.  “This little light of mine”…we’ve all been given a light to let shine…a lamp.  Lamps don’t burn on their own forever.  They need tending, minding.  Even in today’s world where we have electricity running on grids powered by nuclear power plants, lamps still need to be minded.  The fuel source looked after.

Looking at the parable, what is the lamp and it’s light that we have?  Well, it’s the faith, the hope, the love we have in order to show forth in hope-filled, love-filled acts of faithfulness, acts of loyalty to Jesus.  By the lives we live people can tell whose side we’re on.  Does the kindness of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the patience of Jesus, the generosity of Jesus, the forgiveness of Jesus shine forth in everything we do?  That’s the lamp and the light it gives.

For the lamp to work, we’ve got to keep it fueled with oil.  That’s an obvious reference to the Holy Spirit, to God’s presence in our lives.  In the parable, the foolish folks didn’t get oil ahead of time and had to wait for the stores to open so they could buy some only to show up late to the wedding feast and be turned away by the bridegroom who says, “I don’t know you”.  They think they know him but he doesn’t know them.  “I don’t know you” is a phrase that indicates to me that the “oil” we’re talking about is found in relationship, in a relationship with God.  Are we taking the time right now in the days that we are given to live to sit in the presence of God to pray and to read the Bible so that we can get to know God and know God’s voice?  The relationship with God is where we get the oil that makes our little lights shine.

The point of the parable is that if we don’t mind our lamps right now, there won’t be time later.  If you noticed there in the parable, everyone, both the foolish and the wise got drowsy and fell asleep.  The call came to them all and they were all raised up from their sleep.  That’s a death and resurrection analogy.  The ones who had minded not only their lamps, but more so their oil-source went to the party.  Those who didn’t…by their foolishness they made themselves unrecognizable to the wrong person.

The parable ends with the command to keep awake.  That’s a reference to live the resurrected life now.  Keep your lamp lit.  Keep yourself well supplied with the oil.  Mind the lamp by spending time now with the Lord.  Build that relationship.  For now, we have been given the time to do that.  We don’t know when the time for that is going to end, so we best get on to it now.  If people like Rosa Parks are our example, then it’s likely that the solution to many of the world’s problems will, for now, come from and through people who have been minding the lamp.  Keep your lamp trimmed and burning and see what the Lord will do.  Amen.

  

Serve in Humble Love

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Matthew 22:34-13:12

Those “religious authorities”…it seems the closer Jesus got to the cross the more they just started to swarm after him as if he’d bumped their hive.  They were all after him - Pharisees, Sadducees, the Herodians, the Scribes, the priests, the elders of the people.  They all came out to test him hoping he’d say something deserving of death.  Why?  Well, they are “religious authorities”.  That’s what they do.  In a day when almost all the people had “messiah-fever” and messiahs were a dime a dozen, it was the “religious authorities” who determined a false messiah?  They alone knew the Law.  They alone knew the traditions.  They alone led devout lives…well, at least the Scribes and Pharisees believed that about themselves.  They alone were the ones who could determine a false messiah.  Yes, they were pretty good at spotting the false messiahs, but the true Messiah…well…hmm.

So, here’s this Jesus of Nazareth and his considerable following of misfits hanging around Jerusalem particularly the Temple.  It’s a crowd that like consisted mostly of people whom Jesus had healed of diseases or set free from their demons.  They weren’t armed like an army.  Jesus had never taught violence or revolt.  On the contrary, Jesus had made it quite clear he was coming to Jerusalem to be treated like a buffoon and to die and be raised and somehow this would give worth and life back to humanity which was wastefully dead due to its disease we call sin.  They probably looked like a very enthusiastic sect following a profoundly compassionate and quite peaceful rabbi.  The Romans wouldn’t have been concerned about him, yet the “religious authorities” were.  You see, Jesus had a certain authority about him that threatened their privileged position.  So, as “religious authorities” do when God threatens their position and privilege, they went looking for a way to get rid of the threat.  They were going out to kill the prophet.  Wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last.

Our passage from Matthew comes at the end of a long series of tests these “religious authorities” put to Jesus.  Oddly, these tests were not really about anything crucial to Israelite faith.  They were about peripheral issues that were hot topics in their day, topics used to define whose side you were on in the political spectrum actually.  They tested him on divorce, on what constituted working on the Sabbath, on where he got his authority, on paying taxes to the emperor, and (this one’s pretty deep) on whose wife a woman would be at the resurrection if she had more than one husband in her lifetime.  These are some very petty things to argue about yet we should take a lesson from them.  Whenever you have Christians up in arms about the peripherals rather than really trying to learn and understand the essentials, what you have is indeed a bunch of “religious authorities” trying to force an agenda in the name of God.  

Anyway, back to Matthew, here was this lawyer, a “religious authority” but not like the others.  After hearing how well Jesus had shut down the others on the peripherals, he decided to get to the heart of the faith with a textbook question any rabbi, and any true Israelite for that matter, would have known the answer to: “Which commandment in the Law is the greatest?”  Jesus’ answer was not as we would expect.  We would expect the first of the Ten Commandments, “I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery; you shall have no gods before me.”  Instead, Jesus proves himself quite apt at the scribal or rabbinical discipline of simplifying what is at the heart of the commandments.  Jesus goes with the creedal statement known as the Shema.  “Shema, Yitzrael!  Adonai elohenu! Adonai eckhod!  Ahavtah et Yahweh elohecha b'cal l'bavkha v'b'cal naphsh'ekkah v'b'cal m'odehkah!”  “Hear, O Israel!  The Lord is our God! The Lord alone!  You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with your whole personhood, and with all your mind.”  

I think Jesus went with the Shema, the creed, rather than the first of the Ten Commandments so that he could point out the fundamental flaw of the “religious authorities.”  They had beliefs and obedience but they had no love – no love of God and no love for neighbour.  They were apparently just in it for the show, the power and prestige of social position.  The problem with the Ten Commandments is that they tell us what not to do and leave what we’re supposed to do out in the open.  The Shema, on the other hand, tells us right off the bat to love the Lord our God with all our heart, personhood, and mind.  The Ten Commandments assume that the Israelites would be thankful and love God because he delivered them from slavery.  Unfortunately, 900 years later when slavery in Egypt and the Exodus were long behind them and forgotten, the “religious authorities” had lost their love for the Lord.  Their idea of faithfulness was simply obeying rules, and particularly obeying them for others to see.  

The word for love here in the Greek is our old friend agape; love that is unconditional, love that is shown in selfless action, love that continues to love even when it is not returned, even when it is resented.  It is a love learned by coming to know God’s unconditional love.  The love he showed us by bringing salvation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is the love of God the Father for God the Son poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit so that we are also included in their relationship as God’s own beloved children.  In response to knowing and encountering this love we love the Lord first by loving him with all our hearts.  In Jesus’ culture the heart was the seat of our motives not just our emotions.  We are to discipline ourselves to make love for the Lord the motive of everything we do be.  It may also be helpful here for us to think of love as being faithfulness or loyalty compelled by thankfulness.

We are to love the Lord with the totality of our personhood.  We are probably used to hearing the world soul here.  I try to get away from that word because one of the problematic beliefs that has crept into the Christian faith from Greek Paganism is that we have an immortal soul, a whiff of energy that blips off into eternity when we die.  The Bible portrays the soul as the entirety of a person’s identity which includes the body.  We are to love the Lord by letting his love shape our identities as persons to be in conformity with the image of Christ Jesus.  The question here is, “Does who I am at heart and in action look like Jesus?  Do I reflect the nature of Jesus to the people in my life?”  As persons are we kind, patient, forgiving, refraining from judging, generous. Do we give hope?  Are we prayerful?  Do we listen?

We are to love the Lord with our minds.  The mind can be understood in two ways.  One, it is the part of us that thinks and learns.  It’s that part of us behind our eyeballs and between our ears that filters what comes out our mouths.  We’ve a responsibility to learn and grow in the faith.  We think the things of God rather than the things of man.  With the mind we pray, study the Bible, read theology, and teach the faith to our children.  With the mid we choose, we strive to replace worry with prayer.  With the mind we tell ourselves and others to hope in the love of God.  The mind can also mean what we’re minded on in life?  What do we orient ourselves towards?  What do we pursue in life?  What are our goals?  To love the Lord with our mindedness is simply to say “Did I this day, in this moment, this situation do my best to please God?”  Is pleasing God our life’s motive.

Jesus adds a second commandment to the Shema.  We are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  This is a tricky one.  We cannot love our neighbors rightly if we do not love ourselves rightly.  So also, if we love ourselves wrongly, we will not love our neighbours as we should which happens to be the current problem we humans suffer from by nature.  Healthy self-love begins with knowing the unconditional love of God and thus, we are back to needing to know God’s love so that we may gratefully return that love by loving the Lord our God with all our hearts, persons, minds.

Looking further in our reading, after pointing out the hypocrisy of the “religious authorities”, Jesus offers us a means of loving God and loving neighbour that pretty well covers the bases.  He said, “The greatest among you will be your servant.”  Appropriate love of God is humility.  Appropriate self-love is humility.    Paul wrote of what humility looks like in 1 Corinthians 13 when he wrote of what love looks like.  He says, “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; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor. 13:4-6).  To serve one another humbly, rather than seeking our own gain is our way. 

We’ve a hymn in our hymnal that sums this up pretty well.  It’s Brother, Sister Let Me Serve You written by Richard Gillard.  I’ll just read the lyrics:

1. Brother, sister, let me serve you; let me be as Christ to you; pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.
2. We are pilgrims on a journey, and companions on the road; we are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.
3. I will hold the Christ-light for you in the nighttime of your fear; I will hold my hand out to you, speak the peace you long to hear.
4. I will weep when you are weeping; when you laugh, I'll laugh with you; I will share your joy and sorrow, till we've seen this journey through.
5. When we sing to God in heaven, we shall find such harmony, born of all we've known together of Christ's love and agony.
6. Brother, sister, let me serve you; let me be as Christ to you; pray that l may have the grace to let you be my servant too.

Amen.