November 23, 2014: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
Well, this week brings that wonderful celebration of thanksgiving, when we all raise our voices up to praise God and give thanks…for the end of Pentecost. Wait…where are the balloons? Shouldn’t there be something falling from the rafters?
We celebrate the end of Ordinary time – the final Sunday of Pentecost and prepare to enter into Advent next week. Now, for some, this is also Christ the King Sunday, a feast day started by Pope Pius XI in 1925 to remind Christians that their allegiance was to their spiritual ruler in heaven as opposed to earthly governments and kingdoms. But, later pontiffs would issue some correctives to ensure that believers remembered that Christ as King is not about power, but about humility, love, and serving others. They did this because Christ the King Sunday can, if we are not careful, skew the message of Christ as to what it means to follow him, which is why this fairly new liturgical addition is controversial.
But there is nothing controversial about the readings today, most especially the Gospel and the Hebrew Lesson from Ezekiel…or is there?
See, I find this gospel compelling in light of the news this week, and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. What a juxtaposition – national discussions on immigration as we, as a nation, celebrate the welcoming of strangers (undocumented I might add and not able to speak the language) into this land by Native Americans (some of whom we now seek to uproot once more to make room for another thing in the news – the Keystone XL pipeline) – all of this happening at the same time as these scriptures from Matthew and Ezekiel are read. You can’t make this stuff up!
Add that to what this holiday has become – the black weekend for retail shops all over the country, so called because all year their books are in the red until this weekend, and some weeks beyond that in this recession to be sure. The whole thing becomes a macabre mixture of compassion and greed, kindness and callousness, or perhaps…sheep and goats.
Now, I love how Jesus seems to love to talk about sheep. Actually, not just Jesus, but we hear about shepherds and sheep in Ezekiel too – well, for that matter, all over the bible. They do say to get your message across, to be a successful author, write about what you know. And shepherds and sheep were what the agriculturally based people of Israel certainly knew. Still, I don’t know why goats have to be picked on…I mean, what did they ever do to deserve to be labeled as the symbol of humanity gone wrong. Think about it. Not just this, but would you want to be a scapegoat? On behalf of all goats, I object.
I think sheep and goats and shepherds for that matter, deserve a lot more respect. Take the shepherd who was tending his sheep at the edge of a country road. A brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee screeched to a halt next to him. The driver, a man dressed in a designer suit, expensive shoes, flashy wristwatch, and sunglasses asks the shepherd, “Say, if I can guess how many sheep you have, will you give me one of them?”
The shepherd looked the man over and then looked at the sprawling field of sheep and said, “All right.”
The young executive parked his SUV, connected his notebook and wireless modem, entered a NASA site, scanned the ground using his GPS, opened a data base, then printed his report out on a mini printer. He turned to the shepherd and said, “You have exactly 1,586 sheep in your flock.”
The shepherd answered, “That’s right. Wow! You may have one of my sheep.”
The young man took one of the animals and put it in the back of his Jeep. The shepherd called out and said, “Hey, before you leave, if I guess your profession, will you pay me back?”
The executive smiled and said, “Sure, go ahead and try.”
The shepherd said, “You’re a consultant.”
The man said, “That’s right, but how did you know?”
The shepherd responded, “Very simple. First you came here without being called. Second, you charged me to tell me something I already knew. Third, you really don’t understand anything about my business – and I’d really like to have my dog back.”
Now, I think Jesus would have liked that story – he certainly loved parables that twisted expectations upside down. And he often talked about shepherds as an example of how we are to be in the world, and who he was to all of us. Certainly the author of Ezekiel meant for us to understand that too. We hear in that text, God saying, “As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep… I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.”
Good so far, right? But wait, there’s more…God continues, ”but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice…; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.”
Now, not for nuthin’, but if I were a goat I would say to Jesus…”hey, God was fine talking just about sheep – why’d ya have to drag us into it?” But, nevertheless, in the parable Jesus told, which is very similar to the one from Ezekiel, in fact, it is essentially a twist on that same story, decided to add a new twist to it – sooo, sorry goats, you’re the baaaaaaaaadddd guys.
Much of the time, when speaking about either of these texts – Ezekiel and Matthew – but, most especially the gospel, the focus is on judgment – the separation of goat and sheep – and the punishment of those goats. It is a great time for those who like to point fingers. But the deep truth of the gospel today isn’t a call to point fingers, but to look in the mirror. It is a call for deep reflection on who we are, and on our role as a people of God.
On the surface, Jesus is giving us specific terms of what it means to love God, love neighbor, and love self. But there is a deeper point he is making here, one about identity, that sometimes gets lost in a rush to collect for the local food bank, serve in a soup kitchen, or care for the homeless – all of which are part of living out the gospel, of course. But the thing is – you don’t have to be a church to run a soup kitchen. You don’t have to believe in God to give to the poor.
So what exactly was Jesus saying then?
I think it goes to something Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, and advocate for labor rights and social justice, once said: “Those who cannot see the face of Christ in the poor, are atheists indeed.” She is right, well, from a Christian perspective, but to see the face of God in every person, including when we look in the mirror, for we are, after all, made in the image of God – that is the identity Jesus was getting to here, and that was his concern.
Think about that – yes, we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned and sick, and welcome the stranger, or at least I hope we do, and none of it requires belief in Jesus or in God. But how would it change us to see in all those people the eyes of Jesus? How would that change the world?
Can you imagine it?
Can you imagine thinking of the immigration debate as being about what to do with Jesus, who is undocumented in the United States?
Can you imagine thinking of the poverty of children as the Jesus starving in his crib?
Can you imagine thinking of the Ebola crisis in Africa as killing Jesus over and over again?
Can you imagine thinking of the girls denied access to education as Jesus being shut out and told she is not good enough?
Can you imagine thinking of the fight for marriage equality as a fight for Jesus to have the right to live and love fully?
Can you imagine that?
Because if we can’t imagine that, we better take a look in the mirror again, because we might just be sporting a new goat like look. That is what Jesus is talking about here – the real identity of all people.
And just as important for our lives as seeing Christ in everyone, is what we are to do with that truth. Jesus reminds us to love as he loves – Jesus the good shepherd. God is calling us to be shepherds, not judgmental kings. We are not called to sit in comfortable royal courts, but to get up and go out. You can’t shepherd sheep and not be in the fields.
To live the gospel, to live as part of the kingdom of God, we have to join God in the work – the work of love and service – the work of shepherds in the world, caring for the lonely, the lost, the outcast, the stranger, the misfit, and the forgotten. And we can’t do it staying in the sheep hold, because those are not the sheep that need us. We have to go out into the fields, get our hands dirty, go the places others will not go, and to people others would ignore.
What would that look like for us? How would that change us? How would that change the church? One of the reasons people are responding to Pope Francis is that he doesn’t hang out in the papal palace, but gets out in the street, giving over himself to those who need love the most. What is great about this is the response and the example, but what is bad is that people are surprised to see the church do this. When folks say that religions aren’t good because they cause all the wars, I reply that while there is a markedly mixed history we, the church, must own up to, we must look at both sides of the coin – the largest relief organization in the world is…Catholic Charities. But we have to own our past, for good and for bad, and then – let it go. We have to learn from it, and then listen with new ears and a new spirit to Christ’s call to us. And to do that – we have to let go of the idea that the church is a place where we call out the goats – where we judge others. Because, that is not our job. It never was!
God goes out to care for the lean sheep, the weakest ones, but it is God that also brings to judgment those who have been responsible for their condition. In Ezekiel God says about those who do this, “Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged.” God is talking about all those who would abuse their might, who would abuse their power. But, God also makes it clear who will be the judge of that…God says, “I will judge between sheep and sheep.” God will take care of it – we don’t have to. And that’s a good thing, because we usually won’t get it right.
No God doesn’t want us to judge, but as shepherds, we are to stand up for those who are weak in the flock. See, this whole judgment thing, this whole reign of God, isn’t about power, well, not about our power anyway– but about standing up for those who have no voice. It is a clarion call to social justice in the name of our Creator. To be a shepherd in the model of God, in the model of Christ, we must not only care for the weak, but stand firmly against the strong. And too often in our past, the church has been a part of the strong crowd. We have mistaken the reign of Christ as an earthly kingdom of worldly power, and whenever that has happened, we have effectively silenced our prophetic voice and the mission of Christ by our arrogance.
So how can we live into our identity as followers of Christ without clothing ourselves in self-righteous dogma and doctrinal blindness? Without saying “I’m a sheep…and you’re a goat” to anyone who is different than ourselves.
Of course, one way is to remember that goats do not see themselves as goats — but neither do sheep recognize themselves as sheep. So how can we? “Both sheep and goats [in the gospel] were equally clueless as to when, exactly, they saw the Lord “hungry or thirsty, or a stranger or naked or imprisoned.” See, the truth is, while tails or beards can distinguish sheep from goats in the earthly realm, you can’t tell a proverbial sheep from a goat by looks at all. So, it is likely that any attempt on our part to try to play Christ and do our own separation of who’s in and who’s out, will likely be a futile and self-destructive exercise.
And maybe we need to also change the way we think about the very doctrines and dogmas that sometimes bind us. “What would be the impact if on Sunday morning, at the invitation to “proclaim the basic creed of the church,” we were to all stand and say words from today’s Gospel: “We believe in feeding the hungry. We believe in giving drink to the thirsty. We believe in welcoming the stranger. We believe in clothing the naked. We believe in visiting the imprisoned and the sick. We believe that Christ is in all persons, and we will love and serve them all in his name.” Imagine the impression this would make on a visitor hearing that we stand for what Jesus stood for. The truth is, we can stand up in church recite all the creeds we can think of, but the real definitive creedal statement, as Jesus makes clear in this Gospel, is to actually [do something]. We profess our faith by our actions.”[1]
So, in this start to the holiday season, let us think about what it is we truly believe, what it is that God calls us to be in this world, and then consider how that is reflected in our daily living.
Where is Jesus in our neighborhood? If we don’t know, we need to seek him out – and he won’t be found in the nicer places, but with those in the darkest and coldest corners of our streets, in our prisons, in our hospitals, and fighting against oppression and injustice everywhere.
Yes, Christ is King, but that image needs to take the back seat for the Church to have a new day. Let’s focus on the image of God as a shepherd on a relentless search, speaking truth to power and gathering in the weakest.
Leave the building, go forth, and shepherd well!” And the changes you make in the world will be something for which we can all give thanks!
Amen.
[Sermons as written may not be as delivered on any given Sunday]
The Rev. Diana Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
November 23, 2014
Pent Last – Proper 29 (Collect for Thanksgiving) – Year A – Track 1
1st Reading – Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 100
2nd Reading – Ephesians 1:15-23
Gospel – Matthew 25:31-46
