Exploring our Hearts
Christ the King Sunday, Proper 29, Year A
November 26, 2023
Trinity & SMWC Churches
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. 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, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 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; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.
Psalm 100
1 Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands; *
serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his presence with a song.
2 Know this: The Lord himself is God; *
he himself has made us, and we are his;
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.
3 Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise; *
give thanks to him and call upon his Name.
4 For the Lord is good;
his mercy is everlasting; *
and his faithfulness endures from age to age.
Matthew 25:31-46
Jesus said, “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.”
Sermon by The Rev. Deb Lockhart, Deacon
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, our strength, and ourredeemer.
Today marks the end of the liturgical year A—-next Sunday is the start of Year B, for all who keep track of our liturgical calendar. More importantly, next week is the beginning of Advent, a season of shifting to a lower gear, anticipating all that happens with new beginnings.
Looking around today we see that our Table, our lectern, pulpit and our stoles are white. Today is considered a High Holy day in the Church, a time usually marking a pivotal place of Christ’s life, as in Christmas and Easter. Christ the King Sunday, a relatively new Holy Day was added to our Episcopal liturgical calendar in 1925 as a result of Pope Pius XI. This High Holy day isn’t just to make the altar guild crazy with changing out all the paraments from green to white just for today, then to purple next week, but it is to celebrate Christ's messianic kingship and sovereign rule over all creation. Christ is not an earthly king, but is something so much bigger than that; or as we sing in celebration of Him, King of Kings, Lord of Lords.
Jesus never viewed himself as a king but rather something we are more familiar with, a shepherd, a teacher, a friend. He lived his life as the companion and champion to the poor, the downtrodden, to those who were marginalized and considered unworthy by others, and even invisible to some. The “ least of these” are all members of Jesus’ family. Jesus saw them for all their messiness and loved everyone of them.
This morning the church may look different, and in today’s passage, a different tone may be heard,however,the message Jesus came to teach, remains the same: Love thy neighbor.
Today’s Gospel is one of the most powerful messages we hear from Jesus. This is Jesus’ final teaching before he is taken to the cross. At this final time, Jesus chose to speak of salvation, the salvation of everyone, saying clearly, salvation will be determined by how “the least of these” are treated. Essentially he is saying—“Heed what I am saying or reap the consequences!”
This passage tells us we will be judged, not today, but in the future—“Whenthe Son of man comes….and like so many of the messages we’ve read in Matthew, we are to be ready when Jesus returns. How much time we have to be prepared is anyone’s guess. What we do know is that we humans often hedge our beats….. and as just the bridesmaids without enough oil, we often get the timing all wrong.
Today’s gospel gets right to it, leaving us to ask, are we sheep or are we goats? The truth is, if we are being honest, we are a little of both. Jesus, in what is called the Great Judgement, is separating us, determining whether we will be invited into the Kingdom of God for eternity or be banished to eternal punishment.
Those at his right hand, the sheep, are invited in because they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked….. When the sheep ask the question ofwhenwas it that they did these things andhowdid they not know they were doing the work of God when tending to another’s hunger, thirst or nakedness? Jesus answers them saying, that “if you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me”.
This passage is repeated a second time to those at the left hand, the goats, noting that they did not feed, clothe or quench the thirst of one in need, and with the similar question they asked, how did wenotdo these things? I sense that another part of this might include some excuse making like, “how was I supposed to know this person needed my help?” “I didn’t ignore them on purpose.” Jesus, already knowing these excuses, answers, “if you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me”.
The sheep and the goats, aside from how they responded, might otherwise be very much alike—maybe married with their children attending the same school. Maybe they love to cook, to play cards, excel in gardening, always doing their civic duty, and maybe voting the same ballot; so similar in fact, that we might not be able to tell a sheep from a goat.
So what sets them apart? Their hearts, or more accurately, what comes from their hearts, in the form of love. It is about putting the other person before you, by taking the risk of reaching out and helping, and by seeing the face of Jesus in all we meet, no matter who they are or how difficult they might be. It is about truly seeing the other as worthy of love, our love. Jesus doesn’t hold back here; when he returns to judge us, he will examine our hearts and there will be no denying his conclusions: sheep or goat.
This new covenant that replaces all other covenants is the message we all have come to know:
Love God with all you are, and love your neighbor as yourself.
So just to be clear, let me go over this again for good measure:
Love that person as I love myself, no exceptions, no excuses.
See the need in someone else and give of myself to help that person, expecting nothing in return. Remember you can’t fix everyone or everything, but then Jesus isn’t asking us to do that. And
See the face of Jesus in everyone, even when it is hard to do—as Christians, this is to be part of our DNA.
No deacon sermon would be complete without a ministry story!
There’s a man in our food pantry, a client, who appeared one day asking if he could help. Not one to turn anyone away willing to pitch in, I introduced him to a group working on managing the mountain of boxes needing to be broken down and left him in capable hands. I was grateful for his help until I began to spot him all over the place including the pantry closet where he was helping himself and putting things into bags. Ok, I thought, he really needs more perhaps than we are providing, so I tried not to think the worst; that was until I spotted him not only making trips to his car with bags from the closet, but now he was also recruiting another client to do the same. Ok, so wasn’t I to be looking for the face of Jesus in this man? I would pray it to be so, but the truth was no, I only saw someone taking advantage of the system there to help not only him but others as well.
1. Did I love this neighbor as myself?
No, in fact I was pretty angry at the situation and did not like him let alone find love in my heart for him
2. Did I see someone in need and give of myself to help them?
Yes, but it wasn’t freely given; it had my expectations and my need to control attached.
3. Did I see the face of Jesus in him?
I think we can all agree that was a definite no.
We don’t even need to do the math; I am a goat.
Today we are examining ourselves, our hearts in particular. Even knowing that by Jesus’s death on the cross, we are given grace and forgiveness—that is, even as we know we will be forgiven for our sins, thanks to the grace given by God, the result of his only Son taking away our sins through his death, God still has expectations for us. He expects us to recognize and receive his love and consequently, giving that same love to others.
So why the consequences? God is looking to save us from ourselves, from obsessing over ourselves. Instead, He wants us to do the work of worrying about others, seeing the needs of others, and loving them just as we are loved by Him.
The topic of this year’s Diocese of VA convention was “Closing the Gap between religion and life”. Your Rector, Deacon and delegate, (Susan Whitlow and Donna Ransone) attended.
Our new Diocesan Bishop, Bishop Mark Stevenson spoke on this saying “a life lived in the power of the things of religion is a powerful life”. Let’s think about this —-the lessons we learn through studying the scriptures, are tools for how to live our lives. He added that hearing those words is to remind us that we love Jesus and Jesus loves us. He went on to say that we all can be changed and transformed by that love, (that same love we are hearing in Matthew’s scripture today), and that same unconditional love we heard about last week in Dave’s message. Bishop Stevenson describes closing that gap between religion and the way we live our livescanhappen by taking the love given to us freely by God and spreading it, sending it out to others, creating a ripple effect without end.
As Bishop Stevenson notes, we are called to action, just like today’s Gospel passage, action that can lead to justice for those who so rarely, if ever- are given it. This justice is defined by theologian NT Wright, not as welding punishment, but as bringing the world back into balance. This balance in the world can reconcile broken relationships and establish relationships in our communities that never existed in the first place.
How does this happen? Through each of us loving our neighbor, looking for the commonality and not the differences and by being sheep—-with hearts intent on loving the other despite all the reasons not to. ..Loving not because we have to but because we want to. Loving not out of obligation but out of compassion. Loving not because it will make us look better but because it is the right thing to do.
My first husband has a list, his rule of life, if you will, that were often brought into discussion and examined when our boys were growing up. This one, rule #3 says, “Do the right thing even when no one is watching.” It’s pretty fail proof. Try it, refer to it by number as he always did with the boys (and if you’re interested ask him for Rule #5. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed)
Just as we, God’s children, will be judged for what is in our hearts, the same applies to our churches. Let us ask ourselves and our churches:
Do we act out of obligation or out of love in our actions?
Are we in relationship with God or is God second to business at hand?
Do our ministries reflect that same love for others as God has for us or have we gotten stuck, stale, or selfish when it come to caring for the least of these?
Have our buildings distracted us from seeing and serving those just beyond our walls?
Have our budgets straight-jacketed us into being unable or unwilling to see that our church’s reason for being does not lie in opening the purse strings to keep the bills paid and the lights on?
Yes, this is tough stuff to examine, but that is exactly what God is asking us to do, to do the hard work, and to be ready when Jesus returns for the Great Judgement. As a deacon, my role is to explore places not always in our comfort zone, to ask the hard questions, and to know where God is working in our midst.
The Good News, and there is always good news is that God is here with us, in each of us. God is also out there waiting for us, waiting in those living in our community and our world who are suffering. Let us be the sheep, let our churches be the sheep; to love and give without hesitation, without thoughts for ourselves, totally giving ourselves in the love that can set us apart. It is not just about the works done, it is first about what is in the heart of the doer.
Let us pray:
Give us the courage, O Lord, to continue to examine ourselves by asking you into our hearts and our churches. Prepare us to be transformed by your abundant, unconditional, and uncompromising love, that we may serve you and further your Kingdom here on earth, now and forever. Amen.