The Offering of Common Kindness—Mt 25:31-46

In the age of cellphones, it’s even easier to pass by people who may be in need.  Surely, they have phones too.  Surely, there’s someone they can call who will come and help.  Surely.  There are people worth helping, and those not worth helping.  The ones worth helping are the ones whom we help.  The ones we do not help, I suppose, are the ones not worth helping.

Near the end of his journey to the cross, Jesus says, “when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne” (25:31).  What a sight!  Christ came in humility, lowliness, a newborn requiring all his parents’ care, attention, and nurturing, unable to do one thing for himself.  Jesus came for those who could not do one thing for themselves for their salvation—which is everybody.

Reading Scripture, listening carefully, each time, every time, I reach the unavoidable conclusion that there will be those who will be saved and those who will not.  They just didn’t want it; they wanted other things more, and pursued them.  When Jesus next comes to this world, it will be in divine glory: a terrible, wonderful brilliance the prophets are hard-pressed to describe.  Will it be the Day of the Lord?  I hope not but suppose it must be.  I hope it will not be the Day of the Lord when Jesus returns, because that is not a day to be longed for.  The prophets are all, uniformly, unmistakably clear about that.

I’d like to call the day of Christ’s return the day of the king.  Today is the last Sunday of our church year, our worship year.  Next Sunday, we begin Advent: the beginning of the new church year, awaiting Christmas and the turn of the calendar year.  Those weeks are a time of anticipation, excitement, joy, and particularly hope for change.  Still people invest, want to invest, the turn of the year with some special quality or opportunity, some specially open door for change.  Let it be so!

With the coronation of King Charles III earlier this year, people had some notion of the splendor, pomp, and ceremony of the king on his throne—from this side of the veil.  When Christ returns to be seated upon his glorious throne, what people witnessed in Westminster Abbey will not even seem footnoteworthy.  We do not perceive it, placed as we are in this world, though our hearts are being turned and tuned heavenward, but Christ is already on his throne in heaven.  Heaven isn’t up; it’s simply elsewhere, beyond us yet somehow also, within us, now, by the grace of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

On that day of Christ the King, Jesus tells us, “all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, but”—Oh, that dreadful conjunction!—“but the goats on the left” (25:32-33).  Gathered—that’s what the shepherd does; he is gathering his flock even now.  Why take so long?  Two thousand years is a long time to be gathering his flock!  Beloved, I tell you it’s been even longer than that.  Why hasn’t Jesus already returned?  Why doesn’t he just return now, in our day?  Didn’t Peter tell us?  “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9).  Still time for repentance.  Thank God, there’s still time for repentance.  Jesus is still gathering his flock, which causes me to hope that his flock will be quite large—that means there’s still hope even for me!

And Jesus on that day will separate.  What could that mean?  Why do that?  Shepherds separate the sheep from the goats.  There are sheep, and there are goats.  They aren’t kept together.  Sheep with sheep; goats with goats.  But we’ve heard Jesus say that the sheep and the goats—those whom he has identified and separated on that Day of the King—we’ve heard Jesus say each group will have a different outcome.  This shouldn’t surprise us.  Long ago, Jesus told those listening about the weeds among the wheat.  He was talking about his own fields, his own flock.  Weeds get in among the wheat.  Goats get in among the sheep.  Unusable fish get caught up in the same net as the good fish.  Jesus allows them to intermingle.  The time to harvest, the time to separate, will come.  It isn’t now, and it will come; he will be the one to do it.

But am I a sheep or a goat?  Am I wheat or weed?!  I think grace is such that, even to wonder about that, seriously, with some concern and with earnest, prayerful desire to be the one rather than the other—such earnest concern is the graceful assurance that I, and you, are not of weeds or goats.  The goats were just sure they would be in that number when the saints go marching in: natural, a given!  The sheep were hopeful, trembling, yet not entirely at peace in the way they might have liked: have I lived worthy of my Lord?  Have I done the will of my Father in heaven?  Have I loved the Lord my God with the best of me, all the best of me, and my neighbor as myself?  They knew the answer was no, and they trembled.

The goats, on the other hand, seem to be sort of congratulating themselves.  Of course they’ve loved the Lord: they have all manner of works to which they can point; they’re rather proud of their list of sterling accomplishments, their brilliant purity, their readiness to find fault with and condemn . . . others.  They always found it worthwhile to help the worthy; it gave them a lovely sense of their own worth.

And Jesus says he will say to these, “Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me” (25:41-43).  Nothing for Jesus.  Oh wandering stars, for whom it is reserved, the blackness of darkness forever!  Accursed people.  Beloved, consider—Jesus is speaking to those fully self-confident that they were safe in the arms of Jesus!  Accursed people!?  How?  Why?  Nothing for Jesus.  How could they have deceived themselves so completely?

God does not deceive.  He sees.  He tells the truth, calls us to the truth, and gives us life in the truth.  Jesus Christ is the truth, and the way, and the life.  When Jesus sends the goats away, he is declaring that they were never among his flock, no matter what they may have told themselves.  They did not demonstrate Christ among the brothers and sisters; they did not demonstrate Christ among their fellow human beings; they did not demonstrate Christ in a world starving for Christ, perishing for lack of Christ.  They preferred their way to his way, and called it his way; their truth to his truth, and called it truth; their life to his life.  Nothing for Jesus.  They shall have their reward.

How did we not demonstrate Christ?  Immediately, that question will come to the minds of those Christ sends away on the Day of the King.  Failed?  Us?  No!  “[T]hey themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or as a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’” (25:44).  Nothing?  Lord, we would have done anything for you!  When did we not serve you?!  We would never have passed you by!  We always sang thou art worthy, O Lord!

But here’s the problem: when we wait for the worthy one, we’ll be waiting a long time.  If we wait to serve the worthy one, the one worth our service, we’ll be waiting a long time.  Then again, so often, too often, I am fully and freely serving the worthy one . . . me.  Where your heart is . . . . I’m sorry, can’t stop, can’t help, I’ve barely enough time to serve me, you see.  I can’t be bothered with you!  I’m busy serving God!  Now, if I had known it was Jesus asking for my help, my time and attention, my concern and compassion—of course!  But how was I to know?  That man didn’t look like Jesus!  That woman didn’t sound like Jesus!  Those people, they never acted like Jesus at all!  If any of them had acted even a little bit like Jesus, then, sure, I would have thought about helping them.

Jesus knows the heart, beloved, every heart; God knows every heart down to its deepest places, the places even you and I so rarely go.  It seems Jesus is telling the goats that the truth of the matter was that all those people they might have helped, encouraged, to whom they might have shown kindness, patience, grace, mercy—the goats told themselves those ones just weren’t worth it.  Help was for the worthy; help was for those who deserved help, deserved my help.  It may even be the case that there are those beyond help, but that’s not how Jesus teaches us to live with and treat others.

Christ did not come for the worthy but the unworthy.  Who is worthy?  Who has deserved Christ’s help?  Who has merited salvation from God’s righteous judgment?  You know, when we talk about salvation, we’re talking about salvation from sin and from the consequences of sin.  The consequence of sin is the righteous judgment of God.  The opposite of salvation is condemnation, as Jesus makes plain to us today.  I really don’t like to tell you, but in good conscience I must tell you, there will be condemnation, too.  Jesus tells us what will become of the goats.  He’s been telling anyone who would listen, all along.

Am I—are we—the one to say with God’s own authority who is a goat and who a sheep?  That’s not my call, not our call.  Jesus tells us there are signs by which we might be guided—not for condemning others but for meditating upon our own walk and for encouraging one another in our faithful walk together with Christ Jesus.  We don’t have the same expectations for those outside!

Sheep remain sheep by “sheeping”: doing what sheep do.  Jesus has told us what sheep do: they listen to the shepherd’s voice and follow (Jn 10:4, 16; Mt 7:21, 24).  That looks like something.  Love looks like something.  Many times, love looks like stopping for the one, maybe particularly when that one demonstrates no worthiness that you or I should stop and offer help.  Jesus tells us what he will say to his very own sheep on the Day of the King on his throne:

the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the                            kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you gave                            Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and                          you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison,                          and you came to Me.” (25:34-36)

The sheep are just staggered by what their King and their God says.  Now, yes, they helped many people, without question though occasionally with reservations and a little hesitation: there are some people it can feel a little scary to try to help; others can quickly feel like bottomless pits of need.  We’re supposed to show God’s love to all, even to those we don’t particularly like or don’t even know.  The sheep were very conscientious about helping those near them and even further away, very conscientious about never withholding the help they could give, even when it began to feel sort of inconvenient, demanding, or costly.  The sheep pledged themselves to help because they knew that was how they could glorify Jesus Christ, and they wanted to!  That was how they could express their gratitude for what Jesus freely did for them, and oh, how they wanted to!  He chose to love.  He chose to help.  He stopped for the one.  His love looked like something.

But, so far as they recalled, they never had helped Jesus, who tells them they have, oh, they have!  “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me” (25:40).  I’ve been speaking with you off and on, from the pulpit and through the newsletter this year, about fellowship.  We have two committees here: Fellowship, ably led by Abigale Whatley, and Care and Share, also ably led by Anna Jackson and Susan Owen—lovely, humble sisters.  It’s through the ministries of these sisters, and those who come alongside them to help them, that we formally do for “the least of these brothers or sisters” of ours.  Informally, we all have the opportunity, every Sunday and every day, to cultivate relationships with people here and prayerfully consider how we may serve one another.  Even small things, when done with love, can be big blessings.  Neither do we neglect those who are no longer able to come to worship often, like they used to; neither do we neglect our neighbors, whom we have from God.  Some believe, others do not.  All these are worthy because all are worthless.  But who wants to think that way?  Jesus wants us to think like that: “when you do all the things which were commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done’” (Lk 17:10).

When we think and live that way, what do we receive?  Our master will say to us, “Well done, good and faithful slave [. . . .] enter the joy of your master” (Mt 25:21).  Never underestimate the power, and the blessedness, of offering common kindness.  The help that you and I have given will be a great help to us, because a kind, helping heart is God’s own heart.

To the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, be honor and eternal dominion.