You Did it to Me; November 22, 2020; Yellow Lake Lutheran Church; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson
Three years ago, my husband, Steve, took part in a workshop at our church in Mazatlan about legacy writing. It is a process for distilling the lessons learned and the values held into letters for loved ones. The self-examination and reflection on one’s own life experiences can result in spiritual growth and healing in addition to offering a blessing to one’s children or friends.
My mom did something like that for several years. Each Christmas, when our kids were still at home, they would receive a compilation of my mom’s memories. She put herself and her values into those collections of stories. I’m not sure our kids fully appreciated them at the time. After all, my mom is still going strong and she loves to tell stories. But, in the years to come, in that inevitable time when we can no longer listen to her tell us stories in her living voice, I’m sure those Christmas Memories will take on even deeper meaning.
For the past several weeks our gospel readings have been from the section of Matthew’s gospel that covers Passion Week. We can think of this whole section as a sort of legacy letter from Jesus to his disciples. He is preparing them for his death. In chapter 21 Jesus enters Jerusalem, humbly, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He goes straight to the temple and turns over the money changers’ tables. The next day he curses a fig tree. The religious leaders confront and challenge him.
Then he launches into the telling of three parables, the one about the two sons who were sent to the field but only one of them went, the parable of the wicked tenants who kill the landowner’s son, and the parable of the wedding banquet where the invited guests refuse to come. In this parting message to his closest followers he it telling them to be ready for his return, even though they won’t know when or how that will happen. He’s telling them that it’s not their words that matter but their actions. It is after the parable about the landowner’s son being killed that the scribes and the pharisees figure out that he’s talking about them and they begin to make plans to arrest him.
That leads into a section where they challenge him. Jesus and the leaders debate heatedly after which Jesus predicts drastic and dangerous things to come. Finally we come to the final three parables, the 10 bridesmaids and their lamps, the parable of the talents, and today’s lesson about the sheep and the goats. Jesus is undeterred by the threats and challenges. In this second set of parables Jesus tells them again to be ready to greet the bridegroom when he arrives, to watch for him. He makes it clear that they are to be busy while they wait, using their gifts and talents to multiply the impact of their resources. Today’s lesson is the culmination of this neatly organized section. Each of these 6 parables builds on the others and the meanings are found below the surface level. Just like any other legacy letter or parting message, the disciples would have understood their meaning better after Jesus was gone.
Today’s gospel is often called the Last Judgment, or the Judgment of the Nations. The scene is grand with the Son of Man seated on the throne in glory, surrounded by angels, with all the nations at his feet. The Italian renaissance painter, Michelangelo, painted his vision of this text on the alter wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. The famous triptych by Hieronymus Bosch in the 1400s is an equally vivid depiction of Judgment Day on the middle panel with heaven and hell on either side. Our minds have been filled with stark and severe images throughout Christian history. It is no wonder that the church has preached a message of fear at times.
Sometimes today’s gospel is boiled down so far that it becomes like a sticky, bitter goo in the bottom of a pan, with all the grace and compassion burned away leaving only a residue of moral superiority over others deemed as sinners. We can slip into a reward and punishment attitude, thinking of judgment day involving some kind of tally sheet with sins on one side of the ledger and good deeds on the other side. Even those of us with the message of “Saved by Grace through Faith” engrained in our minds can be swayed by the cultural idea that “God’ll getcha for that!”
As spectacular and artistic as Michelangelo’s painting may be let’s remember that this text is a parable, the culmination of 6 parables given by Jesus to prepare his disciples for his death, and his return and the show them how to watch for and see his coming. It isn’t supposed to be a literal description of a specific day. Nor is it a threat to frighten us into doing good deeds, or else.
In 2013 a Canadian sculptor, Timothy Schmalz, unveiled his new work titled, “Homeless Jesus.” It is a life size bronze of Jesus as a homeless man. He lies curled up in a blanket on a park bench. The blanket is wrapped around his whole body, covering most of his head. Only his crucifixion-wounded feet are exposed to identify him. The artist says the sculpture is a visual translation of our parable today. As you can imagine, reactions have been mixed. He intended the work to be provocative. He offered the first casts to Cathedrals in Toronto and New York but both churches declined because appreciation “was not unanimous” and due to ongoing renovations.
Eventually the first cast was installed at the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina. According to the Rev. David Buck, rector of St. Alban’s, “It gives authenticity to our church. This is a relatively affluent church, to be honest, and we need to be reminded ourselves that our faith expresses itself in active concern for the marginalized of society”. Buck welcomed discussion about the sculpture and considers it a “Bible lesson for those used to seeing Jesus depicted in traditional religious art as the Christ of glory, enthroned in finery.” Furthermore, he said in an interview, “We believe that that’s the kind of life Jesus had. He was, in essence, a homeless person.” Some Davidson residents felt it was an “insulting depiction” of Jesus that “demeaned” the neighborhood. One resident called police the first time she saw it, mistaking the statue for a real homeless person. Another neighbor wrote a letter, saying it “[creeped] him out”. However, other residents are often seen sitting on the bench alongside the statue, resting their hands on Jesus and praying. By 2016 there were over 100 copies of the sculpture around the world, perhaps the most famous one outside the papal office of charities in Rome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeless_Jesus#Copies
Today is the last day of the church year and was designated as Christ the King Sunday in 1925 by Pope Pius the 11th. It was during the aftermath of World War I and he intended to lift up the dominion of Christ over the destructive forces and totalitarian claims of the modern world: secularism in the West, the rise of communism in Russia, fascism in Italy and Spain, and harbingers of Nazism soon to seize Germany. It was a good idea, but I don’t think it has worked very well. Nearly a hundred years later we oppose the same ideologies. And, the image of Christ as King can obscure Jesus’ own words. When he was asked point blank by Pilate, “Are you a King?” Jesus tersely answered, “You say so.” After that he did not respond.
Our Lord emptied himself of all privilege. Born in a stable, naked and squalling like every other infant. He traveled and taught and had “nowhere to lay his head.” He entered Jerusalem not as king, but humbly. He washed feet and died on a cross.
In this parable, I believe Jesus is answering the questions about his return left hanging in the other 5 parables and in chapter 24 when his disciples asked him “When will this be? What will be the sign of your coming?” He comes in the least of these: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned. Our faith calls us to ben our knee to Jesus, not the king on the throne in some otherworldly scene surrounded by angels, but to Jesus who can be seen in the lost and broken, the wounded and suffering.
Amy Frykholm reviewed for the Christian Century magazine a strange book called The Spiritual Meadow, written by sixth-century wandering monk John Moschos. One of the last stories in the book seems to be a perfect way to end this sermon;
In the ancient city of Antioch, the church had various kinds of social services. “A man who was a friend of Christ” used to gather supplies and give them out to people in need.
Once he bought some linen undergarments from Egypt and was handing them out “in accordance with Matthew 25:36.” One particularly poor man came, stood in line and received his linen undergarments. Then he came a second time and got another set. He came a third time and, finally, on the fourth time, the man who was distributing the undergarments singled him out and said, “Look, you have received a garment a third and a fourth time and heard nothing from me. Do not do this again in the future, for there are others afflicted like you and in need of good works.” The poor man went away ashamed.
That night, the man distributing the garments had a dream. He saw Jesus descend from an icon. Jesus came toward him and took off the robe that he was wearing. Under it, he had on four pairs of linen undergarments that the man recognized. “Forgive me my faintheartedness,” the man said to Jesus. “For I reckoned this matter in human terms.” From then on, the story says, “he gave to all who asked with simplicity and joy.”
In her article, Frykholm reflects, “Recently, people at my church’s community meal complained because a certain person took two packages of donuts from the boxes of baked goods in the hallway. This is a common refrain. I wanted to make them feel like I was doing something about it, so I said, “Hey, Janelle, do you mind just taking one box of donuts and leaving one for someone else?”
Janelle looked at me and scowled a little. I have no idea if she did as I asked. But now I am picturing Jesus and Janelle sitting together sharing not one but two boxes of donuts, and I am wondering how to reckon donuts in spiritual terms. https://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2013-01/reading-weird-monk-joke-about-underwear
Our lives don’t tally up like some accounting balance. What would be so amazing about that? But when we encounter the grace and mercy of God, when we see Jesus’ radical extravagant love for all and the way he tore down systems that oppress, divide and diminish we are meant to follow him. We are to look for him in the unpretty places, the places we’d like to speed through our ignore. As we follow, as we watch, equipped with oil in our lamps and talents at the ready we can see the suffering and needs of others and respond with compassion. It’s in the doing that the eyes of our heart become enlightened and we know what is the hope to which we have been called. That is our inheritance among the saints, the immeasurable greatness of God’s power for us.