Ezekiel 34:11-17; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28; Matthew 25:31-46; Psalm 23

November 26, 2017

Marvin Friedman-Hamm

 

The Least of These 

All these readings about the end times and the second coming bring to mind an incident that happened back when I was in high school. One day my father came home and announced that we were moving. He had bought a new house. On the spur of the moment - that afternoon - he had made a deal to buy a house from a Mr. Harder, a man my father had worked with, who was a Jehovah’s Witness. Seems the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Altona were convinced that Jesus’ second coming was going to be very soon – like within a few weeks – and they were liquidating their assets to get ready. So my father recognized what you would call a “motivated seller”, and he jumped on the chance, and he got a nice house for a very nice price.

I suppose my dad believed in the second coming as much as the next person – but I don’t think he spent a lot of time thinking about it. He was a practical man – and he lived his life in the here and now as best he could. And that day this meant he took a sweet deal when he could get it.

I never did know why Mr Harder wanted all that cash so fast. What was he going to buy with it? Was he planning to take it with him? And I wonder if Mr Harder would have been so eager for Jesus’ second coming if he had read today’s Gospel reading carefully. Seems the second coming might not be quite as he expected.

The story of the Last Judgment is familiar to us. The setting is the end of the age. The Son of Man has ascended to his throne, and all the nations, all the peoples, are spread out before him. And the Son of Man – the king now – is separating the people like a shepherd separates his flock at the end of the day – sheep to the right, goats to the left. And the sheep he blesses, they will inherit the kingdom. Because “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.”

But when did we give you food, they ask? When did we give you clothes?  And the king answers 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.’

And then of course the goats – the ones who did not give him food and drink – are cursed and banished to the eternal fire.

There are some hard things in this reading. The whole idea of judgment and condemnation. The suggestion that the righteous ones are saved by their works, not by faith. But you know, I am just going to skate right around those questions. I want to look instead at the unexpected twists in the story. Like some of Jesus’ parables, this story works by taking a few surprising turns. The listener doesn’t see them coming, and that’s how Jesus makes his point – with that surprise twist.

 The first surprise is obvious to us now – because we know the story. But to the ones who first heard Jesus describe this scene - I don’t think they saw it coming. Here is the king, high and mighty and powerful. Supremely powerful – all the nations and rulers and everyone is subject to him. And what it the thing that is most concerning to him? Who are the people who are especially dear to him?  It is the little people, the ones who are suffering, the lowly, the outcasts, the poor. These – he says - are his brothers and sisters, his family. He is concerned with how they have been treated. He identifies so closely with them that what is done to them, it’s like it was done to him. You help them, it’s like you are helping me. You ignore them, it’s like you are ignoring me.

Why is that? Why is it that the king is so drawn to the ones who are suffering? What is it about them – or what is it about him? Jesus doesn’t say – but I have a theory. I think Jesus is drawn to them becausethey are suffering. Not because of any special virtue or quality in them – just that they are hurting and they need help. His heart is moved by their suffering, and he is filled with compassion, and he is drawn to respond. So his greatest concern is for those in need – and for how they are treated – because he is filled with compassion.

That’s the first unexpected twist in the story – that the king identifies himself with the lowly and those in need.

The second surprise I see is that the righteous ones -   the ones who are blessed and inherit the kingdom – they didn’t know they were serving Jesus. “When did we see you hungry and give you food, or thirsty and give you something to drink?” They had no idea that their acts of kindness meant they would inherit the kingdom. It seems they were not particularly trying to earn God’s favour. They just saw people in need – and they served them. They were not preoccupied with their own salvation. They were focused on the needs of others.

There is a long tradition in the Church that says when you serve the poor you are serving Jesus – you find it Dostoyevsky, in Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers, in Mother Theresa. The tradition is built on this passage “ I was hungry, and you fed me”. So when I first worked in a soup kitchen I came with the belief that, in some mysterious way, Jesus was in the people I was serving, that there was something special about these people. It took a long time before I let go of this romanticized picture of the people and saw that they were just people – good, bad, kind, nasty – kinda like the rest of us. When I was thinking I was serving Jesus, I was too focused on what was in it for me – I was looking for some kind of spiritual gain. The righteous ones in the Gospel reading – they weren’t trying to serve Jesus. They were just helping because someone needed help.

And the ones who are turned away by Jesus – they saw the same people that needed help, and they didn’t.

And to Jesus, that makes all the difference.

I have a theory about compassion – this is my own theory, not based on any research or authority. I think compassion is not something you learn, its something you are born with. It is in the way God has created us to be drawn to help when we see someone in need. When we see someone hurt, or suffering, our natural impulse is to help.

But we often don’t act on that impulse, because we stop ourselves. I stop myself because I think I don’t have time right now, or because I am afraid the other person might hurt me, or ask too much of me. Or maybe I am too distracted and full of internal noise so that I barely notice my impulse to help. Or I am too absorbed with my own suffering or my own needs that I don’t even notice the person in need right in front of me.

Every day we encounter people who need help – on the street, in our workplace, on the television, in our homes. Sometimes we help, sometimes we don’t. And – for some of us, not helping becomes a habit, so much that we hardly even notice that instinctive tug to stop and be helpful. We build up layers of defense and distraction around our hearts – and our God-given impulse to help is stifled. A word for that is “hard-hearted”.

And some of us are better at remaining attentive to our hearts, and following the impulse to respond with kindness. I would call that being tender-hearted.

I think the righteous ones in the Gospel reading are the ones who listened to the impulse of their hearts – and helped when they saw help was needed. It’s as simple as that. They were tender-hearted. In that way they were like Jesus – they were moved by the suffering of others and drawn to respond with loving kindness. They had the heart of Jesus.

And the ones who are turned away – the goats – the hard-hearted ones - they had the same impulse to compassion – but they had stopped listening to their hearts. They had unlearned their impulse to kindness.

So are we sheep or are we goats? Are we tender-hearted or are we hard-hearted? In the Gospel, Jesus cleanly separates the sheep from the goats. But we are both, mixed together. The line between sheep and goat runs right through the middle of us. Sometimes we respond with kindness, sometimes we walk on by. Sometimes we listen to our hearts, sometimes we don’t. And this gets complicated. We can’t respond to every need, we have to choose, we have to make priorities. It’s not always so clear what is the right thing or the helpful thing to do. And we are busy, and tired, and we are wounded people. Sometimes it’s us that need the help.

It’s complicated. But really it’s not complicated. Our hearts are moved by the needs of others. Do we respond, or do we walk on by? Either way, the more often we respond – or the more often we walk away – it becomes a habit.

I’m going to leave you with a take-home assignment. A take-home assignment and then a quote.

The assignment is this: Sometime in the next day or two, pay attention to this impulse to compassion in yourself. Notice when you feel that tug of the heart when you meet someone who needs help – it could be a stranger, a friend, someone in your family or at your work. Notice the  tug – and then pay attention to your thoughts. Pay attention to your inner dialogue. Will you respond or not? And if you come up with reasons not to respond – reflect on those. Are you comfortable with those reasons. And that’s it. You don’t have to change anything or do anything – just observe yourself.

Every day we encounter many people who need help. So every day we are going through this process of feeling a tug to respond – and then evaluating if or how we will act on that. Much of the time we are not even aware of this internal conversation – so this assignment is a little step toward becoming more aware. See where that takes you.

That’s my assignment for you. The quote is this: this is from a little book by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist teacher you may be familiar with. I think he sums up in two sentences what Jesus is saying in the reading on the Last Judgment. Different words, but the same message. He says:

Our lives should have meaning and that meaning is to help people suffer less, and to help them touch the joys of life. When we have compassion in our hearts and know that we are able to help a person suffer less, life begins to have more meaning.

Our lives should have meaning and that meaning is to help people suffer less, and to help them touch the joys of life.

May it be so.