Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser
The
Ultimate Assessing - Our Compassion
Nov 17, 2019 Pentecost 23-C
I generally
take my sermon texts from something called the Revised Common Lectionary -
“Lectio” means “to read,” so the lectionary is a set of scripture readings. Its
designed to work through the major themes of Scripture every 3 years of
Sundays. (There are daily lectionaries available, too, to guide a daily reading
of Scripture, and one is available on the Presbyterian website.) Lectionaries start at Advent & Christmas
- ie Jesus’ birth, & go through the visit of the magi (Epiphany); then
Jesus’ baptism at the start of his adult ministry; then in Lent through Easter
we read yearly about how he was killed and then raised by God, and the coming
of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Over the long weeks of summer and fall until
the next Advent, we explore other parts of Jesus’ life, as well as the start of
the church as traced through the letters of various apostles to the early churches
they started. As we get towards the end
of the church calendar, ie just before Advent, where we are now, there are
always readings about the end of time, and God’s ultimate judging of how we’ve
lived. Then the church year ends with a
celebration of Christ as ruler of all that is - time, creatures, creation,
everything. We go through the story of
Christ every year, but with different scriptures. By the time a pastor gets a good many years
in as a preacher, we’ve been through the 3-year cycle a number of times, and
are amazed how much more there always is to find, and how well it speaks to the
state of issues in the world. Hmmmm… must
be the Holy Spirit in there somewhere!
If the needs of the week and the
needs of the congregation indicate a change, I don’t have to stick to the
lectionary. However, its a good
discipline to keep me from just preaching my own favorite texts over and over,
and ignoring those that may be difficult for me. Many mainline denominations
follow the Revised Common Lectionary, so there are good study material
available online - and, of course, bulletin covers and children’s bulletins and
sometimes Study lessons can be made to match ….and musicians can plan ahead on
anthems!
So today’s reading from Isaiah is a
wonderful vision of a new heaven and new earth that God makes, our creative God
who is always bringing new life out of death.
Isaiah’s vision dreams of the healing to some of the most poignant human
sorrows and losses. Its very human,
isn’t it? And very concrete. Very specific and literal. No more child loss or early deaths. No more
ravages of property and losses of war.
God’s presence with us. This last
chapter of Isaiah doesn’t just end with, “they lived happily ever after,” a
fairy-tale like ending without specifics.
The Hebrew prophets are very concerned with the practical and human
needs of the living. They’re concerned
about hungry being fed, the naked clothed, the thirsty having clean water, wars
being over. Its interesting that it doesn’t talk about people’s prayer lives,
or how many hours they read the Scriptures, or if they have perfect attendance
at church, which is what we think of when we think of religious people.
The Matthew 25 text we heard and
read at the beginning of the service today had Jesus sounding a lot like the
prophets of his own Hebrew tradition, didn’t it? Jesus gives us a view of the end of time,
where people stream towards God at the great day of judgement, and are divided
into sheep and goats - and in this example, the sheep are the
Christ-followers. Jesus often called
himself the Good Shepherd, and followers of God as sheep. Charlie Brown picked
this up in the softball cartoons - if he’d just caught that fly ball, he could
have been the hero,... instead he was the goat.
So what was it that Jesus used to
divide the sheep from the goats? Was it
by the # hours spent at church?
Nope. Was it how many potlucks they
cooked for? Nope. Was it if they were elected to church Council? Nope. Was it if they were theology wonks?
Nope. Rather, people are divided
according to whether they helped their neighbors of the world – making sure the
hungry get food, making sure the thirsty have drink, making sure the naked get
clothes, making sure those isolated in prison or with illness get visited.
Again, like the Jewish prophets, its a literal and concrete thing - Did their
hearts break over the difficulties of people’s lives, were they good
neighbors? And did their compassion
bring them to helpful actions? That’s
what Jesus’ story here says.
Those who were, in life, indifferent
to others, lost in getting what they wanted for themselves, those who stepped
over Lazarus at their doors, those to whom these needy folks were invisible -
they streamed off the other direction - the goats.
(aside) The sheep and the goats always reminds me of Charlie Brown cartoons –
he’s out there playing softball, and he’s so eager to be the hero – but he
either fails to steal hoe or throw the last strike, and he’s left lying on the
field saying, “I could’ve been the hero, but instead I’m the goat.” That’s always the word Charles Schultz uses –
“instead I’m the goat.”
Its interesting to me that BOTH
groups asked Jesus, “When did we see you needy, Jesus?” Even the folks who responded as good &
caring neighbors to the world, the sheep, didn’t seem to know they were doing
it as to Jesus. Our first thought would
be that those who DIDN’T do these good things, the goats, didn’t know it was
Jesus who came to them in this guise. Actually, neither group is said to
have recognized Jesus in the hurting people of the world. The first group, the
sheep, simply had the tender hearts, just saw hurting people, and responded
with care, as sharers of the planet and co-people of earth. I can hear the goat
group thinking, “If we’d known it was you, Jesus, we’d have been different.”
But it seems like the difference is in the heart of compassion, the caring for
those with whom we share a common humanity.
Jesus answered each group similarly - “If you did it for the least of
these, it was like it was to me.” And, “If you DIDN’T do it for the least of
these, it was like you DIDN’T do it for me.”
I guess the question is, how do we
get to the point where our compassionate heart sees and cares for people &
their needs spontaneously, like those sheep?
How do we move concern for ourselves out of the center of our being? How do our eyes open to seeing the population
of the world as we do our family? How do we become those who love our neighbors
as we love ourselves? I think this is
where spending time with God in prayer, and wrestling with Scripture in our
gathered congregations, comes in. My
teacher Matthew Fox used to say that the mystic and the prophet are two sides
of the same coin - our visionary and spiritual experiences with God will lead
us to sharing in the heart of God, and to a vision of transformed living on
earth. We will learn God’s perspective, and God’s Spirit will open our hearts.
I’ve often said that being in
congregations reminds me of those rock polishing kits available at Christmas –
you take these old rocks, throw them in the barrel, add some grit, churn it all
around for a longish while, and behold! Shiny rocks! Here we are all thrown
together, none of us perfect, a little grit thrown in like problems or
disagreements, and we are all tumbled around.
If we can look at it all as polishing us up, that’s a helpful thought…and
its true. Problems send us back to our
knees.
It doesn’t hurt to go ahead and get
involved with these kinds of charitable acts, even if our hearts aren’t totally
there yet. Because the troubles and
problems and inner conflicts that come up in doing the work, like grit, will
send us right into prayer and contemplation. I’ve seen food bank helpers get
bitter and jaded when they see folks trying to work the system, to “take
advantage” of their charity. Hopefully
that bitterness gets taken back to prayer, and they search their hearts and ask
God about it and wrestle with their hearts.
I’ve seen people who can’t seem to help themselves from making one bad
decision after another, and it feels futile to try and assist. I’ve heard all kinds of hard-luck stories
from those who want a hand-out - and I’ve known hard-working people who come to
a crisis and are too embarrassed to ask for help. Some helping people try and distinguish
between the truly needy and the con artists, and get burned out. Hopefully that takes them back to prayer,
too.
I admit that the older I get, the more I
realize that life is hard; that we inherit more than blue eyes from our
families - we learn coping methods, we learn angers, we learn prejudice, we
learn views about life. Not all are
helpful. And take this right, OK? I try
to understand Income Tax or how to deal with insurance companies, and you know,
its confusing! And I was considered a smart cookie, an A student. We’re all trying to survive and figure out
this living thing. Some of us are born on second or third base, though, when
others aren’t even on a team. Its nothing to my credit that I was born into a
more middle-class family; and its not to anyone’s discredit that they weren’t.
So what do we do with Jesus’ way of
looking at our lives in Matthew 25? I
think that at LEAST we need to hear that God is concerned with people’s very
earthly and basic human survival needs. God cares for human life. And at LEAST we can see that Jesus desires
for us, as disciples and followers, that we share this universal and practical concern.
Christianity has often underemphasized living right by others in the world, and
prioritized a personal making it to heaven.
What makes us into the humans God created us to be is our compassionate
care for those around us.
So we’re fortunate to get the clue
from Jesus here - that our love for one another, with all there foibles, is
actually showing love to God who made us.
We are on the right and godly path if we are growing in our care and
seeing the persons behind the stereotypes; if needs of people other than
ourselves are visible to us, and hurt our hearts. Yes, we will be overwhelmed
by the amount of need. Yes, folks won’t
all thank us and treat us right; Yes, some hurt people will hurt us. And yes, its all happened to God first - why
should it be different for us? And yes,
God’s compassion continues to be extended - why should it be different for us? We
can help with immediate needs, and we can find long-term solutions. God can teach us empathy, God can inspire us
with creative ideas, and give us the courage of our convictions. God can soften
our hearts in the first place, as we consider what God has done in Jesus in the
first place.
May we be moved by deep and
sacrificial love of God, and learn such compassion for each other. AMEN.
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