“Least Of These”
Only moments after prying open a window and stepping into a dark bedroom a burglar came face to face with a vicious-looking Doberman Pincher. The burglar froze in his tracks. Once his eyes adjusted to the dark, he noticed a parrot on the back of the dog which squawked, “You’re gonna get caught!” The burglar hesitated, then ever so carefully lifted an item off a dresser and put it in his sack. The dog watched every move. The parrot said, “You’re gonna get caught!” Without any sudden or jerky movements, the burglar then cleaned off the valuable items from the top of the dresser. The dog glared. The parrot said, “You’re gonna get caught!”
The burglar quietly left the room, walked down the hallway, and entered another room. The dog followed his every movement in the hall and the next room. The parrot squawked, “You’re gonna get caught!” From room to room the dog paced right behind the burglar while the parrot annoyingly shouted,
You’re gonna get caught!” At last, the burglar finished stealing the jewelry and cash he found in the master bedroom closet. Every move of every muscle was scrutinized by the Doberman. The parrot said, “You’re gonna get caught!”
Exasperated, the burglar finally bent down and picked up a shoe. He threw it at the bird and screahed, “You dumb parrot! Can’t you say anything else?” The parrot fluttered away to avoid the shoe, then said, “Sic him!” That burglar’s day of judgment was at hand.
Matthew 25:31-46
Today, on the church calendar, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday. This is the last Sunday of the year. Next Sunday we move into the Advent Season and start all over again not only on our journey to Bethlehem, but we once again start to prepare ourselves and our church to be visited by our King.
It should be humbling for us to know that Jesus Christ cares so much for us that He left the comfort of His corner office to come down and hang around with His staff. He left His digs in heaven—His seat beside His Father to come down here and live the human condition. We should be encouraged that Christ rolled up His sleeves in the muck of the factory and field—the hospital and kitchen—the halls of power and the temple of worship. We can be reassured that He has compassion for those of us who, out of exhaustion or discouragement, are tempted to cut corners or even walk away completely.
Many agree that no other piece of Jesus’ recorded teaching expresses so eloquently and beautifully the ethical spirit of the Old Testament and Judaism than our text for this morning, because it expressed the heart of religion.
The question is often asked as to whether this is actually a parable in the truest sense of the word. Some say that rather than a parable this is a description of the last judgment. But it is included in the list of the other parables of Jesus. The value of the passage isn’t affected by the question.
Listen to a modern-day form of this same parable that I ran across this week: “I was hungry, and you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger—I was imprisoned, and you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release—I was naked, and in your mind, you debated the morality of my appearance—I was sick, and you knelt and thanked God for your health—I was homeless, and you preached to me of spiritual shelter and the love of God—I was lonely, and you left me alone to pray for me. You seem so holy, so close to God—but I am still hungry, and lonely, and cold.”
Christ pictured Himself seated on the throne of His glory, after His return. All the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate them—not nations but people—individuals. It is clear that “all the nations” means all of the people of the world.
Sheep are proverbially thought of as good creatures while goats are bad. The sheep of Palestine were usually white while the goats were black, and a shepherd could easily separate them. The right hand in this case was the place of honor and the left of dishonor. I’ve preached from this text several times in my ministry and a few times someone has gotten up from the left side of the sanctuary and moved to the right. Judgment is on the basis of the way individuals have acted toward the needy about them. They learn that what they have done to the sick and the suffering, the lonely and the needy, they have in reality done to Christ Himself.
It would be superficial to say that for Jesus religion means this kind of outgoing love and nothing else. But this love is the end product or fruit of genuine religion; and by this fruit one’s true relation to God is known.
And here’s the shocker. In Jesus’ story the sheep talk exactly like the goats—same words, same reaction to the judgment of the Son of Man. Both groups are ignorant, asking, “Lord, when was it that we saw you?” The sheep and the goats are equally uninformed.
One expects the goats to be unprepared. They didn’t go to Sunday school—they hadn’t heard the Parable of the Good Samaritan—they don’t use the proper language when referring to God—they don’t volunteer to serve in their community or even beyond.
But in Jesus’ story, the sheep are just as uninformed as the goats! “Lord, when was it that we saw you?”
Maybe the most striking note of this parable is that on Judgment Day some will discover that, although they have not known it, they have been on God’s side all along. One of the true characteristics of the true saint is that he forgets himself in service of God and man. These righteous have obviously done this with the right attitude because they didn’t expect a reward. The true saint forgets himself or herself in love, so it doesn’t occur to them that there is any splendor in them.
This parable suggests that we are to view each individual as though he or she is Christ Himself. “Lord, when did we feed you, or cloth you, or visit you in prison?” was the question that was asked. And the response: “When you did it unto the least of these my brothers, you did it unto me.”
A hungry man was walking down the street in a village of medieval Turkey. He had only one piece of bread in his hand. He came to a restaurant where some meatballs were being grilled. The cooking meat was so near and the smell so delicious that man held his piece of bread over the meat to capture some of the smell. As he started to eat the bread, the angry restaurant owner seized him and took him away to see a judge.
The owner protested, “This man was stealing the smell of my meat without asking for permission. I want you to make him pay me for it.” The judge thought for a moment, then held up a purse in front of the owner and shook it. “What are you doing that for?” asked the restaurant owner? The judge replied, “I am paying you. The sound of money is fair payment for the smell of food.”
The challenge when we are dealing with the least and the last is to make sure that what we are sharing with them is real. We must make sure that our care is expressed in ways that are tangible and begins to change lives.
When we think of divine judgment we think of a few life-making decisions, but according to this story judgment comes every single day in the little commonplace things that we do, or we don’t do. Jesus is saying that the main business that we are in is the business of kindness, and it is this criterion by which God will view our life. Ignore the law of kindness and we perish.
Our parable today suggests that in the end we are judged not on the bad that we do, but the good that we do. We think of divine judgment as the opposite of this. We think that the thing that will get us into heaven is by refraining from certain sins. Conversely, we think sin will send us to hell. A religious person is one who doesn’t smoke—doesn’t drink—doesn’t swear. My friends, that misses the point!
There are many in the church who are fine, decent respectable people who aren’t doing anything for Christ. In the Old Catholic language, it was not sins of commission but sins of omission. (Not for what you do but for what you don’t do) – It’s about more than just showing up!
When people think of someone who lived his religion—who was the picture of humbleness—they usually think of St. Francis of Assisi who was born into a noble family in the 12th Century, in Italy. As a young man, he was the worst type of spoiled, rich kid. He was a musician and a party hound. He lived for music, poetry, drinking and women—not necessarily in that order. Legend has it that after one of his trips away from home, where he could party without having to hear from his parents about his antics, as Francis was riding his horse towards Assisi, he saw a leper next to the road. Although lepers were every bit as feared and loathsome in the 12th Century as they were in Jesus’ day, for some reason Francis dismounted and walked over to the leper. He gave the man all the money in his pocket—and then, extra-ordinarily, he took the man’s hand and kissed it. As he put his lips to the leprous flesh, Francis felt at peace for the first time in his life. He hugged the man, previously considered untouchable and gave him the kiss of peace on his cheek. The man kissed Francis’ cheek in return. Francis then got back on his horse and rode away. As he turned to look back at the leper, the man was gone—and Francis knew that he had met and ministered to Jesus Himself.
In closing, let me tell you about a man named Floyd. According to the standards of the world Floyd was nobody. Floyd travelled around the country looking for work at harvest time. Floyd had no home and no place to go. A couple invited him into their home and gave him a home-cooked dinner. Floyd said very little as they ate. The wife, Nancy, offered to wash his clothes for him but Floyd declined the offer. He picked cherries in the orchard next to their home that day and slept under the trees that gave him his livelihood.
Early the next morning Floyd returned to the couple who had shown him kindness. When he finished one last project in the orchard, Nancy, on an impulse, wrote him a letter telling of God’s love. Then she tucked it with a little cash into a New Testament. She found his backpack in the yard and stuck the packet inside. She imagined him traveling that day looking for work and at the end of the day bedding down somewhere under the stars, weary and all alone. She was warmed by the thought of Floyd’s surprise when he discovered her note, the New Testament and the cash she had planted in his backpack.
This Christian couple never saw Floyd again. Four years later Floyd’s sister wrote to them, telling of his death. As Floyd’s sister was going through his few belongings, she found the New Testament and the letter Nancy wrote telling of God’s love. “They must have been very dear to his heart,” Floyd’s sister concluded, “for he carried them with him until he died.”
It was such a simple gesture: a note—a Bible—and a little cash. But little counts for a lot in the kingdom of God. I don’t know about you, but I want to be surprised at finding myself among the sheep on that Day of Judgment. More importantly, I want to possess a faith that’s real. And I want to take advantage of one of the most joyous opportunities Christ gives us: “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
Thanks be to God!
Eastman First Methodist Church 