St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for the Christ the King Sunday (November 23, 2008)
Liturgical Color: White
Reverend Doctor Lyle E. McKee
Is There Room?
Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Each November, as we celebrate the close of one liturgical year and the Kingship of Christ, we do so only four days from Thanksgiving. For Christians, every Sunday is a day for giving thanks—for the greatest event in human history. And every Sunday dinner is a thanksgiving dinner.
When I was growing up, Sunday dinner was a big deal. We would often go to church, and even when we didn't, the noon meal was special. More often than not it was at home, and was prepared with more care than evening meals during the week. And if not at home, the trip to the Miller's Cafeteria in Richmond or to Jody's in Centerville made the day all the more special. The afternoon drive took us to visit with grandparents or relatives or friends, if they had not been a part of the meal.
Along with Sunday dinner, there has been in some families another standard at this event of celebration—an empty chair. Like the ancient practice surrounding the Passover feast, in which the empty place is left for Elijah, that empty chair stands ready to be filled or to be gazed upon as a reminder that no matter how many were already present, there was always room for one more.
One of the tragedies of families that move ever farther apart is the increasing difficulty of gathering everyone to share a meal together. All the more reason that the tradition of the empty, expectant chair commends itself for our consideration—if not physically, then at least spiritually.
Such reminders are increasingly necessary for a world in which those who are hungry and thirsty, sick and in prison are increasingly huge in number. In America, a small but growing percentage of the population is amassing fortunes—even if they have been reduced of late by virtue of troubled markets, while an ever-growing number is amassing misery.
The United States has the largest income gap of the world's top 17 industrial nations, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: Ten percent of Americans own more assets than the other 90 percent. Five-hundred thousand families—one-half of one percent of U.S. households—own 40 percent of the nation's wealth.
We are in need of extra chairs at the tables of bounty. There are many who can benefit from our extra portions. There are many who depend upon us not to shut our hearts to the importance of sharing, fellowship, and hospitality.
We can always find room for one more holiday party, one more piece of turkey, one more car in the mall parking lot, or one more charge on the credit card. Might we also remember to make room for one more name on our list of people to visit, one more hour of volunteer mission work, one more child in need at our table, or one more person in our hearts?
These are the kinds of questions that Jesus must have had in mind as he taught the disciples in today's parable. He taught them so much. They witnessed how abundantly his love overflowed to meet the smallest of needs, and the greatest. And still, their hearts were not encompassing the mission he was entrusting to them. As Jesus approached his death, he searched for ways to get them to understand! How could he open up for them the awareness that the ministry they had seen in him was the ministry they were to perform after his departure?
The message, couched in the rather harsh terms of judgment at the last day, is simple. Wherever they, and we, perceive need, that need is a sign of Christ's own need. Whenever and wherever a need is met with overflowing love—in a heart making room—the deed is done as if to God!
I can imagine no more compelling call to ministry, no more valuable lesson in discipleship, no more poignant identification of the purpose of apostleship.
Still, I have a love/hate relationship with this text.
I hate it, because it seems to make works the requirement for being blessed by God. There is no mention of faith or justification or forgiveness or the cross—the acts of God that bring us salvation.
I love it, because these good works are not really works that earn us heaven because the doers of them don't realize that they have done anything good. Caring for other people is such a part of their (redeemed) nature, that they are produced naturally—like a good tree naturally producing good fruit. In the same way, the other group doesn't realize that they have done anything wrong. "The Great Surprise" may be a more appropriate title to this text than "The Final Judgment."
Most of us have experienced this kind of "surprise". Someone comes up to us and says, "What you did for me sure helped me a lot." or "What you said to me had a powerful influence on my life." While they're saying this, we're trying to remember what we said or did that was so great. Often we don't know what good we're doing—and only later discover that we have served Christ in the least of these. On the other hand, if we assume we're doing a great job, we might be surprised to hear about what we haven't done.
Nonetheless, Jesus' vision makes it clear. The life of the Christian is a life given in love to the least of these.
But that's good works, isn't it? Won't such good works for our neighbor destroy the "faith alone" foundation of our faith? (We Lutherans actually worry about this at times.) The answer to the question is "No." Our good works will not destroy our "faith alone" posture. We can do all the loving of the least and little ones we can possibly imagine and not be liable to belief in works-righteousness. We are called to do lots of good works. We are also called not to keep score. When we keep score of our deeds we want to credit our love of neighbor to our heavenly bank account. Loving our neighbor is not the problem. Keeping score of our good deeds of neighbor—love is the problem. The truly righteous don't keep score. Their left hand doesn't know what their right hand is doing. (David M. Granskou, "Preaching on the Parables", pp. 220 222)
Paul Tillich tells the story of a woman who made room for those in need.
Her name was Elsa Brandstrom, the daughter of a former Swedish ambassador to Russia. But her name in the mouths and hearts of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war during the First World War was the Angel of Siberia. She was a living witness to the truth that love is the ultimate power of Being, even in a century of exceptional destruction and cruelty.
At the beginning of the First World War, when Elsa Brandstrom was twenty-four years old, she looked out of the window of the Swedish Embassy in what was then St. Petersburg and saw the German prisoners of war being driven through the streets on their way to Siberia. From that moment on she could no longer endure the splendor of the diplomatic life of which, up to then, she had been a beautiful and vigorous center. She became a nurse and began visiting the prison camps. There she saw unspeakable horrors and then, almost alone, she began a fight of love against cruelty, and she prevailed. Love gave her wisdom with innocence, and daring with foresight. And whenever she appeared, despair was conquered and sorrow healed. She visited the hungry and gave them food. She saw the thirsty and gave them to drink. She welcomed the strangers, clothed the naked, and strengthened the sick. She too fell ill and was imprisoned, but the irresistible power of love remained with her.
After the war she initiated a great work for the orphans of German and Russian prisoners of war. After she left Germany and came to this country, she helped innumerable European refugees, and for ten years (writes Tillich) I was able personally to observe the creative genius of her love. We never had a theological conversation. It was unnecessary. She made God transparent in every moment. For God, who is love, was abiding in her and she in Him. She aroused the love of millions towards her self and towards that for which she was transparent; the God who is love. On her deathbed she received a delegate from the king and people of Sweden, representing innumerable people all over Europe, assuring her that she would never be forgotten by those to whom she had given back the meaning of their lives.
It is a rare gift to meet a human being in whom love, and this means God's, is so overwhelmingly manifest. It undercuts theological arrogance as well as pious isolation. It is more than justice and it is greater than faith and hope. It is the presence of God. For God is love. And in every moment of genuine love we are dwelling in God and God in us. (Paul Tillich, "The New Being", Charles Scribner's Sons, 1955).
One more brief example:
Not long before the onset of the cancer that finally killed him, King Hussein of Jordan undertook a small mission. He paid a personal visit to the families of the Israelis who had been killed in an Arab terrorist bombing. There was no talk of money or reparations; instead, the king quietly sat with the mourners and by his calm demeanor, unhurried manner and undivided attention was able to convey a sense of solidarity with them across the Arab-Israeli divide. The reaction of the relatives was out of proportion to the simplicity of the gesture. By all accounts, they were deeply moved by Hussein's expressions of personal involvement in their loss. Their grief had been acknowledged. More memorably still, it had been acknowledged and shared by a king.
These thoughts are meant to suggest that the feast day of Christ the King presents us with an extraordinary opportunity. If it is true that there is unique power in the combination of royalty and humility, then there has never been anything comparable to the errand of the Son of God. In Jesus Christ we see the one "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave" (Phil. 2:6).
The problem with much of our understandings of Jesus nowadays is that we have concentrated so much on the humility that we have lost sight of the royalty. More than half of the biblical message is thereby eliminated. It's the combination that counts. We read in Exodus 3, "Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, 'I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them.'"
The God whose countenance is so awesome that we must hide our faces is the same God who has come down to deliver us in our extremity. The Son who "sits upon his glorious throne with all the nations gathered before him" (Matt. 25:31 2) is the same one who, at the very apex of his cosmic power, reveals that the universe turns upon a cup of water given to the littlest ones in his name. Acts of mercy toward God's little ones are vindicated already in the court of heaven, because they are taken up into the divine life of the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. (The Christian Century, "Royalty Stoops", November 16, 1999, Fleming Rutledge, adapted).
Is there room in our hearts to serve—to let the love of Christ overflow in simple acts of mercy?
Let me close with a beautifully succinct answer to this question penned by Robert Jensen:
"In Jesus'...vision we discover that when Jesus does come into our heart, he brings all of needy humanity along with him!" ("Preaching Matthew's Gospel", p. 222)
Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord, unto eternal life. Amen.
