31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For
I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you
gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’40 “The
King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the
least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I
was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you
did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after
me.'44 “They
also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a
stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Yesterday I passed
an awful accident on the road. A multi-car pile up with a number of people in
need of assistance. And as I passed by I realized that I couldn’t stop because
I was late and didn’t know them. Maybe they were bad people anyway. I thought
about how I worry about my safety. Driving a car is a very dangerous thing. And
I committed to being sure to care for myself: that I have my needs met, that my
concerns are heard and addressed. And I worried about my life, wondered if I
was doing the right things, and pondered whether I was who I wished to be.
Have I driven you
crazy yet? And if such a self-centered introspection strikes you as ridiculous
in the face of a terrible accident I have two things to tell you: 1. First, if
it isn’t already apparent, I made it up. I’d like to think I’m not that big of
a jerk but truth be told I struggle with self-centeredness. 2. Second, as silly
as this little drama was, I found myself with just such a mindset with regard
to this text, found myself worrying about how I was doing, was I a sheep or a
goat, where I would end up, and missing the entire point. I can’t tell you how
many pages I’ve read this week on this passage that obsessed over such issues
that aren’t the point: like, what’s hell really like, who’s a “brother or
sister,” do Jesus’ words challenge salvation by grace through faith? I want to
tell you from the outset that I will not answer all your questions today in
this brief sermon. But I will say this. If your first question is whether you
are a sheep or goat, or where you’re going, you’ve already taken a wrong turn.
I’m not suggesting that these are unimportant. They are, however, not the point.
So what is the point?
1.
Hospitality and welcome are
dangerous but that’s not really the point. It’s about delight.
It’s true that
Jesus talks about hell and while I don’t wish to go down this highway (that’s a
joke) we can’t simply pretend Jesus didn’t bring it up. And yet it strikes me
that to worry over whether you are a sheep or goat is not Jesus’ intent. Worry
about Jesus and remember that he is present in the world outside of this place.
If we are to worry
about anything, worry should about the hell that we have created on earth: the
loneliness, the alienation, the violence, oppressive systems where people go
hungry and don’t receive care. Let’s work on stopping hell from being a place
on earth. I once heard a Christian Sudanese refugee fleeing violence say, “What
Hell have we not seen?” Let’s worry about not offering hell’s hospitality– like
hatred, violence, and fear. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that in this
teaching Jesus points out that we were not made for hell. It was designed for
someone else, he says in vs. 41 – “the devil and his angels.”
So hell is not the
motivator of hospitality. Jesus is. If
we offer welcome in the name of Jesus we need fear no hell – now or ever. You
still may not recognize Jesus but you don’t have to pretend you aren’t in the
know (he told us where he would be) and remember that he is the one who
decides, who determines our end, and that this is not the only place Jesus
talked about salvation or does something about it. So we should not use this
text like a harping parent sitting in the passenger seat of a car warning our
teenager who gets behind the wheel over and over again, “Be careful or you will
die.” We need to discover or rediscover the blessing and delight of welcoming
and caring for Jesus the stranger. This week I heard a great story from Jake
Schaeffer about his kids and their own experience of the delight of welcome.
They were out and about and realized that they still had one of the gifts we
made for those who were homeless around Christmas time. So they gave it to
someone standing on a street corner and watched as he was overjoyed by the
gift. Later in the day, Jake asked Sam and Georgia what they wanted to do for
fun. They responded, “Make more gifts for those who are homeless.” Don’t be
afraid, friends, be thrilled. We’re welcoming Jesus.
2.
You are not the “I”. Jesus
is the “I.”
Jesus is the only “I”
in our text this morning. He is the only first person singular pronoun in this
passage – “I was hungry, thirsty, a
stranger, . . .” etc. You are not the
“I”. You are a “we.” This has two important implications for us. The first is
that before we have any talk about hospitality or
welcome and how “radical” we
might wish it to be, the most radical
thing in our passage is not what we do but what Jesus did and does; that is,
have solidarity with human beings, particularly the marginal. Jesus identifies
with the sick, the poor, etc. If you want to be uncomfortable this morning,
be uncomfortable about that. It means that Jesus is not so much found in bread
and wine but people, particularly struggling ones. That if we want union with
God we must have mission. If we want “eucharist,” literally “thanksgiving,” we
must move out and not simply huddle here. Our welcome of the stranger is our transubstantiation
– the Roman Catholic idea that the bread and wine of communion literally become
the body and blood of Jesus. According to Jesus, it’s the stranger. And Jesus
makes this radical claim without offering any distinction or qualification. He
doesn’t say, “I was hungry and had made no bad choices.” “I was a stranger with
no drug problems or struggles with mental illness.” “I was wrongly imprisoned.”
The Christian
philosopher and provocateur Peter Rollins
illustrates the strangeness of this radical
solidarity with a dramatic parable, called the Salvation of a Demon. The
parable is about a kindly old priest, known far and wide for his hospitality.
Late one night, in the dead of winter, there was an ominous knock at the
cathedral door. The priest hurried to open it, concerned about a traveler being
left out in the cold. Upon the opening the door, he found a towering,
terrifying demon. Without the hesitation, the kindly priest welcomed the demon
into the church. As the priest finished with his evening devotions, the demon
prowled around, spewing curses and blasphemies. When the priest went home, the
demon followed. Again, without hesitation, the priest welcomed the demon into
his home and calmly prepared them both a meal. All the while, the demon cursed
and mocked the priest. Here’s what happens next:
The demon then ate the meal that was provided and afterward
turned his attention to the priest, “Old Man, you welcomed me first into your
church and then into your house. I have one more request for you: will you now
welcome me into your heart?” “Why, of course,” said the priest, “what I have is
yours and what I am is yours.” This heartfelt response brought the demon to a
standstill . . . For the demon was unable to rob him of his kindness and his
hospitality, his love and his compassion . . . What happened to that demon after
this meeting with the elderly priest is anyone’s guess. Some say that although
he left that place empty-handed he received more than he could have ever
imagined. And the priest? He simply ascended his stairs, got into bed and
drifted off to sleep, all the time wondering what guise his Christ would take
next.” This confounding and
subversive parable is a profound illustration of solidarity and welcome. Unqualified
welcome in the name of Jesus overcomes and disarms demons. I know that’s a
crazy story but we’ll come back to it.
But the solidarity of
Je
sus with the marginal is not the only point. I suggested at our Ash Wednesday
service that Lent is also the spiritual truth that we must die to that little
thing called “I.” You and I do that, in
part, by becoming a “we.” “When did we see you hungry or naked or
thirsty?” This means that my future and your future are tied together. Do you know
who you’re tied with? We will never be able to be welcoming out there until we
are also welcoming in here. But this simply isn’t a warning. There’s also a
grace to this truth. It means that I, myself, am not the sole force behind
welcome. My gifts, my personality, my means, my hang ups, my busyness, are not
the sole determiner of what happens.
Small things with great love means that my
welcome need not be radical – I need only to join my welcome to others – like
our image for this series of the dandelion shedding its seeds, let’s be the
dandelion that fills Salem with small acts of great love. We can only do that
if we do it together as a “we.”
3.
Jesus is (and is not) the
other.
Jesus makes a
radical, provocative claim, that he is aligned, and in solidarity, with
marginal people. And Peter Rollins’ parable captures the radicalness of this
claim but it’s still a parable and not the whole story because Jesus will also differentiate
himself from others by describing the sick, the hungry, the stranger, as “brothers
and sisters of mine” in vs. 40, signaling a distinction. So, on the one hand, Jesus
is claiming that when we honor the bodies of others, we honor him. When we
dishonor the bodies of others, it is him we
wound. And this honoring and
wounding occur without qualification. He does not say, “I was wrongly
imprisoned and you visited me.” It doesn’t say, “I was sick and likable.”
Yet, Jesus is not
totally subsuming himself as the other. Rather, he appears to be saying, treat these
ones well because I love them and they are “mine”. They deserve respect and can
also change. It means that our welcome is not necessarily agreement with all
the stranger might do or say; nor is Jesus’ solidarity a full agreement either.
This is because our welcome without
qualification offers open space for conversion. Does this work in real life? Is
Peter Rollins parable of welcoming a demon a naïve story that offers no real change?
Is hospitality merely being nice and not a force to change the world?
Well, consider the
example of Daryl Davis an African American musician who has spent his life
sitting down and befriending Ku Klux Klan members. Dozens of former KKK members
have left the Klan because Davis was willing to enter into conversation,
relationship, and friendship with them BEFORE they left the Klan - and he has
the robes of former members to prove it. As he recounts in the documentary Accidental Courtesy, Davis’ strategy in
converting Klan members was simple: “You invite somebody to the table.” He did
it, in other words, by inviting ones who
seemed like demons to his table and
into his heart. Yet, his heart also had something to say. In one segment of the
film, Daryl called the wife of a Klansmen who was jailed in a federal
penitentiary. After cursing him outright, he told her to shut-up and listen to
him. He told her that he would be willing to drive her and her kids down to see
her husband in prison on a regular basis. Because of that act of kindness, her
and her children left the Klan. Daryl Davis proves Peter Rollins and Jesus
right.
Let’s a be a people who offer hospitality and welcome to
others come what may, come hell or high water. Let us remember the words of the
Apostle Paul who says that “neither death nor life, neither
angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in
all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ
Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). Come
Hell or high water, let nothing stop us from welcoming Jesus and those he loves
in our midst. Question for
reflection: What’s one thing that keeps
you from expressing the love of God to strangers? What’s one thing you might do
this week to challenge that fear?
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