2014
Sermons
Dez 28 - Outsiders
Dez 28 - The Costly Gift
Dez 24 - In the Flesh in Particular
Dez 21 - More "Rejoice" than "Hello"
Dez 14 - Word in the Darkness
Dez 7 - Life in a Construction Zone
Dez 2 - Accountability
Nov 30 - Rend the Heavens
Nov 23 - The Shepherd-King
Nov 16 - Everything he had
Nov 9 - Preparations
Nov 2 - Is Now and Ever Will Be
Okt 25 - Free?
Okt 19 - It is about faith and love
Okt 12 - Trouble at the Banquet
Okt 5 - Trouble in the Vineyard
Sep 28 - At the edge
Sep 21 - At the Right Time
Sep 14 - We Proclaim Christ Crucified
Sep 7 - Responsibility
Aug 31 - Extreme Living
Aug 27 - One Who Cares
Aug 24 - A Nobody, but God's Somebody
Aug 17 - Faithful God
Aug 8 - With singing
Aug 3 - Extravagant Gifts of God
Aug 2 - Yes and No
Jul 27 - A treasure indeed
Jul 27 - God's Love and Care
Jul 20 - Life in a Messy Garden
Jul 13 - Waste and Grace
Jun 8 - The Conversation
Jun 1 - For the Times In-between
Mai 25 - Joining the Conversation
Mai 18 - Living Stones
Mai 11 - Become the Gospel!
Mai 6 - Wilderness Food
Mai 4 - Freedom
Apr 27 - Faith despite our self-made handicaps
Apr 20 - New
Apr 19 - Blessed be God
Apr 18 - Jesus and the Soldiers
Apr 18 - Who is in charge?
Apr 17 - For You!
Apr 13 - Kenosis
Apr 9 - Mark 6: Opposition Mounts
Apr 6 - Dry Bones?
Apr 2 - Mark 5: Trading Fear for Faith
Mrz 30 - Choosing the Little One
Mrz 26 - The Life of Following Jesus
Mrz 23 - Surprise!
Mrz 19 - Mark 3: The Life of Following Jesus
Mrz 16 - Darkness and Light
Mrz 12 - Mark 2: Calling All Sinners
Mrz 10 - Where are the demons?
Mrz 9 - Sin or not sin
Mrz 8 - Remembering
Mrz 5 - Mark 1: Good News in a Troubled World
Mrz 3 - For the Love of God
Feb 28 - Fresh Every Morning
Feb 27 - Using Time Well
Feb 23 - Worrying
Feb 16 - Even more offensive
Feb 9 - Salt and Light
Feb 2 - Presenting Samuel, Jesus, and Ourselves
Jan 26 - Catching or being caught
Jan 19 - Strengthened by the Word
Jan 12 - Who are you?
Jan 9 - Because God....
Jan 5 - By another way
The Shepherd-King
Read: Matthew 25:31-46
Christ the King - November 23, 2014
Does that Gospel lesson today sound like Good News?
Come now, be honest; is that lesson Good News to you?
No?
I'm with all the rest of us.
This lesson makes me feel very uneasy.
When I ask if a person is more sheep-like or more goat-like, what is our answer?
We have the office of Confession and Forgiveness at the beginning of the Service almost all the time, because we know the answer to that question.
Have you and I kept the 5th commandment ...or indeed, any commandment, perfectly?
You should fear and love God so that you do not harm your neighbor in any way but help him or her is all his or her physical needs.
Have we done that? Really?
Goats!
Is this the last word?
Frankly, I hope not!, because there are many times when we are not very sheep-like.
As we have been hearing parables again and again through the summer, we notice how often they are “cliffhangers.”
These stories have brought us right to the edge and demand us to ask again and again: What happens next in the story?
What happens next with me?
What happens next because God is who he is?
What is the final outcome of all of this?
The problem comes about because, just as in the gospel readings of the past several weeks,
we have read this story of the sheep and the goats as the last word rather than as a point of crisis along the way.
If it is the last word, and we recognize how goat-like we are, then it is bad news, terrifying news.
But if it is a word as we are on the way,
a word of warning and admonition,
a word which recognizes the depth and depravity of our situation...but is not the last word,...
...then we have things to hear and to receive,
we have good gifts from the Lord God to open,
and more opportunities to do the will of the Father that is set before us.
Then this paragraph is a portion of the Good News of Gospel, because of what happens next in the story of Jesus.
The evangelist has placed this parable in the middle of Holy Week, two days before Passover.
Here it is, approaching the point of greatest crisis.
Could the Lord of all mercy allow the harshness of the judgment which was announced in this parable to be the last word?
He gives his life to death on the cross in order to lead us from death to new life.
Would he go back on that word? No.
God takes upon himself the role of shepherd when all of his deputies prove inadequate, as Ezekiel understood.
This is not cheap and easy grace;
it is grace most costly for God,
grace most heartfelt,
grace most profound.
Let us imagine for a moment that we turn out to be some of those called “sheep.”
We have that moment of joy and surprise as we recognize that we are at the right hand of the Father, and then...
...and then the true sheep will stand there looking to the other side,
not with rejoicing and satisfaction, not with gloating,
but with astonishment, and the kind of fear the compassionate have when they see others in danger.
Who will care for those others?
The sheep have been doing it all along.
They are the ones like Kathy and our Stephen Ministers who walk with folks in a time of crisis
They are the ones like Drew and Candy who are care for the sick
They are like Matt who deals justly and yet compassionately with the imprisoned, the unlovely ones.
They are ones like Deb and our Family Promise volunteers who have welcomed the stranger.
These sheep have given so much; but who will do it after the separation of sheep and goats?
How could the Son of Man call them “blessed” and then separate them from so many whom they have been serving?
How could these sheep rejoice while looking across a great divide?
How could they ever sing a glad song?
And then the sheep address the Son of Man.
They remind him of all those others who are our brothers and sisters.
They beg to go across to theses separated brethren.
“No,” says the Son of Man, “you had some time to do that, but it is now past.”
“Then you must go,” they declare to the Son of Man.
“Remember all that you have already endured for us all, in the pain and abandonment of the cross.
A deep silence falls on this judgment scene.
The Son of Man looks at the sheep...and then steps to the other side!
How could he not go.
He has taught those sheep to speak for those who have no voice.
They are using his own best lines on him,...and so he goes.
He will not act vengefully, but instead, searchingly.
Some may hide from him, but he will work relentlessly.
What kind of king is the Son of Man?
...a shepherd-king,
a tireless, searching king,
a king with holes in his hands,
a king who is forever crowned with thorns,
a king who searches and calls...
hoping that every brother and sister will hear and be gathered up.
This king roams eternity visiting and preaching to the spirits stuck in prison like the goats who laughed at Noah.
And our task is now clear:
after being strengthened in the first course of his holy meal,
after being treated lovingly in anticipation of that final banquet,
we are sent out to do the shepherd's work even now,
in easy and sunny places,
and in the sad and sorrowful, difficult and painful places, too,
wherever the promise of Jesus needs to be heard.
We all look around and see so much that is wrong.
There thorns of sorrows and angers of all varieties lie in wait for us at every turn.
How can there be one banquet table for us all?
We who get so angry with one another just cannot imagine it.
But the Son of Man has eternity to work on it, to make sure that it does happen.
And knowing that gives us reason to celebrate, for Christ is that persistent kind of King.
That is the last word, and a Good Word it is!
So we pray:
O God of mercy, God of light,
In love and mercy infinite,
Teach us, as ever in your sight,
To live our lives in you. [LBW#425.1]
AMEN.
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Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him. |