What Kind of King is This? (11.22.20)
What Kind of King is This?
Matthew 25:31-46
Christ the King Sunday
November 22, 2020
Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott
St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church
If you have had enough of this year and are waiting for it to be over, I have good news for you today: this is the final Sunday of the Liturgical Calendar. That means this week is the final week of the church year and a new one begins next Sunday with the first Sunday of Advent.
Much like the Jewish sabbath begins as the sun sets, the church year begins in darkness as we sit together waiting for the Christ to be born into the world. It’s poetic. It’s well-timed, and it means we can say we’re counting down the final 6 days of this year together instead of 6 weeks. :)
Today is known as Christ the King Sunday and invites all of the royal language and royal music into our worship. The more I encounter the Christ, the less comfortable I am with this King language as the Jesus Path seemingly stands in such opposition to the ways of Kings and Emperors and earthly rulers. After all, it is during Jesus’ crucifixion, at the hands of those earthly rulers, that a crown of thorns is placed on his head and he is mocked for his king-like-status among his followers.
What kind of king is this? Are we using the term genuinely? sarcastically? ironically? Or are we conceding to the powers of this earth who cannot fathom a servant leader and showing them what kind of king this Christ would be?
With these questions lingering, we turn to our gospel text for today, one central to the life and identity of our community engagement at St. Charles, Matthew 25:31-46:
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,[g] you did it to me.’
41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
This larger section of Matthew around today’s selected text is a rapid fire combination of teachings, parables, and conversations around the end times. People are asking Jesus many of the questions we still ask—How will humanity be judged? How will we know when the end is near? Who experiences the afterlife in the presence of God? All kinds of questions that keep humans up at night across millennia. And to their chagrin and ours, Jesus responds with very few direct answers and mostly metaphors and poetic imagery.
For those of us who really want answers, this is an endlessly frustrating personality trait on Jesus’ part. When we are not comfortable settling for an “I don’t know” or “it’s part of the eternal mystery,” then we tend to look for teachers and preachers who are unafraid to deal in certainty and absolutes. Well, as much as I’d love to calm your fears and validate your hopes and hunches, I’m not one of those teachers. There’s a whole lot I don’t know and will never know in the length of this lifetime. Everything, all of it, is part of the eternal mystery.
Knowing we are unlikely to get definitive answers, we ask anyway: What kind of king is Jesus? What matters most in this life? How will humanity be judged? What must we do to experience afterlife in the presence of God? In today’s text, it’s about the sheep and the goats.
I find it infuriating and delightful that Jesus rarely answers a question directly and prefers to reflect a question back from a different angle or to tell a story. When we’re asking questions about what is essential in our living, we want answers. If we’re asking questions about the life beyond the one we can see, we want details. Jesus seems much more interested in merging the two questions together and inviting us to consider how eternal life in the presence of God is attainable right here and now in the way we are living. Forget about later. Who are you seeing and loving and caring for and attentive to right now in this life of flesh and blood? The answers about the love of God and the mysteries of the universe are right here in the exchanges you have with others; particularly those deemed invisible or disruptive to whatever our culture has defined as the good life.
In my preparation for today, I was drawn to a commentary on our gospel reading by Dirk Lange (professor at Luther Seminary, and Assistant General Secretary for Ecumenical Relations: The Lutheran World Federation). His writing is most excellent, and I will share several excerpts today from him. I hope to have this up on our website fairly soon, and my manuscript will make clear which contributions come from Lange.
In his lovely consideration of Matthew 25, Lange notes multiple “attempts to engage Jesus in an endless ethical discussion about works or good deeds. In this parable, the question resurfaces but in an importantly different way: ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ (25:44). Those at the left hand of the Son of Man seek an excuse and almost put the blame on the Son of Man himself as if to say, ‘You didn’t reveal yourself; how could we see you?’”
That is to say: When did you give those instructions? We would have done it if you told us to. How were we to know that it was you we saw who was hungry or thirsty or sick or in prison? What a trick! We didn’t know you took that whole “love your neighbor as you love yourself” thing quite so far, Jesus!
“The curious and also amazing aspect of their question is that it is repeated twice in the parable—once by those on the right and then by those on the left—and yet there is an enormous difference in meaning! When it is asked by those on the right, the question stems from what might be called a holy ignorance. These were people who had entered the joy of their master without even knowing it. Such participation is not self-evident. The joy they knew was not complete; it was mixed with suffering, danger, risk, tribulations and most likely many disappointments. And yet, it was joy. They acted out of mercy. They went the way of the cross and now find themselves at the right hand of the Son of Man.
On the contrary, those on the left did not know mercy or joy and we might add they did not know simplicity either. They complicated every situation allowing their own judgment as to whom they had to serve deafen them to the cry of those who were calling out in need. They did not live in the spirit of the beatitudes.
Judgment, as it appears in this parable, has more to do with mercy than it does with works. Has the community of believers been formed in a spirit of mercy? Those on the right hand of the Son of Man (also designated the “King”) are those who have gone through the great tribulation, those who have lived out their baptism, not those who have conscientiously performed good works or have been morally upright. They are the ones who have risked dying and rising with Jesus in this world and are not waiting for some other future world or life.
In this final discourse, we rediscover another theme that has been running throughout Matthew’s Gospel−the theme of discipleship [or what I might call embodiment—what does it look like to live out this Jesus Way with our whole beings.] At the heart of the Sermon on the Mount is this call to an obedience that is not prescription or law or sacrifice but joyful living in mercy without calculation. This joyful living takes believers to an unexpected place. It takes them to the cross; it takes them to the cross in human lives, to the cross in the life of family, community, society, nation, and world. It takes them to the place of God’s suffering in the world.
Much attention has been given in the history of interpretation to the identity of the lowliest ‘[sisters and] brothers.' Are they part of the community of believers or are they outsiders? Do they belong or not? Yet, the parable itself doesn’t seem to be concerned about their identity other than to identify their suffering (hungry, naked, imprisoned, etc.). The parable of judgment is far more focused on the life of mercy that has or has not been lived by those who call out ‘Lord, Lord!’ The criterion of judgment is not one’s confession…but the mercy we have lived. The parable is far more concerned about how believers have lived out their baptismal vocation and let their light shine before others so that all may see their good works and give glory to God (5:16). The only identity that seems to worry Matthew in this description of judgment is the identification of the other with the King, the Son of Man, with Jesus.
Once again, the 'good works’ has less to do with ethical actions than with living a life of mercy in which the Son of Man is revealed—if only on the last day. This entails, for the believing community, a considerable change in self-perception. Rather than considering themselves holders or keepers of the mystery of God (in their liturgy, in their works, in their piety), they discover that God is always already outside the circle they draw and the boundaries they create. Mission itself becomes redefined when we consider the move outwards as a move towards God! The community is sent out from the Lord’s Supper as body of Christ only to discover that the body of Christ is already waiting for the community in those suffering in the world. Then, in yet another Gospel reversal, it would appear that the judgment we are all subject to is not one from on high but a judgment that is spoken through the need of our neighbor.”
If God has a kingdom, it’s nothing like the ones we know from this world. To say the last will be first and the first will be last is more than poetry, it’s prophecy. You want to know what heaven is like? Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You want to know that you know that you know that you can be in the presence of God for eternity? Start now and chase after the presence of God in what Jesus calls “the least of these.”
This Way is not about knowing but about living—open-heart, walking into mystery, awake and aware to the ones we encounter on our path. If you can do that right here and right now, then you’re already in the eternal.
That’s our work as we head into a new day, a new week, and then a new year. May our old questions make way to better questions. May our loving actions come from a place of mercy and joy. May we live fully embodied lives and not from manipulative calculation. And as we live and walk this way out as a people, together, may our steps on the Jesus path lead us to eternal life. Right here and right now.
Amen.