Journey's Weekly Homilies

November 24th (Feast of Christ The King) 
Homily by Carol
(Ez.34:11-12,15-17, 1Cor.15:20-26,28, Mt.25:31-46)

When the One of Heaven comes in glory with all the angels, he will sit on a glorious throne. All nations will be gathered and he will separate them from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep will be placed at his right hand, but the goats at his left.

The Promised One will say to those at his right hand, “Come O blessed ones, inherit the realm prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

Then the righteous will answer him, “When, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And he will answer them, “Truly I say to you, as you did to one of the littlest of these my dear people, you did it to me.”

Then he will say to those at his left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed into eternal fire prepared for the devil and the devil’s angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”

Then they will answer, “When, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the littlest of these, you did it not to me.”

And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

This is the gospel, the good news.

In preparing for this homily, I was struck by the titles biblical scholars have ascribed to this gospel reading that only appears in Matthew’s collection of stories. In one source it’s called The Judgment Parable; another refers to it as Jesus’ Vision:  A Task for the Nations, and a third, Doing Mercy Without Calculation. I remember being a freshman in New Testament class at Gettysburg College. Dr. Freed, our professor, was the 4’ 11” embodiment of high academic standards, and he worked us hard--tons of reading; pop quizzes; a fifty-five-page, single-spaced final exam. It remains one of those classes that I think back to often and from which I learned much, despite my less-than-impressive D+ final grade. What is a D-plus, really? 

For me, the most provocative material of that class was our study of each individual gospel. Until I took my front row seat on the third floor of Glatfelter Hall, I had never noticed that some gospel stories appeared in more that one gospel or that each gospel seemed to have its own take on the stories and events. Dr. Freed helped me notice that Matthew, for instance, was probably written sometime more than seventy years after Jesus’ death and that, like each of us in that class or each of us here, the writer of Matthew liked to think and to write about Jesus emphasizing particular traits. Matthew, more than any other gospel writer, appreciated stories about righteousness and judgment. He was concerned about “The Law” and the habits and choice-making human beings could employ to live out “The Law” with integrity. He also portrays Jesus as rabbi, teacher, even more than he illustrates Jesus as healer or miracle worker. It is this, this Jesus as teacher, that I am drawn to tonight.

Over the last few weeks I have thought a lot about Jesus as teacher. I have imagined him writing his course descriptions and course proposals. I thought about some of the information he might have included in the syllabus for a class he may have entitled

                         Life: You and All of Your Choices.

                         Office Hours:                     Sunday – Saturday inclusive

                         Course Description:         This multi-semester service-learning class is designed to enhance each student’s capacity to know herself/himself as a beloved child of                                              God. Students in this class will be encouraged to show up, to pay attention, to tell the truth and to be open to the outcome. Students will                                              increase their capacity to do this through commitments to abundance, gratitude and prayer. Students are expected to work in                                              inter-disciplinary teams of two or more.

                        Course Values:                   Love God and love one another.                                                           

                         Course Objectives:            Students will create a world community where persons know themselves loved. Students in this class will increase their capacity to                                                                       believe that they will have what they need when they need it.

 Course Expectations:        Daily attendance, active participation, keen attention and dynamic collaboration is required.

 Evaluation:                          Tests and quizzes will never be announced and will always appear and be experienced as surprise.

The gospel story we hear tonight comes at the end of Jesus’ course schedule. We have been primed for it with previous stories: the carelessness of five of the maidens who didn’t have lamp oil and the paralysis of the servant who buried his only coin. At this point in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ days are numbered, and he knows it. He only has a few more weeks with his students, and there’s an urgency to all he says and does. His students aren’t getting it, and he needs to employ some new teaching techniques. So, like a great teacher, he brainstorms and invents a new way to convey the same information that he’s been conveying. He’s delivering the same lessons, but in new packaging.

Up until now, we are accustomed to Jesus teaching in parables. He takes something familiar to us--a woman losing a coin, a boy running away from home--and uses it as a pointer to the unfamiliar, such as some quality of the kingdom of God or the likeness of God. He gets us to a place that we may have never considered going were we left unassisted.

This gospel story tonight, however, is different. I think of it as a reverse parable. Our gospel tonight begins with the unfamiliar--the presence of angels, a cosmic tribunal—as a directional to the familiar—sharing food, drinks, clothes, time, hellos. It is intriguing to think of this gospel story then as a vision or a mural                         trying to communicate with images what cannot be communicated with words. Matthew mounts this mural at the end of his gospel.

Jesus is evaluating the performance of this class that has been divided into two teams—the sheep and the goats. The righteous sheep are told that they pass. They have responded to human needs and, for doing so, they graduate into the kingdom of heaven. Although we would imagine this is fantastic news, the sheep, instead of being elated, are confused. The sheep think there may have been a mistake in the examination process. Similarly, the goats are equally bewildered and believe there must have been an error. Jesus offers both the sheep and the goats a detailed list of possible opportunities they had to engage in generous acts of mercy. “When?” both groups ask, “when did we or didn’t we see you in need? When did we say hello, or share our food, or when didn’t we give you a drink or a coat or visit you? When were you sick?” Jesus tells them, of course, that when they did or didn’t do it for the other, they did or didn’t do it for him.

I think it’s fitting that this Matthew reading closes out our liturgical ordinary time. What Jesus has been teaching us has been, in the words of Adrienne Rich, so “heroic in its ordinariness.” Someone needs some juice, a sandwich, a jacket, some time, and we, as  persons of faith, have been taught by a great teacher to respond right then in the now of that moment without calculation. How well are we doing in this class Life: You, Me and All of Our Choices?