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Emmanuel Friedens Church
Schenectady New York
November 26, 2017
Reading: Matthew 25:31-46
I.
I will never forget the Thanksgiving Day, shortly after we were married, when Lynn and I first had our family on both sides to the old parsonage, in Chicopee, Massachusetts. We had almost finished eating, when the doorbell rang. It was a cold fall day, no rain but breezy and cloudy. And there stood a confused-looking young man, saying how hungry he was. What to do? Lynn, being the very soul of hospitality, found an extra chair, and made room at the table. The young man sat with us, and ate.
Now he wasn’t your usual houseguest. It was pretty clear from the way he wandered off into Lynn’s study, and was staring at one of the pictures, claiming to know the person in the picture, that he was a bit unusual. By the time we had eaten, we all knew he would love to stay for the next week or two, anyway. And we weren’t sure what to do. “Let’s go for a walk by the river” I said to my parents and Lynn. I turned to the young man, and told him we were all going to leave the house, and so dinner was over. “But what about dessert?” he asked.
I felt a little guilty. There were pies, waiting in the kitchen! He knew it as well as I. He had taken a walk through the kitchen halfway through the meal. I almost ran back there, in my haste to move things along. I cut a big slab of pie, and put it between two paper plates, and found a plastic fork. We all piled out into the cold New England afternoon, he with us, reluctantly.
As we took off through the woods for the river, he stayed behind, there by the church. It must have been half an hour later we returned, and our dinner guest was gone. But on the steps to the old church building there, I found the evidence of his departure. The pie, untouched, sat on the stone steps right by the main door.
No Thanksgiving dinner ever passes my lips without remembering that meal that day. I am glad we had our surprising guest, Jesus, or Elijah, or just some young man with a severe case of de-institutionalization, and no place to call home. And yet to this day I continue to wonder. If I had really taken seriously the proposition that Christ was there in and through his visit: would I have sent him off with pie on a paper plate?
To this day I don’t know what that pie on the steps of a church meant. Was he just confused and absent minded? Was he full? Or was this his thank-offering to almighty God? Or had the food lost its savor, when the folk offering it had sent the stranger off, to eat it out of doors and on his own?
II.
In the days before he was arrested, tried and put to death, almost two thousand years ago, a young rabbi was asked by his disciples what the signs would be of the messiah’s coming, and of the end of the age. Jesus responded with the stories we heard last week and this week. And the more he said, at least if they were paying attention, the less sure those askers should have been, about what they were living in expectation of. Instead of talking just about some day in the future when the messiah would come in glory, Jesus started talking as though the Christ was among them right along, hiding where they least expected. He told them a story, about the return of the great King....
When the Day of Judgment comes, in the story, the King separates the sheep and the goats, just like righteous folk revel in. This was familiar language to his listeners then, just as it is to anyone who has ever listened to a good old-fashioned preacher ever since. Preachers have loved sheep and goat judgment stories for a long time. Only thing was, this preacher’s story had a twist. These sheep and goats in Jesus’ parable looked a little different than the ones described by the hellfire and brimstone preachers we usually hear.
Jesus asked not who was righteous enough but who was hospitable enough to the stranger. Who offered a glass of cool water to a traveler? Who gave a little food to a hungry person, or offered some cloak of dignity to a person stripped of her or his humanity?
Those who welcomed others, those who received the most vulnerable or the injured as though they were the messiah—those who were in solidarity with the suffering: they were the ones would be invited to inherit the kingdom prepared for them by God, from the beginning of time. They had already received the messiah. Those who sought no reward for being kind, or considerate, or helpful, or fair, would be the ones to receive God’s thanks and welcome themselves. Every time they were helping out a stranger, a sojourner, every time they were in solidarity with a prisoner or present to someone who was vulnerable and in need, they were already entering the reign of God, the commonwealth of God, it turns out. The messiah was there, in disguise: by the end of the story it is clear: for Jesus, the messiah here and now meant being with and among and one of the “least of these”, being among those facing the hardest kinds of human oppression and adversity.
Today, the last Sunday in the church year, just before the season of Advent kicks off, is traditionally called Christ the King Sunday, or “reign of Christ” Sunday. The name evokes images of Christ’s coming with a big old halo and a scepter and perhaps a golden crown. Images of Glory. But the glory of this messiah isn’t the glory of the crown, or crowds of adoring worshipers. Not for now. With Jesus, look for unlikely signs of glory. Look for glory where the world least expects it. Don’t look to power: look to the powerless. Don’t look to the adulations of crowds: look to the places where someone could use a hand. Don’t look to the conventional images of glory. Look for Jesus wherever a little justice and a lot of love are most needed. Look where humans still have to build their own crosses.
III.
Yesterday, November 25th, was an international day designated to stand up against gender based violence, especially violence against women. Sexual assault and other forms of power abuse against women, and against young girls, have been much in the news lately, as women have found the courage to confront often powerful and even famous men for their actions.
Churches are no strangers to sexual misconduct and abuse. Over the course of ministry, I’ve heard stories of abuse that are seventy years old—and had to confront events that are much newer. Like some of you, in my role as a pastor have been aware of and had to be part of the response to incidents in which others have been mistreated or violated—in their workplaces, homes, or even in their churches.
Some years ago, this congregation became clear that we need to offer safety as best we can, especially to our children and youth, but to any participant! We weren’t going to pretend that church was somehow immune. Both the United Church of Christ and the American Baptist Ministers Council also are very clear on boundaries, for pastors especially. Cross these boundaries, and there is a process for investigation, a place for those harmed to be heard and seek justice. There are consequences including removal from ministry for the perpetrator. Gone are the days when we would pretend that church leaders were above reproach, and perpetuate abuse or misconduct through failure to respond to the most vulnerable. We are clear too that we need to stand in support and solidarity with anyone facing into abuse, at home or at work or in church. It’s what’s right.
Sadly, it seems that the pretend game continues amongst many church leaders in this country. While some have spoken up clearly in the last weeks in support of women who find their voices confronting public leaders, others have flocked to support the abusers—in the name of Christ! This is puzzling, as well as being just plain wrong. For if Jesus was clear about anything it was our responsibility to stand first with the and support the people on the receiving end of violence, and power abuse, not the perpetrators.
Jesus called his followers to hang with the women and men and youth and children stripped of their dignity by life, not side with the one doing the robbing. Let us be clear: those who use Christ’s name to defend the abuse of any one, including sexual abuse, do violence to Christ. I believe if Jesus were to tell his parable today, he would include words something like this, “You saw me confront my abuser and you….”
Those who shun a person who comes forward in such a way shun Christ; to reject her is to reject the messiah. Christ’s glory is to be found in the people that support those who claim their humanity against those who would steal it.
Christ’s glory isn’t found in the bigshots. Its human signpost is the woman who stops blaming herself for someone else’s crime and steps forward to speak the truth.
IV.
All the world loves a show, it seems. And it is easy to be seduced into a circus religion that is smoke, mirrors, and costumes. All the world is drawn to power, it seems, and often we believe powerful men, because we are told we should. But this is an unhappy and empty way to live.
Jesus of Nazareth, that unlikely messiah, invited people two thousand years ago to a different path, as he invites us still. It is a path not measured by worldly success or prominence. This path finds its power not through the manipulation of opinion but through gentle clear words of truth. It finds its fulfillment not through how much we can get for ourselves, but through the good moments shared, with strangers as with loved ones. It finds its glory through profound moments when someone who has been silenced finds her voice, when someone who has been dehumanized claims his full worth.
Oh, there’s nothing wrong with a little pomp and circumstance once in a while. But when the messiah comes to you and me, it still happens where we least expect, a woman insisting on dignity and justice, a meal offered and received gracefully. These are the unlikely signs of glory. And a life spent being open to them is the happiest that you and I can live, a life full of unlikely glory, miracles in the best sense.
This is the good news, the reality of how the Love of God springs up between the rocks, how Christ shows up in little communities of faith, and in good moments shared. Thanks be to God. May we find the courage and laughter, the love and the stubbornness to follow this lovely path.