Psalm 95:1-7a
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25: 31-46
This may not seem like a very good story to us, in fact the Swedish church calls today the Sunday of Doom for all of its Day of Judgment language, but to those who first heard it, I wonder if it was not the best news. Matthew was written primarily to a Jewish audience, that’s why there are so many references to the prophets being fulfilled, it’s why the publishers put it first after the Old Testament. That word for ‘the nations,’ those people who are separated into sheep and goats, are the Gentiles, are those who are not part of the original tribes, are the neighbors who are not Israelites but who still interact with Jews day in and day out, and if you’re a Jew, this is a great story! The ones who heard it first were not the sheep or the goats, they were ‘the least of these my brothers.’ Think of it! The people who have bullied you for ages, ignored your needs, refused to offer shelter, will be punished for it, and those who showed you some kindness when you most needed it will not only not be punished, but will be able to spend eternal life with you! What a great way to offer reward to those who take care of God’s own chosen people!
And then we have the good news in the first reading from the prophet Ezekiel. God’s gonna get those fat sheep bullies who have pushed us around and pushed us out and made us suffer for so long. And God will finally feed the world with justice. Justice! I want to shout that like I’m in Bravehart. “FREEDOM! JUSTICE!”
Because today is Christ the King Sunday. Which is a huge political statement. It’s only been the name of the last Sunday of Pentecost, the last Sunday of the church year, for a few decades, since 1969. With all of the terrible world leaders we have survived, all of the dictators and tyrants, all of the schoolyard bullies and workplace harassers, it’s a statement of faith that the ultimate authority rests not in those who misuse their power to serve only themselves, but that all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to a God who has come to dwell with us in our pain and raise us up.
See, this Gospel is told among a people who have been shunned and shamed and cast out of their childhood churches, expelled from the family synagogue. It is told to those who are more than familiar with hunger, cold, prison, and the like. It is a Gospel of a God who lives among the poor and outcast. And if we cannot recognize God among the hungry, naked, thirsty stranger, then only a few days after Jesus tells this story he becomes all of these things on the cross. Betrayed by his friends, beaten, imprisoned, given a ‘trial’ that’s a joke, stripped of his clothing and hung out to dry, Jesus has experienced every kind of injustice and pain named in this story, and then some.
And this hungry, thirsting, naked God is the one in whose hands are the caverns of the earth and the heights of the hills. The one who is the rock of our salvation, who made the sea and molded the dry land, is the one who has called us to a hope beyond the stretches of our imagination. He has endured the worst of our world and promised to remain in it with us, hidden in plain sight among the ones who are so often ignored. That kid without a friend at the high school lunch table? That kid bears the Image of Christ. Al, who collects cans and rides his bike around the village, drunk or sober? He bears the Image of Christ. The heroin addict, the jobless, the one who has never been able to make ends meet and works their fingers to the bone? They all bear the Image of Christ. In all of our brokenness, our hunger, our thirst, our need and our want, we, too, bear the Image of Christ, who was broken for us that we might be made whole.
And this One who remains hidden among us, this is the One who will always come to us, who has promised us salvation, who sees and feels and knows all of our hidden secrets? Indeed He lives there still. His death and resurrection are the hope and new life of all of us, the entire flock, every one of us both sheep and goat. For Christ is King. And the King is a Shepherd. And the Good Shepherd lays down his life for us all.
Amen.
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