November 22, 2020 ~ Christ the King Sunday ~ Sermon & Sermon Video Link

Christ the King                                                                                   11/22/20

https://youtu.be/fOcTjPhoUxk

“Righteous Reign”

Psalm 95: 1-7a; Ephesians 1: 15-23; Matthew 25: 31-46

Pearl: Christ’s reign includes any who are for “the least of these.”

Function: To empower listeners to, from compassion, see Christ in everyone but especially in “the least of these.”

Another time when I preached on this parable of the sheep and the goats I called it Jesus’ “Magnum Opus.” A “magnum opus” is something that is regarded as the most important work of an artist, musician, or writer. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, Mozart’s Requiem Mass, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison are examples.

1. It is hard to say which one of Jesus’ parables or teachings is his most important work.
   1. This parable of judgment is so stark in its message that it feels to me that it is for sure up there in the top three.
2. It is so important because in many ways I think it boils down very starkly what is the essence of good religion. It depicts this essence as being humane.
3. Christ’s message was that the reign of God, the kingdom of God, was present and to be found and to be extended by those who were captured by his Message, captured by the Gospel.
   1. He said that the reign of God was within those who very naturally care for and provide for those who are in some type of significant need. The poor, the sick, the lonely, the oppressed, the tortured, the imprisoned, the hungry, or the thirsty.
      1. I say “very naturally” because in the story Jesus told, those who fed the hungry, and who gave water to the thirsty, and who visited the prisoners, and so on were not even aware that they did these things.
      1. They did not do these things from calculation in order to achieve some reward but they did these things because it was simply their character to do these things.
      1. They were full of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus.

See Christ in yourself and see Christ in others.

The powerful message in Jesus’ Magnum Opus: as you exercise compassion for others, you care for Jesus, you care for God.

1. You are religious, you are spiritual, and you are grounded in Jesus as you are moved by people’s suffering.
   1. A monk’s greatest desire was to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Over the course of many years he was able to save and beg the sum of 30 pounds: just enough to take him to his destination. The monk stepped out through the gates of the monastery to begin his journey, but no sooner had he done so than he met a beggar, bent low to the ground, picking herbs.
   1. The beggar asked him where he was going. “To the Holy Sepulcher,” he replied. “By God’s grace I shall walk around it three times, kneel and pray, and return home a new and better person.”
   1. The beggar looked at him with longing in his eyes. He said, “Give me the 30 pounds for my hungry family, walk around me three times, kneel and pray, and return to your monastery.”
   1. The monk paused, scratched the ground with his staff, looked into his heart, and gave the beggar the 30 pounds. He walked around him three times, knelt and prayed. He returned to the monastery a new and better person, for he had seen in the beggar Christ himself, right there in the monastery (Nikos Kazantzakis, The Greek Passion, Simon and Schuster, 1954).
2. The compassionate heart and spirit is the heart and spirit of Jesus.
   1. Your Lord wants you to see him in yourself and in others. As you do this it changes you.
   1. By seeing in this way you are likely to act compassionately in the Way of Jesus.
   1. When you and I care for they who are among the least of these, it is because our hearts, like God’s heart, are broken by their plight as well. When your hearts are broken by the things that break the heart of God you are among the sheep, not among the goats.
   1. As you grow in your understanding of the unconditional love and compassion of God you are consumed and absorbed into God’s own heart.
      1. My college chaplain told of his friend who worked as an administrator for a leprosarium in India for a couple of years. This place was for people suffering with leprosy and who were the poorest of the poor. A person could only be there if they did not have the means to go to their own medical doctor. So not only did these people suffer from leprosy but they also were the poorest of the poor.
      1. There was a terrible flood in a certain region of India and so at worship one day at the leprosarium a collection was being taken to be given for flood relief. The administrator was sitting at the front of the gathering of worshipers when a very old woman, terribly scarred, came up and silently, very humbly placed a single silver rupee next to his chair on the floor.
         1. Why did she do what she did? She was not offering this money in order to get into the hospital; she was already in the hospital.
         1. She was not offering this money in order to gain medical treatment for her sores or spiritual balm for her soul. She was already being treated medicinally and she had already heard the gospel and accepted it.
         1. She was not offering this money in order to gain these things but it was because she had these things that she was offering everything that she had to benefit those who were going through the ravages of this flood.

Seeing Christ in yourself and seeing Christ in others is a matter of being simply and truly human. It is about being humane.

1. This world needs the church to be good humans.
   1. Jesus really taught how to be a good human. He modeled genuine humanity.
   1. I was in a conversation with pastor friends the other day and one father was talking about how he and his wife tell their children “just be human.” Be a human as God made you to be!
   1. Look for Christ in yourself and in others with compassion.
      1. A nurse tells the story of caring for a seriously ill boy in a pediatric cancer ward.
      1. “It was as I was going through my routine that, quite unexpectedly, something extraordinary happened. As I looked at the boy, suddenly, I saw Jesus looking back at me with eyes of great, great love. The child was still there. And Jesus was there. They were both there coexisting together, looking back at me. I had to stop what I was doing. I was utterly stunned. I wanted to fall on my knees right there in the boy’s room, but I couldn’t move. The Lord was right there. I was touching him.
      1. I suppose this didn’t last long, but for me there was no time to it. I was outside time. Then the boy made a sign with his hand. It was a sign in American Sign Language. And he (He) said to me, “Look. Do you know what this sign means?” And he replied to me, “This sign means I love you. See. I love you.” And as he had been, he gazed at me. I copied the sign back to him, “I love You, too,” I said.
      1. And then it was just the child and me again. I recovered my composure, read books to him and finished all his evening cares.
      1. After a while, he slept while I wrote in his chart. The rest of the evening was routine territory. But within me, all was forever changed. (Christine Cowan, in the Midrash e-newsletter, February 16, 2007).

The church of Jesus Christ has a mission now as ever it did. Open your eyes to notice. Followers of Jesus, peel away any walls; lower any defenses that might get in the way of being human, especially to those who are most desperate.

See Christ in yourself, see Christ in others, and see him in creation.

1. Maybe take up the practice of a mother as she puts her children to bed at night. As she tucks her children into bed each night, their teeth brushed and their hair still damp from the bathtub, she asks them a question: “Where did you meet God today?” And they tell her one by one:
   1. A teacher helped me,
   1. There was a homeless person in the park,
   1. I saw a tree with lots of flowers in it.
      1. She tells them where she met God, too. Before the children drop off to sleep, the stuff of the day has become the substance of their prayer.
2. On this “Christ the King” Sunday, think of it more as “Christ the Center” Sunday. Envision the dominion of your reigning Lord Jesus who came to reconcile all things, who came not to be served but to serve.
   1. Remain in that very realm!