November 22, 2020 (Christ the King Sunday) – Matthew 25:31-46
Matthew 25:31-46
The Reign of Compassion
Reign of Christ/Christ the King Sunday – November 22, 2020
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
In the end, Jesus will reign in love.
And anything that gets in the way of that will be gone forever – this is the good news.
On this last Sunday of the church year, we always look ahead to the end of all things.
We look forward in hope – to an end that is nothing but love, harmony, and peace.
Everything else is . . . provisional.
Suffering will come to an end.
Human beings judging one another will come to an end.
Racism will come to an end.
Poverty and hunger will come to an end.
Violence and death will come to an end.
This pandemic and its isolation will come to an end.
These things are not eternal.
Only love is eternal.
“Christ the King” Sunday – or, perhaps better, “Reign of Christ” Sunday –
is a relatively new festival in the church year.
It was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 specifically in response to rising Nationalism.
It was in 1925, for example, that Mussolini dissolved the Italian Parliament and
named himself dictator – the same year Hitler resurrected the Nazi party in Germany.
In the United States, membership in the Ku Klux Klan was at an all-time high.
Christ the King Sunday was Pius’s way of reframing what is truly important and
re-focussing on Jesus’ emphasis of service and neighbour-love and
his work to ultimately reconcile and bind together all things and
all peoples in love.
95 years later, obviously, we still need Reign of Christ Sunday.
The chosen Gospel reading for Christ the King Sunday was maybe not an obvious one.
You’d think maybe a reading showing Jesus’s majesty would have been chosen,
like a scene in Revelation with Jesus decked out in a fancy robe and a jeweled crown.
Or maybe Jesus shining and radiating glory on a mountaintop.
But no, what we get is something very very different.
What we get is Jesus as the poor.
Jesus as the hungry and thirsty.
Jesus as the imprisoned and the sick.
Jesus as the stranger.
Those who have served Jesus in this life, it will be revealed, are those who have served
“the very least of these, my brothers and sisters.”
This is the Jesus we get on Christ the King Sunday.
It may not always be the Jesus or the God we want.
I have said many times that we must accept God for who God is,
and not simply turn God into who we want God to be.
That is disastrous in relationships and it is disastrous in religion.
But it is who God is – and if we want a relationship with Jesus that relationship will only come
in our relationship with the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the stranger.
For, Jesus reveals today, that is where we can find him – that is where we can serve him.
I was reminded this week of a famous sculpture unveiled in Toronto in 2013.
It is called “Homeless Jesus” and it was made by sculptor Timothy Schmalz.
It was inspired by this passage in Matthew and shows Jesus, as a homeless person,
sleeping on a park bench.
In all respects it looks like someone with no home, sleeping in a public place.
Did not Jesus also say, “Foxes have beds, and birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head”?
Jesus is huddled beneath a blanket that covers his face and hands.
In fact, the only way to identify the figure as Christ is to see the marks of crucifixion
on his feet – this is the resurrected Jesus, still bearing the scars of the nails.
The sculpture is both loved and hated.
Some can’t stand it and find it offensive, while the Pope has blessed it.
Still, it is undeniable that Jesus, in the clearest possible language today, simply says,
“That is where I am.”
The goats are those who simply do nothing for the hungry, the poor, the sick, the stranger.
Jesus seems to be saying that doing nothing is not an option for a Christian.
They are surprised to learn that that is where the risen Jesus was!
The sheep who are welcomed into the divine presence, on the other hand, are also surprised!
They are very surprised to learn that when they served the hungry, the poor, the sick and
the stranger they were serving Jesus.
They weren’t doing it to get into heaven or to get into the divine good books.
They were doing it because it simply needed to be done.
Because their neighbours were in need.
They were doing it out of love and compassion.
So there is somewhere, after all, where Christ is reigning in love:
in all these myriad, down-to-earth acts of compassion.
In the end, everything and all people will be bound together in love of God.
But even now, even here, some things and some people are bound together in love.
And that is where Jesus and his love are reigning, even now.
One day, in Calcutta’s massive train station, Mother Theresa found an elderly man,
lying unconscious.
He had wounds that were infected and badly needed care,
although it was unclear how much longer he would live.
Theresa took him home with her, where she cleaned his wounds, prayed with him,
and just say with him and held his hands.
He regained consciousness just long enough to look at her and say, “Thank you.”
Shortly after that, he died.
That evening, as she was debriefing the day with the other Sisters of Mercy, she said,
“I had the privilege today of caring for the dying, wounded Christ.”
In the end, what separates the sheep from the goats isn’t what they believed or
what church they belonged to.
Rather, it was compassion.
Each of us, if we’re honest, is part sheep, and part goat.
We are none of us perfect. We all make mistakes.
Sometimes we do things we shouldn’t and neglect to do the things we should.
But slowly Jesus and his love are transforming us into our best selves.
Slowly Jesus is loving us into loveliness.
Slowly we are becoming compassion.
For some of us, that transformation is not happening fast enough.
We all fail – but I’m here to remind you to be patient, and exercise compassion on yourself too.
I hope, when you look at First Lutheran Church, you see a place where Jesus and his
compassion are reigning, even now.
First Lutheran Church is not perfect – and I am certainly not perfect –
but let us be gentle with one another and keep moving forward in grace and in love.
It is our great privilege, as staff, to have our building situated where it is.
Nearly every day we receive a phone call from Jesus or a knock at the door from Jesus
asking us politely if we have any food to give.
Not everyone has that privilege.
But as members of First Lutheran Church, we do.
We have the opportunity to serve Jesus every day.
And that, surely, is a good thing.
Compassion is reigning here, at Sargent and Victor –
a station on the way to the end of all things, to the good end of all things.
We minister with our feet on the ground even as we look forward in hope to a great day,
when all things, and not just a few things, are bound together in a great love.
We look forward to that day with Julian of Norwich,
who had a very hopeful vision of the future in troubled times even as we are in now,
and this is what she wrote:
In the end, all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of all things will be well –
and we shall see it.
On this last Sunday of the church year, we look forward in hope –
to an end that is nothing but love, harmony, and peace.
Everything else is . . . provisional.
Suffering will come to an end.
Human beings judging one another will come to an end.
Racism will come to an end.
Poverty and hunger will come to an end.
Violence and death will come to an end.
This pandemic and its isolation will come to an end.
These things are not eternal.
Only love is eternal. Only compassion is eternal. Amen
Pastor Michael Kurtz
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
