A Sermon by the Rev. Thee Smith, Priest Assoc.
In
the name of God, our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend! Amen.
A friend of mine
likes the following riddle. "There
are two kinds of people," it begins; "those who divide the world into two kinds
of people, and those who don't." Then he
proceeds to unpack the riddle.
I wonder [he asks] . . .
whether there really can be a group of people who don't divide. Just making the
observation itself creates a division between two groups of people: (1) those
who divide the world into two kinds of people and (2) those who don't. As soon
as you say there's a group of folks who don't make such divisions, you've made
just such a division!
Now right here I want to tack onto my friend's riddle a
joke that I like to tell because it allows me to have a little fun with my own
name. And I don't mean my first name!
Once upon a time all the
people in the world were named "˜Smith.'
But one day the great majority of people did something so bad that they disappointed
God and God had to punish them. And this
was the punishment: all the good people
got to keep the name, "˜Smith' [smile], but the bad people had to get all the
other names like "˜Brown' and "˜Jones' and "˜Jackson,' etc. So that's why people have so many different
names in the world today. And that's how
you can tell who the really special
people are"”don't you know?
So there it is!
End of joke. What do you think,
huh? A little silly, right, even
inane. But it does illustrate quite well
my friend's point about dividing the world into two groups of people. So imagine how you would tell the same joke,
but substituting your family name for mine:
Once upon a time all the
people in the world were named, well, with your family name; fill-in the blank
with whatever it is . . . But one day
the great majority of people did something so bad that they disappointed God
and God had to punish them. And this was
the punishment: all the good people
got to keep the name"”again, fill-in the blank with your name. . . But the bad people had to get all the other
names"”and here, fill-in the blank with whatever family name you don't
like! So that's why people have so many
different names in the world today. And
that's how you can tell who the really special
people are"”don't you know?
Oh well, so much for humor. But that's actually what we all do in our
different families and groups, isn't it?
So the joke raises precisely the question that my friend asks following
his riddle: "Can there ever be a group
of folks who don't divide the world into two kinds of people?" he asks. And this is how I've heard him answer his own
question:
If there ever can be [he
speculates] I think it will be followers of Christ. I think it's what we're
called to be. St. Paul, in several places, says what he says in Galatians
(3:28): "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or
free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ
Jesus." . . . Yes, for St. Paul,
being a disciple of Christ means living without distinctions between groups of
people.
Why? Because usually in our
divisions, one group is up and the other down; one group is in, the other out.
We keep peace among the insiders by banding together against the outsiders.
Jesus came to end all that by himself becoming an outsider. He let himself be
declared a criminal and executed on a cross outside the city walls of
Jerusalem. St. Paul even went so far as to put it this way: "For our sake
he made him to be sin who knew no sin,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor. 5:21)
You see, our most basic division of the world is between sinner and righteous.
God let Jesus be declared sinner in order to show God's righteousness of not
allowing such divisions between peoples in the first place. Yes, Jesus came to
put a stop to our habit of dividing the world in two.
Now right here let me interrupt my friend's comments with
another humorous illustration. But this
one describes even more forcefully what he calls in the last sentence I just
quoted, "our habit of dividing the world in two." This "habit" is universal, and it has been
labeled with other terms like "˜dualism' (Richard Rohr) and "˜polarization' and
"˜binary opposition.' Notice our
human"”all too human compulsion to make endless pairs of polarized opposites in
the following example.
Once I saw this guy on a
bridge about to jump [the story goes]. I said, "Don't do it!" He
said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe
in God?"
He said, "Yes." I
said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A
Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said,
"Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said,
"Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern
Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too!
Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern
Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative
Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern
Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes
Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative
Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist
Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative
Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die,
heretic!" And I pushed him over. [Elmo
Philips, "The Best God Joke Ever; and Its mine;" The Guardian; Sept. 28, 2005; www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion ]
Well, there it is.
By the way, that joke from the 1980s has been voted the funniest
religious joke of all time. And I think
it's pretty clear why. It's because it features
one of the most universal dynamics in human relationships. But now, consider my friends concluding
reflections on this dynamic as it plays-out in today's gospel scene; the scene
of Judgment Day.
Today's gospel gives another
example. Those who are declared righteous by the Son of Man in the end are
those who didn't play the usual games of dividing the world between those up
and those down. The hungry and thirsty, the stranger and poorly dressed, the
sick and in prison, these are those who generally count in the down-an-out
group. Yet God's righteous are surprised to hear that that's exactly where
Christ was encountered in their lives. When they showed mercy to the least of
this world, they showed mercy to Christ, who came to break down those dividing
walls.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[In Jesus' prophecy] There
will no longer be two groups, the up-and-ins and the down-and-outs. In Christ
Jesus we will all be one, all be made brothers and sisters.
[Of course] There is one
problem with this parable, though. The Son of Man does his own division between
folks. The king separates between the sheep and the goats, those who find
eternal life and those who are given eternal fire. Is this any better than our
human forms of righteous vs. sinner? Why would Christ have to die on the cross
as a sinner only to end up with an eternal form of dividing between sinner and
righteous?
Let's imagine this parable a
bit differently. For, even if Jesus tells it as the end of the story, he is
telling it at a moment when his end of the story on the cross hasn't come yet.
They can't understand what that will mean yet. So let's imagine two things
about this story. First, that the cross has now happened for us listeners. How does
that change things?
Now here, we are to imagine a
supernatural scene where the sheep and the goats are separated on opposite
sides of a great chasm.
. . . But the sheep
just stand there, looking across to the other side, their eyes wide not with
rejoicing or satisfaction, and surely not with gloating, but with astonishment
and the kind of fear the compassionate have when they see others in danger. For
over there, on the other side, among the goats, are so many of those for whom
they have cared all this while, and now what will become of those others? Are
they to be separated forever? Who will care for them now?
The sheep know
about many kinds of starvation, illness, and imprisonment. They have fed the hungry
with bread . . . and given water to the thirsty. They have visited those with
pneumonia, cancer and AIDS. They have visited in penitentiaries. But they have ministered to
others in need as well . . . provided sustenance . . . [to fill] the very
cravings that drove the goats to selfishness and seemingly unconcerned
arrogance. The sheep have welcomed and befriended [those] . . . so estranged
they'd become strangers even to themselves. And the sheep kept visiting the
cells of those imprisoned in hatred, the goats who hated everyone, and
themselves most of all . . .
The sheep had given
so much of themselves to those others. How could someone now separate them
forever from those others? How could the Son of Man in this moment call them
"blessed?" How could they rejoice over their inheritance as they looked
across the chasm, toward those who remained lost, sick, naked, and imprisoned
in their own pitiful selfishness? How could they ever again sing a glad song?
As we eavesdrop, we
hear them weeping. Then they address the Son of Man . . . "Son of Man . .
."
we
cannot in this moment do nothing. We must go across to them," the sheep
insist. "You must let us go to them."
The son of man
studies them and calmly says, "You cannot go across. It is too late. For
you there is no more time." For a moment there is stillness.
"Then you must
go," declare the sheep. "Son of Man, you must remember . . . the
moment when the soldiers pinned you to the cross, pounded in the nails, and you
were condemned. You must remember the thirst out of which you cried, 'My God,
my God, why have you forsaken me?' Remem-ber the torture of abandonment! You
must go to them, Son of Man!"
A deep and heavy
silence comes over the judgment scene. The Son of Man says nothing. He looks at
the sheep, his own eyes now wide, looking like theirs. Then he turns, and he
steps across. How could he not heed their voices? He had taught them to talk
like that. They were using his own best lines on him. He would go. He could not
judge from vengeance. He would have to go -- to Bethlehem, to Calvary, to Antioch,
to Rome, to Kansas City, to Calcutta, yes, even to hell. He would spend
eternity, if it took that, like a shepherd forever in search of lost sheep,
working restlessly to slake the final thirst and break down the last prison.
Some might hide from him forever, but his heart told him, and the look in the
eyes of those sheep told him, he could never give up. If he was to be king, he
must be a shepherd king, a tireless, searching king, a king with holes in his
hands and crowned forever with thorns, scouring endlessly the depths of hell,
looking, calling, and . . .
. . . hoping one day to sit at the right hand
of God, at table with everyone, every last one, to eat and drink of the supper
which will have no end . . . [where] Both halves of the human race would have a
future [the righteous, and the former but now redeemed unrighteous]. [Frederick Niedner, from Proclaiming a Cruciform
Eschaton, a small booklet published for the 1998 Institute of Liturgical
Studies at Valparaiso University, pages 5-8. Accessed Nov. 19, 2011 at: http://girardianlectionary.net/res/niedner_matt25.htm
]
Now here, regardless of whether or not we can agree about
how to interpret Jesus' prophecy about Judgment Day, we can find our unity in the prayer appointed for this Sunday. It's the Collect found at the top of page 185
of the Book of Common Prayer. Please
find a prayerbook there in the pew rack in front of you, and pray with me the
Collect appointed for this last Sunday in the church season of Pentecost,
Christ the King Sunday. Pease join me
now in praying the Collect for today.
Almighty
and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your
well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that
the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought
together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the
Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
[From:
Lessons Appointed for Use on the Last Sunday of Pentecost, Christ the King,
Year A; Episcopal Church adaptation of the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL);
accessed 11/13/2011 at www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp29_RCL.html ]
_________________
Acknowledgment: For the sources used in this sermon I
am greatly indebted to Paul Nuechterlein, editor of Girardian Reflections on
the Lectionary, Proper 28 (Nov. 13-19);
Year A (Revised October 3, 2011); accessed 11/13/2011 at http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/xrstkinga.htm