NEW YEAR'S EVE, 12/31/2007

Sermon on Matthew 25:31-46, by David Zersen

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (NIV)

AT THE END OF THE DAY....

A year ago when I was teaching a course on Reformation History in Accra, Ghana, I enjoyed listening to the students use expression that were not typically part of my vocabulary. Although English is the official language of Ghana, there are many influences upon it not only from Britain (once its Colonial lord), but also from the various tribal languages. Students loved to summarize a thought or make a generalization about something by saying, "At the end of the day... (as an example), Luther might have remained a monk if he had not internalized his parents brutal treatment of him as a child." Whether we agree with this statement or not, it is true that summarization has an important role in our reflections. We like to say, "When all is said and done..." or "In the final analysis..." It helps us to pull things together so that we, at least, feel we have grasped the meaning of a moment.

About a decade ago, a popular movie came out which addressed this thought in a poignant way. Anthony Hopkins, starring in what some say was his greatest role, plays a dedicated butler named Stevens in "Remains of the Day." Serving in the manor house of Lord Darlington, he doesn't allow himself to be seduced by the wiles of a female servant who is attracted to him, nor does he pay attention to the parties which Darlington throws for Nazi sympathizers. He is above all that because in the evening, when he reflects on what took place during the day, he wants to remember how dutiful and loyal he was as a butler, more than anything else.

On the one hand, such loyalty evokes a great sadness in the viewer because we wonder whether he couldn't at least have allowed himself some personal enjoyment and pleasure. There are many saints of the church who wanted to be known only for their obedience or perfection and ended up leaving a model that few of us would like to emulate. Admittedly, the times were different, but does the God we love and worship really cherish the faithful prayers of those who abandon the world just to murmur petitions in caves or rude cells in dank monasteries? Some would challenge us for raising such a question, but the evangelical tradition out of which I come allows me only a resounding "no"!

On the other hand, and that is the point of our text this evening, most of us probably need to be challenged not be overzealous in our discipleship, but to look away from self-indulgence to seek to serve others. A car manufacturer produces the Christmas TV commercial that really catches us off guard on this matter this year. In a humorous way, it shows a man getting all kinds of gadgets and gifts that he doesn't really need or want, like a game-board-sized calculator or a martial arts defensive weapon he can hardly manipulate. At the end of the day, what should he rather do, if indulge himself a little by buying something he really needs, like a luxury automobile! And the commercial speaks to us because we know that, in the end, that's what we'd really like to. Meet our needs. Satisfy our desires. Fulfill our passions. That's after all who we really are--self-serving, self-indulgent human beings. Of course, we are all at different places on the spectrum in this matter, but few of us take our vacations in the Sudan bringing water to thirsty children and few of us volunteer at the local shelter for abused women.

Jesus seeks to give us balance

Which is why Jesus uses an extremely creative approach to get us thinking about others-others who find themselves on the borders of our society: the sick, the imprisoned, the disabled, and the hungry. In our society, we may not have the extremes that existed in Jesus' day or perhaps in desperate places in our world today. There are no naked people and certainly fewer desperate strangers. Except in some really tight seasons, there is usually room in the Inn. Nevertheless, Jesus is pressing us to see what he sees, and we might give a lot to see things as he saw them.

Compassion was Jesus' gift, the ability to recognize needs and to want to respond to them. This didn't mean that he had no personal concerns for himself, but that he went out of his way to respond to troubled souls. It's what we appreciate about him most because even if most of us are able to take care of our physical needs, there are times when all of us feel like a stranger, feel like lost sheep, feel like we want to die. It is Jesus' love for us that helps us overcome our despair, our guilt, and our anger. Knowing that he accepted the brutal condescension of people who thought his compassion for the poor made him a troublemaker, which in his case took him to a cross, we can be moved to be his kind of person. There will always be people who are "in it for themselves," as we say, but at the end of the day, we want the kind of balance that Jesus can give us. We want to see what he saw in people, and strive to let his love live in us too. We want it because it allows the only kind of a world in which we would like to live-one in which we are loved so that we can love others.

We can make a difference

Recently I attended a series of presentation on the homeless people in our society. It was an eye opener for me because I probably shared many of the assumptions about the homeless which all of us share. I came to understand the 40-70% of the homeless are families, that 30% of that figure are elderly. I learned that 25-44% of homeless people have jobs, but that a minimum wage does not give them enough money to rent an apartment or room, especially one large enough for their family members. I learned that in Austin, where I live, there are shelters for the homeless, but on any given night those shelters are 800 beds short of the need. I learned that 46% of homeless people have chronic health conditions.

In many ways, such people represent the urban poor and often the rural poor in our society. We like to celebrate the freedom that laissez faire capitalism allows us in our society, but the fact is that increasingly large numbers of people fall between the cracks in our economic system. For that reason, as Christian people, we have to be concerned about how such problems can be resolved. The Bible is replete with challenges to care for the poor, the needy, the stranger, and the homeless. And today's text makes it clear that, at the end of the day, when all is said an done, what really matters is not whether we get the luxury vehicle that we deserved this Christmas, but whether we addressed the needs of the marginalized people of the world.

How do we go about something like that? One of the things that I learned in the classes I took was that those who stand on the street corners and beg are a small percentage of the homeless. And furthermore, the problems of the homeless-and all of the associated matters that relate to them, like hunger, crime, disease and drug-dependencies-are not solved by giving a few dollars to a man on the street. Such donations tend to focus us away from the larger problem in our society and from the agencies, both governmental and church that attempt to address the problems.

It may be a mistake to introduce the matter of a New Year's resolution here, but it's one that I think as Christians and as churches we need to address. It is simply a scandal that in an otherwise affluent society like our own, we have so many people living below the poverty line, so many without medical insurance, so many homeless and so many without hope. It is true that Jesus is calling us to address these needs, but I strongly believe that he is calling us to address them collectively. The enormous challenges call for study groups and advocacy structures that challenge our government and encourage our churches to seek solutions beyond almsgiving and a shelter for the night.

As Christians, we have been given enormous confidence to address the challenges of the present because our future has been secured. Christ's resurrection sounds a clarion call to work against dehumanizing and defeatist attitudes that believe compassion is not our most important attribute. Beloved, let us love one another, the apostle reminds us, because Christ first loved us. We have another year before us filled with amazing opportunities. If every Christian parish and every Christian congregation would develop an advocacy group for those whom our economic system has not yet embraced, then we are continuing a long faith tradition going back to when our fathers and mothers in the faith were encouraged to support the foreigner, the fatherless and the widows. Passionately we need to consider new approaches to address a problem that haunts us and points a finger at us as we come to the end of another year.

At the end of the day, when we sit like Stevens, the butler, and contemplate what we have done with our 2008, may we rejoice that together we have been challenged by Jesus' inspiring words in this Gospel and that we have, when all is said and done, embraced God's beloved poor in more creative and endearing ways. It is our privilege as citizens in this great democracy, and it is our desire as God's own people.

Prof. Dr. Dr.President Emeritus David Zersen
Concordia University Texas
Austin, Texas

E-Mail: djzersen@aol.com

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