Facial Recognition

I was adjusting the biometric ID on my phone while I was preparing this sermon and started thinking about the things like the algorithms used to identify users’ buying habits and then about how easy it is to access untold quantities of information about you just from plugging your name into your favorite search engine. I was going to use the accessibility of your entire life – including the bad habits – that’s available to any decent hacker – as the metaphor for this sermon’s lesson. But that illustration really fits much better with the final judgment scene in Revelation 20.

“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. [Rev 20:12]

This passage in Matthew doesn’t talk about that book at all. In this scene - although they’re both pictures of the same event - Jesus can tell at a glance between the species. No need here for DNA analysis, a thumbprint on your ID card, or the new retinal scans that are even better than fingerprints. No, what you are is instantly visible to Jesus. “He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left." [Mt 32-33]

So then I got to thinking about how he can tell. What’s the core difference between the sheep and the goat, on the inside, that is, which is where it counts? Well, it really boils down - like so much else Jesus cares about - to relationships. Goats are solitary, and sheep are communal.

It’s a little more complicated than that, of course, but that’s where it begins, with being connected to other people. Now, sheep just huddle together blindly, seeking the familiar warmth and smell. For us, the smell test can be pretty misleading, considering how good we humans are at disguising ourselves. No, Jesus calls us to have our eyes open, to see, to perceive the people around us in a new way. In a way, what Jesus calls us to is sympathy - that is, the ability to “feel with” someone else. There’s a story I like a lot, which I’ve probably used before, but it doesn’t get old.

Gary and Ken had been in school together ever since Ken transferred in from another district in fifth grade. By the time they both graduated, they had been friends for seven years. Can anybody do the math in their head? Right. Twelve minus five is seven. They became friends soon after Ken arrived. This is how it happened. Ken was really skinny and wore glasses and braces and always knew the answers to everything in class. He was kind of clumsy and clueless, was always the last person to be picked for any of the games during recess, and the other boys got into the habit of being pretty mean to him, playing not-so-funny practical jokes like or tripping him when he was carrying his lunch tray so that he’d drop it. One day Gary was coming out of the main door to walk home when he saw some bigger guys “accidentally” knock into Ken so that the big stack of books he was carrying fell into a puddle left over from the morning’s rain. Gary felt sorry for Ken, went over to help pick them up, and offered to walk home with him and help carry the books. They got to talking and Gary found out that Ken was really interesting to talk to, knew all kinds of neat things, and to make a long story short they became really good friends over the next few years. Ken helped Gary with homework and science fair projects, and Gary coached Ken at sports, even though he never became particularly athletic.

On the day they graduated, Ken took Gary aside, saying he had something important to tell him. “You didn’t know this,” Ken said, “but you saved my life.” “What do you mean?” asked Gary. And Ken proceeded to tell him that that long ago day when Gary helped pick his books out of the mud, Ken had been going home to commit suicide. Gary’s act of kindness stopped him.

You never know how important a small act of kindness can be. Most of us aren’t intentionally cruel to the people around us, but too much of the time we never even notice them. How many opportunities to do good, to make a real difference in someone’s life, do we miss because we just aren’t looking? And how often do we decide not to do anything because we’re “too busy” or we “don’t know how” or “it’s someone else’s responsibility?”