Text: Matthew 25:35-40
35 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,
36 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.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?
38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?
39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
INTRODUCTION
When I contemplate the history of Christianity in this country, a land that some claim was founded on Christian principles, I wonder, what bible guided the early Christian settlers. I wonder how those who purported to live by the tenants of Scripture rationalized the genocide of indigenous people, while their sacred texts declared, “thou shalt not kill.” How did those who owned, beat and raped their slaves justify the mistreatment of God’s children while claiming to live by a treatise that declared, Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets. Even today, we have to ask the questions, How can so-called Christians, behave as if God doesn’t even exist? This question becomes further problematized in my intellectual and theological formation as I turn over and over in my mind, the question of how can those who claim to know the Lord as Savior and King oppress others while preaching hate or fear and loathing of their fellow brothers and sisters?
Where is the love of God in the suffering facing “the least of these?” How can those claiming a relationship with God write off the poor, the elderly, the disenfranchised as simply moochers and freeloaders and “less thans?” I visited Friends of the Homeless this past week and was impressed with the work that Kathy Tobin and the staff there do to help “the least of these.” Those on the fringes, those in need of a second chance, those in need of help and prayer, those who are forgotten by those of us that shout and dance and sing and praise in church.
Every week, we’re illuminated by preaching that prides itself on ̳rightly dividing the word of truth‘ from sacred texts and about social practices. So, when we think about the history of America, we’ve got to consider the dichotomy. This is a situation in which the marginalized namely, people of color, wrestle with notions of theodicy while being imprisoned by a colonizing religion that taught us to be subservient…..a religion that taught us to worship a Savior who looked liked someone else….we hung pictures of a blue eyed, pale skinned Savior in churches where dark skinned folk were paying tithes.
So, unlike the Black and Beautiful‖ beloved denoted in the biblical Song of Solomon, Black women‘s real life experiences in particular illustrate an American nightmare caused by a religion that justified their rape and inhumane treatment.
COLOR PURPLE
A salient example of this can be found in Alice Walker‘s novel The Color Purple. In the novel, Celie, y’all remember Celie don’t you? “You and me us never part, makidada…..” Celie, a confused Christian who was taught to worship a god that's a big, white, old, bearded, barefooted man with bluish gray eyes finds herself wanting more and ends up disavowing a god to whom
she once bared her soul. In a letter to her sister, Nettie, she writes: “I don't write to God no more, I write you. What happen to God? ast Shug. Who that? I say.
She look at me serious. Big a devil as you is, I say, you not worried bout no God, surely. She say, "Wait a minute. Hold jus a minute here. Just because us I don't harass it like some people us know don't mean I ain't got religion."
What God do for me? I ast.She say, Celie! Like she shock. He gave you life, good health...Yeah, I say, and he gave me a lynched daddy, a crazy mama, a lowdown dog of a step pa and a sister I probably won't ever see again. Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful and lowdown. She say. Miss Celie You better hush. God might hear you. Let 'im hear me, I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different
place.....
There was a world of difference that existed between Celie and her perception of a Eurocentric, anthropomorphic, and sexist image of God that was made all the more injurious because he is found to be not only alien in nature but more importantly alienating by disposition. And we know all too well how and why this alien and alienating God came into her consciousness to forever separate her from a liberating salvation.
This god she came to know was most probably manifested through an oppressive theology and demonizing preaching or, (as Renita Weems puts it) through the hard work of preachers who stand vigilantly silent in the face of death dealing social oppression. Preachers who preach blessing plans and prosperity, that preach a gospel of rejoicing within the four walls of the church, while the world around them is in chaos. There are many today who share Celie‘s poignant depiction of religion. Though they may not be able to articulate their experience of cognitive dissonance, but if they could, they would profess that the world would be a better place if God could see the world through their eyes.
Here, the voice of Celie represents a story that is well known but never told. The moral wisdom yet spiritual angst of those who have been rendered silent and invisible by the lack of ethics in our preaching and our service to humanity. Many, like Celie, have neither the power nor social regard to engage ―man or God. Their experience of what it means to be human is thus denied. They are mystified by everyday well intentioned and Godfearing men and women who claim to see the humanity in everyone but ignore it in the “least of these.”
So what do we do with the Celies of our world, with the “least of these,” who we either see in our pews, have run out of our churches, or who would never enter into our unwelcoming gates? How can we decenter ourselves from our privileged positions of preacherly and praiserly comfort while simultaneously placing at the center of our sermons, teachings, thoughts and actions the constructive envisioning offered to us by the most marginalized
amongst us?
Herein lies the crux of my paramount concern as a Christian scholar, pastoral activist and I hope these are urgent questions for those of us who dare to imagine that the command of Jesus to care for the lease is the most urgent concern facing the Church today.
IN THE TEXT
Many of us know the list Jesus articulated: when i was hungry you gave me food when i was thirsty you gave me something to drink when i was a stranger you welcomed me when i was naked you gave me clothing when i was sick you took care of me just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. My sisters and brothers, in the ministry of the church, our faith and our witness should not be easily checked at the door of the church while gerrymandered elections or specious claims of weapons of mass destruction are part of an evil swill.
The church cannot be lulled to sleep by musicals and conferences while debt in the trillions create an economic perfect storm and while domestic programs like education, health care, and welfare are on the chopping block of sequester while those in congress look like the bobble head dolls of carnage for refusing to have a meaningful, constructive, strategic, and spiritually deep conversation on what plagues the nation and the world. Yes, we need to talk about race and racism…..It should not be so it is easy to forget the ongoing obscenity of the aftermath of when the levees broke in New Orleans.
The ninth ward is yet not rebuilt. The disaster of a plan that unfolded in New Orleans in particular was a grand scale of failing to live an active corporate witness of Matthew’s words…….to us a white man and woman were captioned “finding” food a black man was captioned “looting” all three were carrying food, not tv sets, gameboys, or rims what is looting when all the governmental mechanisms have broken down and left you to die hungry, thirsty, alone, naked, sick—unwelcome in your country, unwelcome in your city, unwelcome in your neighborhood
WE'RE CALLED TO BE LEADERS
Matthew calls us to righteousness, not to performing a minstrel show of holified bunkum. You and I are being called to be the leaders who will change our world beginning yesterday, beginning now and we no longer have the focus of the civil rights movement in our hands, we no longer have buffoons like bull connor whose behavior was so obvious that all God’s children could see he wasn’t right we no longer have the martins and malcolms and ellas and fanny lous to lead us we are who God’s got and we have the ability to shake the foundations with our witness, we are the prophets who stand in the gap and demand of ourselves and others, to live our ideals of righteousness and to stand with the least of these who are members of the family of God. Yes, we’ve got issues, but we have the spiritual and prophetic resources to deal with them if we lean into our faith and put our trust in the fact that God has called us here.
GOD WON’T LEAVE US
God never leaves us abandoned or alone in that call, there are no days off! Even when there are roadblocks of ignorance and detours of complacency put in our way, we may face stop signs that would tell us our commitment to break free of society’s hatreds and fears is utopian. We may find yellow lights that tell us the work is finished now that we have elected a nice black man as president, now that we’re driving beamers and benzes and lexus’ and lincolns…now that we’re going to Harvard and Yale and Princeton, now that we’re showing up in Forbes magazine, now that we’ve moved up to the East side, to the deluxe apartment in the sky we’re being told that we’ve arrived and that the work is finished.
We may face the sharp curves of indifference, arrogance, ignorance, and empty headedness masquerading as mission, justice, love, hope, and peace. We may get caught on the warning tracks of confused vision, confused strategies, and sometimes not having a clue. We may get behind some slow-moving vehicles on the road that continue to slow our progress. The Supreme Court is contemplating whether to repeal the key component of the Voting Rights Act of 1965…..The Congress doesn’t have the testicular fortitude to pass laws that ban assault rifles that are killing our babies in the streets…..city governments don’t know how to fix a broken educational system and all the while, the church is sitting idly by having musicals, conferences, manpower, womanpower.......and leaving the major decisions of the world in the hands of folk who don’t know and don’t wanna know the Lord! So we stay in the background, calling ourselves praying for the situation, which is really just another way of saying we’re too busy to get involved because yall know yall aint doing all that much praying in the first place!
I know Imma lose y'all here but I know we’re not praying because the bible says that the effectual fervent prayers of the righteous availeth much. I know we’re not praying because I know prayer changes things! I know we’re not praying because when we call for a prayer meeting……we can’t fill up two pews but when we call for a musical, a toy give-away or a fish fry we don’t have enough seats. Can I just be real? We’ve instituted a PRAYER LINE, all the saints have to do is get up in the morning and call in, and we still can’t get many of them to pray, so please, stop lying in church telling folk that you’ll be praying for them. You don’t half pray for yourself, unless you’re in trouble or you want something…stop telling me you’re going to pray for me……
So, the church is in the background, behind a slow moving vehicle and we always seem to reach a dead end. Why? Because we don’t belong in a travel lane behind the world. We’re not meant to travel in the backseat while the politicians are driving the car. Our means of transportation is the glory train that always reaches its destination—so it is up to each of us not to get off too soon or at the wrong stop for we are being shaped and molded by a spectacular savior who offers us life over death and witness over complacency and strength over weakness and wisdom over foolishness.
My sisters and brothers, we are being held in God’s span less hands and He has given us the ability to step into the lives of the least of these who are found in the many-colored spectrum of our humanity. We don’t have time to take a break! Now i believe that most of us are hankering for a faith that comes from seeking to live in righteousness to move beyond a ritualized, sterilized, codified, and cul-de-sac faith to one that comes from the heart and soul. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to do church as usual. I’m looking for a faith is so dynamic, strong, so tough that we can craft a community of witnesses from it…..a community of righteousness striving to reach out to the least of these. God is looking for folk who are not just interested in shouting and dancing, but He’s looking for folk who will witness through their spirituality and demand that we be the best of who we can be as a church….folk who will refuse to accept mere spiritual calisthenics when folks are hungry, thirsty, outcast, naked, and sick.
No no no, we aint got time to take a break! Time is out for celebrating MLK in a one-day-a-year feel-good time-paid- holiday celebration of inept kumbayas and sashaying halleluijahs…..Time is out for thinking that two elections in which we finally did the right thing has solved all of our issues
No, no, no, my brothers and sisters, the fact of the matter is we are our issues, and wherever we go, there they are. I love the President….I pray for him often, but don’t get it twisted, we can never set up one very human man, to be the stand-in for our atonement. No, no, he can’t be our bulwark of salvation.
We still have work to do. We’ve got to dig deep within our hearts and souls to find the people God is calling us to be and once we find those people, live our lives as torch lights of mercy, lanterns of hope, beacons of love, and embers of justice there are no days off, my brothers and sisters! God is looking for a church that can reach out to the poor the dispossessed the lonely the rejected as brothers and sisters and not as a feel good mission project.
CONCLUSION
What we are and we must never forget that our faith is to be lived from the inside out….to be lived from our center, our soul, our hearts and that means there are no days off! There’s no time to take a break! No matter how well things are for us individual, there’s no time for a break!
We must step into the great challenges we have before us, there’s no time for a break! We must live in the promises and refuse to accept a trail of broken promises as signs of salvation, there’s no time for a break! We can destroy hunger, We can conquer hate, there’s no time for a break! We are the righteous standing with the least of these, there’s no time for a break!
No matter where you come from in life and where you hope to go in this life and beyond there’s no time for a break! No matter what color you are there’s no time for a break! no matter where your people come from there’s no time for a break! No matter how many times you are called too tenderhearted or too concerned about “those people” there’s no time for a break! No matter how many times politicians and public figures and other alleged christians pick up the bible to abuse it and then use it to ratify their personal agendas, there’s no time for a break! no matter what the world hands us,
we give back love
we stand for goodness
we live our faith
we live with integrity
we live God’s grace large
we stand with the least of these
we build bridges of salvation that can carry the depth and breadth of humanity over them. There’s no time for a break! for “the future started yesterday, and we’re already late”
