Sermon Topic: Commandment Thursday text Matt: 25:41-46 and John 13:34
Matthew 25:41-46 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
The Judgment of the Nations
41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Matthew 25:41-46 The Message (MSG)
41-43 “Then he will turn to the ‘goats,’ the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’
44 “Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’
45 “He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’
46 “Then those ‘goats’ will be herded to their eternal doom, but the ‘sheep’ to their eternal reward.”
Intro
We celebrate Maundy Thursday and we should start with the term “Maundy” Now the English word “Maundy” comes from the Latin, “Mendatum” meaning commandment. Thanks Chuck!
Now on the last night with his disciples Jesus is about to confront his betrayal and arrest as he shares the Lords Supper also commonly referred to as the Last Supper? According to John Jesus washes his disciples feet in an act of servitude then he says to them, chapter 13 verse 34 I give you a new commandment that you should love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
So at its root Maundy Thursday or Commandment Thursday is a celebration of the commandment of Jesus to love one another so when looking at the Matthew 25 text there should be no confusion for the Christian as to how the two texts are related to each other. Jesus instructions was to love or as I would surmise love in this text to be compassionate.
I would like to suggest to you that the Hand that matters most to us tonight in the Left hand of God and those that will be caught in it. You see the text is quite clear that:
41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;
Now some of us are going to have issues with this because you love to see Jesus as compassionate and merciful and reviving and healing but I need to as a Good Pastor point out to you that even with Jesus at some point Compassion runs out. In other words some of the folks in this World are going to hell and you are going because you have chosen to live a nasty, hateful, non-loving life. Yes We need to get real some folks right here in the church by your actions are going to use up your grace and when Jesus comes back find your self in the Left hand of God.
Yes some right here are goanna here Beyoncé sing on Judgment day
To the left, to the left To the left, to the left To the left, to the left
Everything you own in the box to the left
To the left, to the left
Don't you ever for a second get to thinking You're irreplaceable
The first thing to understand about the final judgment is that it cannot be avoided. Regardless of how we may choose to interpret prophecy on the end times, we are told that “it is appointed to men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
As God the Son, Jesus Christ will be the judge (John 5:22).
All unbelievers will be judged by Christ at the “great white throne,” and they will be punished according to the works they have done.
The Bible is very clear that unbelievers are storing up wrath against themselves (Romans 2:5) and that God will “give to each person according to what he has done” (Romans 2:6).
At the final judgment the fate of the unsaved will be in the hands of the omniscient God who will judge everyone according to his soul’s condition.
For now, our fate is in our own hands. Yes the question is real what hand will you be in, will you be pushed to the left hand or the right
The end of our soul’s journey will be either in an eternal heaven or in an eternal hell (Matthew 25:46).
We must choose where we will be by accepting or rejecting the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf, and we must make that choice before our physical lives on this earth come to an end.
After death, there is no longer a choice, and our fate is to stand before the throne of God, where everything will be open and naked before Him (Hebrews 4:13).Romans 2:6 declares that God “will give to each person according to what he has done.”
So real quick 3 points and we can get our meal on.
1) We need to rethink what loving our leader(s) means. I had problems reading the passage on last Sunday where it made reference that Jesus became a Slave for us. I did not do a good Job of unpacking that Sunday but on Commandment Thursday maybe I can work it out. I don’t think we should treat the ones we love like slaves.
a. I don’t think the image of our mothers on mother’s day should be the proverbs 31 woman she was a slave and virtuous woman who worth is at the price of jewels and rubies is in the other name a slave.
b. I don’t think we should treat our President as a slave all of us look at president Obama and his ageing and the apparent stress he is under and no one seems to be giving him a break
c. I don’t think we should be treating our teachers as slaves blaming the failures of society to give children moral and social values on the one who are trying to educate the children.
d. I don’t think we should be treating of community leader, civil, non profit or clergy as slaves asking them to work everyday all day with little pay and less appreciation
e. Lastly I don’t think we should have treated Jesus as a slave I mean look at the record we sent folks to him in the 1000s to be healed. We never gave him a day off, no one every thought about the needs of Jesus the only gifts he received where at birth and death. Now that’s not honor but when you look at it its the way we treat all our leaders and lastly we killed him and others around the issues of Justice.
2) We need to BE REAL with service; Jesus was serving his disciple on Commandment Thursday teaching them how to serve how much serving loving others meant to him. In other words Jesus was making it clear that he felt compassion for the oppressed. THE NEW TESTAMENT clearly portrays Jesus, his family, and, with few exceptions, everyone he encountered throughout his life as impoverished and oppressed, exploited by the religious establishment, brutalized by their Roman colonizers. Jesus simply taught the men and women who heeded his call to put their love for God into practice by loving their neighbors as themselves. This was the Commandment he gave that night.
Jesus was an authentic leader because he was organically tied to the people he served. He was recognized as their leader for one reason and one reason only: because he treated them and their needs as holy.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER WAS a prominent pastor and theologian in his native Germany. In 1943 he was arrested for his part in a plot to end Germany’s bid to rule the world by bringing about Adolph Hitler’s demise. In a letter from the prison where he would meet his death in 1945, Bonhoeffer articulated what he understood as the responsibility of all Christians to treat the people and their needs as holy:
We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians, we must have some share in Christ’s large-heartedness…by showing a real sympathy that springs…from the liberating and redeeming love of Christ for all who suffer. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior.
The Christian is called to sympathy and action, not in the first place by his own sufferings, but by the sufferings of his brethren, for whose sake Christ suffered.
THUS, by telling his disciples to bring the people’s needs before God, Jesus taught them to treat the people’s needs as holy, that is, with reverence and respect and special care. He made clear to them that using their strength, their gifts, their spiritual ministrations to make this a just world was the most important service they could render to God.
He taught them to serve God by making sure that everyone has enough daily bread, that everyone is free from economic violence and exploitation, which everyone is delivered from the clutches of unjust kingdoms, principalities, and powers. In this way Jesus showed that the salvation that his followers must strive for is the salvation of all.
In essence, what Jesus imparted to his disciples was that they must strive for true justice on earth, as in heaven, as their righteous service to God; that they must honor God by doing indiscriminate justice, by lifting up “the least of these” on the altar of God’s justice and mercy; that they must set into motion a revolution of love and holistic spirituality that demonstrates love for God by treating the needs of even the least of God’s children as holy.
A touching and telling example of treating people’s needs as holy by sharing in the “large-heartedness” of Jesus is given to us not by those with much, but by a group of women who had very little.
The Kireka slum on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda, is home to thousands of deeply impoverished residents, including numerous refugees from the decades of long civil war in northern Uganda. Those fortunate enough to have a regular source of income in Kireka derive it almost exclusively from strip-mining rocks for construction purposes. The men mine large boulders and rocks, while the women in Kireka break the mined rocks into gravel with hand-held hammers, backbreaking labor that earns them a mere $1.20 per day. Yet when the women of Kireka heard of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, in spite of their own poverty and slumlike living conditions they began a relief drive for Katrina’s displaced victims. Dozens of women ultimately contributed over 1.6 million Ugandan shillings, or nine hundred dollars, of their hard-earned wages. This was an extraordinary gesture, especially given the fact that these same women had recently donated a portion of their earnings to the victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. What made this all the more extraordinary is that most of the women who contributed were infected with HIV.
There can hardly be a more articulate explication or a more dramatic demonstration of what it means to treat people’s needs as holy. If, even in the midst of their own difficulties, those who have exceedingly little can treat other people’s needs as holy, how much more must be required of those with wealth and worldly power?
3) We need to make the text relevant to today when the folks in God’s left hand on God’s Left side are being cast into hell or hell’s fire it is because of the need to understand that they have felled to keep the needs of others as Holy they have also misinterpreted the text or not have applied the text let me close by modernizing the text for current south Carolina Lake city times:
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
verse I was hungry and all they have in lake city is fast fried food that is killing my children and me and making the community insane.
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was thirsty for knowledge and you played games with the school giving money to schools in Columbia and Greenville and underfunding Lake City.
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was homeless and you gave me section 8 housing but treated me like i was a project and stigmatized my children with services you nicknamed welfare that where addictive and second class.
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
I was shivering and you told me that in order to fell good about my self I had to have Jordan sneakers or $200 dollars tee shirts and gold chains , and lets not for get the cooperate $700 suites and ask me why I don’t dress professional
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’
I was sick and in prison and you devised ways to cut health care and repel Obama Care instead of providing quality healing you pimped the system so that the ones with much got better and the ones with little had to sale their families and homes to move in to nursing facilities that are simple prison for the old.
Yes Like the masses of the Men in my community I was in Jail/prison and instead of coming to visit me so that my life skills could get better and I could gain a hope of getting out and doing right, You found ways of developing 3 strikes and your out polices and locking up brothers and sisters for using the drugs you gave them in the first place.
Yes to the folks the Goats on the left that have espoused these public policies that:
Kill,
that oppress,
demeaned
under cut
and impoverish
The one we should be keeping holy let me give you one more example; A person was in need of a loan to pay a power bill so I took my car to the title lone place I needed $390 dollars they encourage you to get $601 or more because that allows them to charge higher interest of 300% that means for a $601 loan you are paying back $2,404 non to me that’s the type of tables Jesus would have turned over,
And that’s the type of cycle of poverty that disciples who love others as Jesus has loved them should be bringing to an end. Yes it’s not only where are the hands? But which hand are you in the one on the right or the dark, evil, sinister, oppressive, hand on the left that’s on its way to hell.
