FOR THE THINGS WE HAVE LEFT UNDONE
In my life I suffer from the sin of procrastination and along with that the tendency to forget; whether it’s somewhere I was supposed to be, or something I said I would do. I receive emails from people asking me if I have sent them some document or other, or texts asking me where I am. I fear it will grow worse the older I get. I can lose objects rather quickly, sometimes even when they are in plain sight. All of these problems serve to remind me of the prayer of general confession of the Anglican Church.
The first part of the prayer is this: “Almighty and most merciful Father; we have erred, and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.”
Have you ever felt guilty of such a confession? When you arrive at the end of the day and look back on what you have accomplished, are you shocked at what you have indeed left undone? In some ways they say it’s healthy to let some things go, to pick up where you left off or risk overstressing yourself. Yet there are those things we should be doing or those we should stop doing in order to avoid the last phrase in that prayer, “And there is no health in us.”
The author was not speaking of ulcers or hypertension; he was speaking spiritually. We are sometimes a very sick people in our lack of spiritual growth or direction. I’m not criticizing you, I speak first for myself. Often the regrets I have over what I have forgotten to do are not always tangible. Often I remember that I have forgotten the will of God.
The subject of our gospel reading today is judgment, not a word many of us are comfortable hearing, particularly not with regard to finality, an issue of separation from God. How ironic this parable is, for it speaks of those times we willingly separate ourselves from God. In this parable Jesus was describing His own coming action. This was more than a parable; this is a glimpse of the future. Jesus referred to Himself as both the Son of Man and the King who sits on a great throne, dividing the people of the world into two categories; sheep and goats.
The decision between these two groups will be based on one quality – compassion. Not knowledge of Scripture, not tithing, not prayer, not even knowledge of the result of their actions, but obedience to the commandment to love one another. Showing care, hospitality, kindness, empathy, and mercy to others; that’s what pleases Christ and fulfills His law. Now, some would like to argue this constitutes earning salvation through works, but not when we emphatically stress one key point.
Neither those who did or did not show compassion had any idea they were doing or failing to do these things for Jesus, nor did they apparently have any motivation to do so. Think about how many of these actions we fail to do for Jesus. Does knowing that the significance of not doing something is equal to the significance of doing something for Jesus make you want to go out and do more? No doubt we feel a twinge of guilt from this passage, but that’s not the point.
The point is that when we have a saving relationship with Christ and He is invited to have complete access to us, His transforming grace makes us into the kind of people who simply have to do these acts of kindness for others. Jesus is our example, but He is also our source of ability, our source of power.
Power is nothing unless you intend to use it, and for something other than yourself. You see, this power is meant to be used collectively, as the body of Christ, who is the head of the church. We are His fullness, He who fills all. We are to be filled with Christ individually so that the church may be the fullness of Him. A healthy and whole church has Christ as the head, directing and empowering.
We know the church in society is in decline but what we may not realize is that fear, guilt, cultural pressure or attendance campaigns will not work in the long run to create sincere relationships with Christ. Jesus said that what will work is helping people where they hurt. The greatest mistake the church has made in recent years is not noticing the hurts of the people on the side of the road. We get so busy going to our meetings and activities we do not have time to stop. The irony is that, by that very act, the church is dying.
Every day, in every place, there’s more than one somebody who needs at least a “little bit of Jesus.” With the exception of visiting the imprisoned, the deeds on this list were considered the basics of Jewish piety, standard righteous deeds in Jewish ethics. It begs the question, “What do we consider our basic Christian requirements?” What are we called to do beyond what we are already doing?
Feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, tending to the sick and visiting the imprisoned. Not so hard. Pretty basic with one or two exceptions. So what is there to worry about? Notice that Jesus didn’t say how often or how much or at what point we could stop doing these things. That’s the point. There is no quota, and we can’t reach one anyway because we don’t know how much we’ve done.
Apparently we were not meant to keep track, because neither the sheep nor the goats had any idea of what they had done or left undone. If only we had known it was you, Jesus, we would have made an effort. Who would ever think of catching a glimpse of Christ in the old man who is so afraid of dying alone and in so much pain that he regularly scares off the people who could help him if he would let them? If only we had known. If only Christ had made Himself known in the homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and rehab clinics, we would have known what to do.
As one author said, “We can never be conscious of our good works. Our sanctification is veiled from our eyes until the last day, when all secrets will be disclosed. If we can to see some results here and assess our own spiritual state, and have not the patience to wait, we have our reward. The moment we begin to feel satisfied that we are making some progress along the road of sanctification, it is all the more necessary to repent and confess that all our righteousness are as filthy rags.”
There are many, many lessons to be learned from Scripture and there are secrets we may never unlock, but if we miss this one, God help us. There is a line in the film Imitation of Life that has stuck with me most of my life. As a woman lies dying she says, “I’d like to be standing with the lambs and not with the goats on judgment day.” It made quite an impression on me. This is a decision affecting our eternity. This choice Jesus will make is sure and certain.
As intense as this passage is, another verse in Matthew is one of the most sobering, discomforting verses in Scripture, at least for me. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven. That is the first part of the verse. It tells us there will be some who claim to be Christian and will have the falseness of their claim proven. They will be like those who arrive at the theater after the performance has started, only to find there is no admittance. They will be those who are weighed in the balance and found wanting.
It is God’s will we should meet Him where we do not expect to find Him. It is also God’s will we should inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world. That’s the result of all this feeding and clothing and visiting; our inheritance, which is eternal life. This is our reward. Maybe some of you are thinking; finally, there’s a reward! God wouldn’t ask us to do anything without a reward, would He? We live in a world where we are rewarded for spending more money. However, inheritance is not the point. We don’t act to get the reward because we can’t earn it. We have no way of knowing how many points we need or when we can stop.
God doesn’t give us a sum total. Jesus told the sheep as often as you did these things you did them for me. In other words, it wasn’t the first time, not the hundredth time, but every time, because you never knew it was me. Remember the verse in Matthew I just shared about entering the kingdom of heaven? Here is the second part, “only those who do the will of my Father in Heaven.” There is a direct connection between our conduct and our eternity.
Peter said, “For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish.” I love that verse in the context of our divided society where the economic gap is every widening and people are suffering as a result. It could be that our doing right drowns out the silence of the ignorance exhibited by the foolish; those who keep still, remain motionless and unmoved by the plight and plea of the needy.
John said, “Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions. It is by our actions that we know we are living the truth.” There is only one standard determining eternal blessing and reward. It’s not so much about what we have done but what we have left undone. It’s a simple question. What have we done to help someone else?
What is the shape of justice and compassion in your life? Does it resemble a sheep or a goat? The least of these spoken of by Jesus are out there in our community and around the world. They are the weak ones who cannot help themselves and so must have the help of the strong. They are the ones hanging out on the street corner with a sign, the kids with dirty faces wandering the streets alone. Sometimes they are people we know quite well.
There is a great sermon by Barbara Brown Taylor, who admits to sharing our frustration with this passage as she lives out her faith. She writes, “For the characters in this story, the biggest surprise of all seems to be that Jesus knew what they were up to when they did not think he was around. Sheep and goats alike, they thought that he occupied one space at a time just as they did, and that the way they behaved in his presence was all that really counted. Meanwhile, they had lots of free time for being with the other people in their lives, including the ones who did not count; the little ones, the least ones, the waitresses, the door-to door magazine salesmen, the nursing home residents, the panhandlers, the inmates, the strangers at the grocery store.
The biggest surprise of all is that such people are not unknown to the king. On the contrary, they are so close to the king that he counts everything done for them as if it had been done for him, and everything not done for them as if it had not been done for him. For sheep and goats alike, the surprise is that Jesus is not somewhere – he is everywhere – and especially with the least important people who populate our days, whoever they may be. God sees, God knows, and God will judge us according to how we behaved when we thought God was not around.
Is it worse not to recognize Christ in others or not to have them recognize Him in us? Or is it worse yet to expect caring for others to be strictly the work of professionals? Isn’t that what clergy and missionaries and social workers and medical personnel are for? What we do because we must, because it’s expected of us, or because we are paid to is all well and good, but it is simply not enough. Christ’s words are about acts of gentleness, justice, and compassion, which we do without having to think about as expressions of who we are. The actions that really matter are not chosen self-consciously. They grow out of our truest identity as blessed sheep or terrified goats.
The parable of the sheep and goats is not simply a lesson in caring for suffering people. It’s a parable about caring for those no one else cares about, a parable of caring for the king who came to us. Jesus our Shepherd King will not call us goats if we have not been perfect in our care. He will only judge us that way if we have not tried, if we have been content to deal with the obvious and failed to look past the obvious to see where else we might be needed.
Christianity can and does get more complex than this, but it never will be more important than this. If only we had known. But we do know. Of course we do. We know there are children waiting for foster homes and mentors. There are people sleeping outside or even living unknown in a neighborhood church. What we do matters. Christ is present in the people we help or do not help. How we choose make a difference for them and for us.
It is the will of God made visible in the world, even in ways that no one ever sees or knows, no one except the One who sees all. No one except the Judge who waits for the day when a line forms on His left and on His right. If you have been made anxious by this, you know what you have to do. Think about those things you have left undone. In the words of George Muller, “The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.”
