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?”
There are so many hurting people in the world. Jesus gives a list, in today’s Scripture passage. There are people who are hungry and thirsty, even in our town. There are people who are - not exactly naked, at least not in this country, but cold. Maybe they don’t have winter coats, or boots to keep their feet dry. Or maybe they just have shabby clothes, or clothes that don’t fit. There are an awful lot of people who are in prison. Some are in prisons with locks and bars because they’ve committed crimes. Others may be in a different kind of prison, perhaps because they can’t get out to visit friends or even to do their grocery shopping, or perhaps because they’re afraid of being rejected. And what about strangers? How do you treat the new person in your school, on your block? How easy is it to accept them when they’re different? A person can be a stranger even if they’ve been around a long time - if people leave them out because they’re different. Jesus tells us that we can’t get away with looking the other way and saying, “It’s not my responsibility” or “What can I do? I’m only a kid.”
How many of you have - or had - Barbie dolls, or American Girl dolls? Are they special to you? Do your family and friends give you clothes and accessories for them on your birthday or at Christmas? How do you feel? Do any of you, when you open the package, hand it back saying, “That’s not a present for me, that’s a present for Barbie!” (or Skipper, or Felicity.) That’s because they’re YOURS. Barbie is YOURS, and whatever someone gives you for her is really a gift for YOU, for YOU to enjoy and appreciate.
Well, the people Jesus calls us to help belong to Jesus, too. Not exactly in the same way that your dolls belong to you, though. It’s more like the way they all belong to Mattel. Or whoever.
Do you remember, how once in the gospel, the Pharisees, trying to trap Jesus, came with that question about paying your tax? And how he asked them, “Show me the money,” and how they handed him a coin, and how he asked, “Whose name is stamped on it?” and they answered: It bears the image of the emperor and his name. And how then he said: “Give to the emperor what is of the emperor,” And how he then said, "And give to God what belongs to God.” He might have asked: "Whose image do you bear, whose name is stamped on you?” And the answer would have been - or should - have been: "We are carrying God’s image, we are carrying God’s name.” He coined us in his image. He named us, we have his imprint, his stamp, his seal. ... We are legal tender, because of him. We are his money, and we should be spent... Money should circulate, we should circulate; money should go from hand to hand, we should go from hand to hand; money should be thumbed, we should be thumbed; money has to be used, we have to be used... We should not keep ourselves and all we’ve got safe in a bank or in an old sock or in the ivory tower of our competence or under the cover of our dignity or in the clenched fist of our power... God is trying to use us to pay off our debts, to pay off the debts we owe each other.” [Jesus the Stranger, by Joseph G. Donders]
Back in Minnesota, at the church I belonged to before I was ordained, the deacons were trying to get a ministry going of picking up people who couldn’t drive and bringing them to church. Now, when they first started putting it together they didn’t get a very good response. People are often really busy on Sunday mornings. They’ve got to get everybody bathed and dressed and out the door - and don’t forget your Sunday school lesson and the envelope for the offering and well, you get the picture. Are things kind of hectic at your house on Sunday mornings? You can see why a lot of people thought, “Let someone who doesn’t have so many responsibilities do it.”
But then the head of the Deacons - a guy named Joe - changed his pitch. When he called a church member to ask if they could drive someone to church, he would say, “If Jesus needed a ride to church, would you give him one?” Well, almost all of the time the answer would be, “well, of course!” And then Joe would respond, “Well, Jesus doesn’t need a ride, but a really good friend of his does.” It was amazing how peoples’ perspective changed.
Now, helping somebody isn’t always as rewarding as Gary’s reaching out to Ken in my first illustration. Sometimes when you try to do something good for someone else they don’t appreciate it at all. A pastor friend of mine back in Minnesota tells the story of a man driving along the road who saw an injured squirrel at the side of the road. Moved with compassion, he stopped and picked up the little creature, intending to take it to the local animal shelter. But no sooner did he pick up the little animal than the squirrel turned and bit him hard on his thumb, and wouldn’t let go. Blind with pain, the man slammed the body of the squirrel down onto the fender of the car fender, which made the squirrel let go but also finished it off. The ungrateful little varmint was dead. “That’ll teach me to do good,” thought the man. Sometimes, when you try to help people, they turn around and bite you.
But of course that’s not the point, is it. We don’t help people because they deserve it, or to get admired or thanked, or in order to be liked back. We are supposed to help people because they need it. We’re supposed to help other people because They R Us. And we R them.
And if we really do need thanks, well, Jesus will thank us, whether or not the person we help ever does. Gary was lucky; not only was he rewarded with a lifelong friend, but also Ken told him how much that friendship had meant. Even if you don’t get bitten, you may never know whether or not what you did made a difference. But Jesus will know. Jesus will remember. It’s written down in that invisible electronic network, for one.
But that’s not all. It’s not only written down in our records, what we do will be written on our hearts and in our faces. If you have recognized yourselves in other people, then Jesus will recognize himself in you.
