“Have You Seen Jesus Lately?”
Matthew 25:31-46
Ephesians 1:15-23
By: Rev. Kenneth Sauer,
Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church, Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org
In his current number one best selling book “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis” born again Christian and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter writes: “Sharing wealth with those that are starving and suffering unnecessarily is a value by which a nation’s moral values are measured, and there is a strange and somewhat disturbing situation in our country. Americans are willing to be generous in helping others—and they believe that our government gives as much as 15 percent of our federal budget in foreign aid.
But we are, in fact, the stingiest of all industrialized nations.
We allot about one-thirtieth as much as is commonly believed.” (see page 187)
And then he goes on to site the statistics.
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning Jesus tells us that when He returns “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”
The sheep are gathered on the right side of Christ—the side of approval and honor, and the goats on the left side—for condemnation.
And the criteria for judgment may be astonishing for some of us.
Christ does not ask anyone about their creeds or their standing in the community, but instead: “What have you done for the poor family on the other side of town? Ever make any visits to the local jail?”
The hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the naked, the physically afflicted, the oppressed, the poor…
…what have we done or not done for them?
If we were to survey the entire Bible we would find a reoccurring theme.
The righteous, the folks who are doing the will of God are those who take care of the poor, the widow, the child, the afflicted.
And this kind of action, on our part, demands a real self-denial.
For one thing, none of the sad souls that are mentioned can quickly pay us back.
We are to care for the least of these simply out of obedience to God’s Word and Spirit living inside of us.
We are told in 1 John Chapter 4: “let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
Notice in our Gospel Lesson that the sheep came to know God through loving others.
“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
A story is told of a little boy who wanted to meet God. He knew it was a long trip to where God lived, so he packed his backpack with cupcakes, several cans of root beer and started on his journey to meet God.
When he had gone about 3 blocks, he saw an elderly woman sitting on a park bench watching the pigeons.
The boy sat down next to her and opened his backpack.
He was about to take a drink from his root beer when he noticed that the lady looked hungry. So he offered here a cupcake. She gratefully accepted it and smiled at him.
Her smile was so wonderful that he wanted to see it again. So he offered a root beer as well. Once again she smiled at him.
The boy was delighted!
They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling without saying a word.
As it started to get dark, the boy realized how tired he was and wanted to go home.
He got up to leave but before he had gone no more than a few steps, he turned around and ran back to the old woman, giving her a big hug. She gave him her biggest smile ever.
When the boy arrived home his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face. She asked, “What has made you so happy today?”
He replied, “I had lunch with God.”
Before his mother could respond he added, “You know what? She’s got the most beautiful smile in the whole world!”
Meanwhile, the elderly woman, also radiant with joy, returned to her home.
Her son was stunned by the look of peace on her face. He asked, “Mother, what has made you so happy today?”
She replied, “I ate cupcakes in the park with God.”
And before her son could reply, she added, “You know, he is much younger than I expected.”
Have you seen Jesus lately? Have I?
In our Epistle Lesson for this morning that Jerry read earlier the Apostle Paul tells us: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened…”
The eyes of our hearts are enlightened when we come to know the love that God has for this world—the love made known to us through Jesus Christ.
And it is God’s yearning that we, His children, will live in that same love for one another.
What picture do you have of God?
Is He a policeman, a judge, Santa Clause?
Is He making a list and checking it twice?
Jesus gave us a picture of God. Jesus called Him Father.
And this is how intense God’s love for all humankind is.
With a parent and child, the bond is so closely bound that the misfortune of one becomes the equal misfortune of the other, but the bond between Christ and humankind is even closer than this.
Our gladness or sadness not only affects Christ: it is actually part of Him.
He is troubled by our sorrows, not from a distance, but in His very heart.
Therefore, when we help one another we are, in all reality, helping Christ, and Christ comes to know us and we come to know Him through this helping.
Remember in Matthew Chapter 7 when Jesus says: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”?
Well, we find the will of the Father here in Matthew Chapter 25.
We are to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, make friends with the stranger, clothe the naked, look after the sick, and visit those who are in prison.
In doing this, we will look straight into the eyes of Christ.
And in knowing this, we can never look at the derelict the same way again.
We can no longer look and see a loser—we are to look and see, instead, Jesus, the King of Kings.
We are to see all people with totally different eyes…with the eyes of our heart.
In Micah Chapter 6 we are told: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Matthew 25 is truly Jesus’ summary of that passage of Scripture.
We are to help one another, not out of an expectation of some kind of reward…
…but out of love.
This is what defines righteousness.
Christ has come to us in our prison, whatever that may be for you and for me.
And He has called us to live in freedom and in peace.
Therefore, as those who Christ has called, we are to live in love--grateful love for what Christ has done for us.
And through this love, God enables us to love all people, even those whom the world might deem unlovable…
…because God loves them and us with the intense love of a Father who is willing to give His very Son for our salvation!
“To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God,” is to love without reservation or discrimination all of humankind.
God’s judgment of us does not depend on the amount of knowledge we have acquired, or the size of our bank accounts, or the fame we have gained, but on the help we have given one another.
Many of us picture the Last Judgment as a review of our personal sins, but in Matthew Chapter 25 it’s about what we have done for others along the way.
It’s amazing how we have reduced it to a list of do’s and don’ts that we use to judge one another and ostracize one another with.
But that’s not love.
Saint Francis of Assisi was born wealthy and high-spirited, but he wasn’t happy.
He felt that life was incomplete.
Then one day he was out riding and he met a leper.
Saint Francis found his disease disgusting and repulsive, but something moved Francis to dismount his horse and fling his arms around this suffering leper; and in his arms the face of the leper changed into the face of Christ.
No person, no matter how dirty or diseased should be beyond our reach and love.
Larry Hollon, the General Secretary for United Methodist Communications writes this: “Timmie lived down the street from us.
His family was poor, and Timmie was rambunctious and sometimes like and unguided missile. He brought me an old bicycle tire to repair, and we knelt down beside it as I worked.
Timmie rattled on offering me tall tales, and I listened and grunted appropriately at the right time.
But Timmie caught me off guard when he asked, “How come you’re so nice to me?”
I wasn’t prepared for that question,” Hollon writes.
So Hollon stammered, “Well, why shouldn’t I be nice to you?”
“Well,” he said, “most people ain’t very nice to me.”
Hollon goes on to write, “No child should wonder why someone is being nice to him or her. But I wonder how many times I’ve looked into a face and failed to see God reflected back to me, or how many of my passing glances have communicated the message that I didn’t have time or that the person wasn’t important to me or that I didn’t want to bother?”
How many times have you—have I looked into a face and failed to see God reflected back to us?
Jesus will tell those who will go away to everlasting punishment: “I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
Again I ask, have you seen Jesus lately?
Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier and a Christian.
One cold winter day, as he was entering a city, a beggar stopped him and asked for alms.
Martin had no money; but the beggar was blue and shivering with cold, and Martin gave what he had.
He took off his soldier’s coat, worn and frayed as it was; he cut it in two and gave half of it to the beggar man.
Then, that night, he had a dream.
In the dream he saw the heavenly places and all the angels and Jesus among them; and Jesus was wearing half of a Roman soldier’s cloak.
One of the angels said to him: “Master, why are you wearing that battered old cloak? Who gave it to you?”
And Jesus answered softly: “My servant Martin gave it to me.”
We see Jesus everyday, you and I.
We see him in the face of the homeless person, the sick, the deranged, the hungry, the stranger.
Do we realize this?
Have we grasped this?
If so, what are we going to do about it?
Let us pray: O God, we have overlooked You, forgotten You, excluded You, and denied You. Forgive our lack of vision and restore our sight so that we can see Your presence in our world and in every human face. In Jesus’ name and for His sake we pray. Amen.
