She heard a voice say, Tonight my son Jesus is going to visit you.

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1 Pastor Melissa Hinnen, November 23, 2014 Asbury United Methodist Church, Croton-on-Hudson, NY Matthew 25: Children s Message Based on Leo Tolstoy s Where Love it God is Also Maureen was an old woman in a small village. One very cold evening colder than we have been lately, she was wrapped in a blanket sitting in her rocking chair and she fell asleep. She heard a voice say, Tonight my son Jesus is going to visit you. Maureen bolted awake with excitement. She looked around but didn t see anyone. She had so much to do... Ohmygosh! JESUS was coming to her house! If Jesus was going to visit you, what are some things you might do? She put on a pot of soup Boiled some water for tea Made a loaf of bread And began knitting a special gift for Jesus because her specialty was knitting. As she was working, she heard a beautiful sound. There were children from the orphanage singing door to door. Maureen was so impressed. These children had so little but they were making the town a little warmer with their beautiful voices. She went outside and offered them each a cup of tea to warm them up and sooth their throats. She went back to her work and heard some crying outside. A woman carrying a small baby who she had never seen before was standing outside looking around. Maureen asked her what was wrong and the woman said she had gotten lost on the way to her parents house in another town and her GPS had broken. Maureen invited her inside to warm up by the fire. She offered her some hot soup while she Googled the directions for her. As the woman went away, Maureen returned to making the gift for Jesus. When she looked out the window, she saw Ricky a man who she had grown up with. His brain didn t work quite right and often would wander from home. She called his nurse so he wouldn t be worried and could come pick up Ricky. Ricky hadn t been to church in some time and Maureen prayed with him and took the loaf of bread and broke it for them to share. As he left, she hugged him and thanked him for being such a good friend to her all these years.

2 Finally she finished her gift for Jesus. She made a few pairs of socks because she wasn t sure what his favorite pattern might be or what size Jesus wears. It felt good to know that she was able to share this talent for knitting with such a special person. These were her finest work and on such a cold night, she felt they would keep Jesus warm AND stylish. She glanced out the window and saw a hard working family who was going through a difficult time finding work right now. She noticed the family was wearing shoes with holes in them and no socks. And what do you think she did? That s right. She gave them the socks she had made. And she wrapped up the remainder of the bread, soup, and tea and offered it to them in the name of Jesus. She looked at the clock and saw it was almost midnight. As she dozed off she thought about the people she met that day and heard Jesus say: I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me hot tea, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was sick and you cared for me, I was shivering and you gave me warm socks, I was in need and you prayed with me. As you leave, will some of you please take these gifts and put them in the basket. We have this basket every week so that we can offer gifts for people in our community who are in need in the name of Jesus. Thank you God for reminding us to help other people and share your love. In Jesus name. Amen The Face of Jesus When my daughter Cassie was in high school, we were out driving one day and saw a man who was homeless and who looked so familiar to me. Cassie and I engaged a lot with the homeless communities in New York City and in Hoboken NJ and I was trying to remember where it was I had met the man before. I asked Cassie if she knew who he was or why he looked so familiar to me. She responded, maybe he has the the face of Jesus... Will you pray with me?

3 God of eternal love, thank you for reminding us that all who we meet are your children and worthy of the same respect as your divine son Jesus Christ. I pray that your message today finds its way into the center of our hearts so that we might live our lives each day serving Jesus by serving the least of these. Amen In spite of the threats of eternal punishment, my inner flower child loves so much about this morning s scripture reading. Jesus talks about people from ALL of the nations gathered together to be evaluated based on how we cared for the people in the margins of our society. Not for how much money we made, or our ethnicity or faith tradition, or what language we speak or if we are documented or undocumented, or our gender or sexuality, or our level of education... but how did we care for Jesus by caring for our neighbors? Kathryn Tanner writes that The bearers of Christian beliefs are not simply thinkers thinking about how much Jesus loves us without doing anything about it, but according to Tanner, we live the whole of our lives, including the sociopolitical and ethical practices in which we are engaged, as the bearers of such beliefs. 1 When the Church is doing what we are called to do, our ministry is ACTIVE it follows the words and teachings of Jesus ministering WITH the poor and welcoming those who we might prefer to ignore... This is the inconvenient truth of this morning s Gospel message, sisters and brothers. We are called to respond not with indifference but with compassion... treating each person with the same love that we would show to Jesus. We are called to respond as if each person we meet IS Jesus because as we hear in Jesus words today... just as we do it to them... we do it to HIM. John Wesley said Methodists must follow Christ in acts of grace and acts of mercy including 1 Tanner, Kathryn. The Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social Justice. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

4 prison ministry, working to abolish slavery, encouraging good health care, living simply to share wealth, and helping people who are poor. In a letter to a member of the society John Wesley pointed out that we are expected to leave our comfort zone writing Do not confine your conversation to gentle and elegant people... I cannot discover a precedent for it in the life of our Lord, or any of his Apostles. My dear friend, let you and I walk as he walked I want you to converse more, abundantly more, with the poorest of the people, who, if they have not taste, have souls, which you may forward on their way to heaven. And they have (many of them) faith, and the love of God in a larger measure than any persons I know. Creep in among these, in spire of dirt, and a hundred disgusting circumstances. 2 When Cassie and I first started in Food not Bombs in 2001, sitting with our neighbors in need in a local park and sharing food that businesses would have otherwise thrown out, Cassie was resistant. She was about 14 years old and said she was uncomfortable around people who live on the street. Interestingly, my discomfort initially was from some of the other organizers of this street action young punk anarchist type rebels. But as we all began to spend more time in the common purpose of peace building in community, we began to understand the sacredness of that time of the humanity and also the divine light in each person. Of engaging and building relationships with people who we used to not even see as we passed them on the street. Where are the places that God is calling you out of your comfort zone? Places where you might connect with the Divine if you take the time to have a conversation share a meal, engage Spirit with Spirit? 2 Wesley, John. "A Letter to a Member of the Society November 17, 1759." In The Works of John Wesley. Vol. 21. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

5 Frederick Buechner reminds us as we prepare to enter the season of Advent, that just as Jesus appeared at his birth as a helpless child that the world was free to care for or destroy, so now he appears in his resurrection as the pauper, the prisoner, the stranger: JESUS appears in every form of human need that the world is free to serve or to ignore. We have an opportunity to hear now from our special guests who are out in the world serving Jesus in their daily work. I pray that they will inspire us to be more open on our journey this week. That we will be open to meeting Christ in each person we encounter and respond with the same love that we would for Jesus with the same love that Jesus freely and abundantly showers on us. Amen.