Last Sunday of the Church Year November 20, 2016 Christ the Rock Lutheran Church Farmington, NM Ma#hew 25:31-46 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the na=ons will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his lea. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the crea=on of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked aaer me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. 37 Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? 40 The King will reply, Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. 41 Then he will say to those on his lea, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look aaer me. 44 They also will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you? 45 He will reply, Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. 46 Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. Waste Your Life with Jesus I ve never tried out for a Hollywood movie. That was never a possibility in my life goals. But you can imagine what it must be like. If you ve ever tried out for the cheerleading squad or hoped to make the basketball team, if you ve applied for a scholarship at the school of your dreams or put in an application for the job you felt was your destiny, even if you ve ever sat by your phone waiting for that special someone to give you a call, you can imagine what it must feel like. All the other actors have Ninished their tryouts. You all sit in the waiting room. On the other side of those doors are the director, producer, casting director and whoever else makes those decisions. You wonder what they re talking about; who they re
talking about. You re waiting for one of them to come out and say your name or even post a piece of paper with your name on it. You can t help indulge your imagination in a little bit of dream sequence. What would it actually be like to be chosen? This could be your big chance. This wouldn t end everything, but it could be your big break. You could use this as a launching pad for greatness. This could be the beginning of something that, combined with more hard work and dedication and a little bit of luck, put you on a trajectory toward stardom. Then again. It could do the opposite. You can t help your imagination from sliding into the nightmare scenario. You don t want to even consider it, but you can t help it. This could be another failure, another rejection, another setback that causes you to just given in and hang it all up and trade in your dreams for a more pedestrian reality. But it could actually crush you. Sadness and dread could overtake you. Complete despair could take over after not being chosen. Being a Hollywood movie star might be so far from your reality, it s hard to imagine that gut wrenching scene. But you and I have had those moments of wondering. We ve been busy living our lives. And then all of the sudden, we wonder if we ve been doing everything all wrong. What if I ve been doing it all wrong? What if I m on the wrong road to get where I need to go? With my life? What if I ve wasted my whole life? In Matthew chapter 25 Jesus tells a story of what the Ninal judgment will be like. He makes it so black and white. He compares his second coming at the end of the world to a shepherd separating sheep and goats. But it s not just about ranching. It s about people. It s about souls. Like you and me. There s a cold precision to Jesus words: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. (Matthew 25:31-33) At that moment it will be like when you ve already given your tryout or submitted your resume. It s already done. The decision has been made. Your fate is sealed. You are just waiting for Nind out the results. Sheep or goat? You can try not to think about it. You can just blow it off as some fable. You can polish up your resume and add up all your life s accomplishments. You can even stick out your chest a little and prepare for some kind of great reward. But maybe it s not that simple. Maybe this is one reality in life, you can t just joke about. One real confrontation you won t be able to avoid. That s when you start thinking about everything you ve done and could have done and should have done. You start to add up what you ve done and done wrong up to this point in your life. You do your best to position yourself for a favorable verdict. Because you know when the Son of Man comes and takes his place on that undisputed throne, there won t be anything you can do any more. And so right now you can t help but fret and wonder and worry. Will you be chosen? Will you get in?
There s a Nlaw in this kind of performance-based thinking. You and I fall into it so easily, because that s the way everything else in our lives works. Jesus points out something different: Then the King will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. (Matthew 25:34-36) This isn t a description of someone who is auditioning for a spot on Jesus good side. It s not someone who is working on accumulating recommendations and endorsements to get to the front of the line. This is a description of someone who hasn t been thinking about themselves at all. The fatal Nlaw of a wasted life is focusing on myself. Focusing on myself and my life so much that I neglect to Jesus by neglecting my brothers and sisters. There is a key to correcting this Nlawed view on life. Now it s not too late. Now you can correct that kind of thinking that leads to a wasted life. It comes from a proper understanding of sheep and goats. Jesus says to those on his right side: Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. (Matthew 25:34) He isn t praising the people who have measured up to his standard and earned a commendation. They are blessed because they have been blessed by the Father. They haven t earned a place at Jesus side. No, they are inheriting a gift that makes them blessed. They get a kingdom not because they conquered it, but because God knew from the beginning of time he would give it to them. This can only be a blessing pronounced grounded in God s grace. To understand Jesus second coming to judge all people, you really have to have a proper perspective on his Nirst coming. We know we are in a different season of the year. The days are getting shorter. I saw snow Nlying outside church the other day. But in the Christian church we are getting ready to Nlip the calendar to a brand new church year. We could randomly select verses from the Bible to study each week. But there is a logic and a Nlow to following a pattern for our spiritual growth and renewal. In these past few Sundays we have been looking at the end. The end of time. The end of the world. The end of all things. But next week we will start all over. Start at the beginning. We ll start preparing for Jesus to come the Nirst time. We will get ready to greet Jesus as the tiny baby in Bethlehem. But we forget why Jesus had to come in the Nirst place. Jesus came to do more than just make the cut. Jesus never lived with a could have, should have, would have sense of dread. Jesus knew what you would leave undone, so he did it in your place. Jesus knows your mistakes that you let slip, so he never made any. Jesus knows the sins you plunged into fully aware how wrong they were, so Jesus refrained. I guess that's a long way of saying Jesus thought more about you than about himself. He came to this world to serve those in need. Jesus saw your deniciency and didn t hesitate. He looked upon your destitution and acted. He responded in love to your great spiritual need. And his selnless sacrinice gave you just what you need. Because Jesus came to live for you,
you are blessed. Because Jesus loved you enough to pour out his life for you until it was completely wasted, you will sit at his right hand. Without this understanding of who you, enjoying the blessings of his sacrinicial love and standing in a secure relationship of faith in Jesus, you would be left to stand on your own. Standing all on our own, we would have no other choice but to try to make excuses for our failures to live in love for our Lord: Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you? (Matthew 25:44) Without Christ for us, we would have to try to cover our own butts. We would be forced to look back on our lives trying to measure up and be good enough and earn enough brownie points that we would come to the realization we had been living all for ourselves without any thought of anyone else. Even our best acts of charity apart from Christ are done for ourselves, not works done in love. We would even attempt to shift the blame back onto the Lord. We would have served him and helped him if only we had known, if only his identity had been obvious. But a failure to serve the least among us just gives evidence of a failure to see Christ in them. But knowing who you are and what you are in Christ redenines your life. It transforms all your life s relationships. It redirects every one of your life s activities. When Jesus heaps praise on the believers assembled on his right, here s their reaction: Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? (Matthew 25:37-39) They are righteous without having to count up all their activities for God. They are righteous through Christ apart from all their accomplishments they could offer to him. They aren t righteous because they have been rehearsing for an eternal audition or polishing their resume for inclusion in God s kingdom. Actually, they are completely oblivious to the fact that they have been doing any of these things at all. That s what happens when we are freed from having to earn our way onto Jesus right side. As she was growing up a young girl often saw her mother s hands, which were badly marred with ugly scars. When she was old enough to compare the hands of other mothers, she asked one day, Mother, why do you have such ugly hands? Her mother quietly sat her down and told her the story. When you were a little child, sleeping in your crib, we had a sudden Nire in the house. I went to your room, and the Nlames were all around your crib. I grabbed you and wrapped you in your blanket, but the Nlames had already reached the outside of the blanket, and my hands, as you can see, were badly burned. So, darling, that is why my hands are scarred and not lovely and smooth as the hands of other mothers are. There was a pause, and then the girl s face lit up. She reached down, picked up her mother s hands, and pressed them tightly to her face. Oh, Mommy, I love these hands. 1 We could call that a wasted life. A life lived without thought of herself, but only of her daughter. Look what love is ale to accomplish when all the pressure is off! When there is no burden to be good enough for God because Christ has been perfect for you, you get to focus on the 1 Lyle D. Muller, Witnessing to Unchurched Families. St. Louis: Concordia, 1998, p 58.
people in your life instead of yourself. When there is no anxiety about whether or not you have done enough to get into heaven because Christ s life and death are your key to open wide those pearly gates, you get to live each day in perpetual joy. When you are Nilled with love from your King who gave up everything for you, you can t help but share that love with those in need in your life. Even when you see the least among you, those who could never possibly repay you, you get to do renlect the generosity of your God who gave you his grace without expecting anything in return. The key to this generous life isn t thinking about yourself or even thinking less of yourself, but simply thinking of yourself less. You are blessed because by faith your King has made you righteous. Jesus is coming, rejoice! Jesus is coming. We don t know when, but don t sweat, just rejoice! Jesus is coming in judgment. Rejoice in the verdict he has already given you. Rejoice in the grace freely given to you by your King. Rejoice in the grace spread to your brothers and sisters. Celebrate the grace you were freed to show to Christ by serving those he placed in your life. Rejoice to take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. (Matthew 25:34) Amen.