Text: Matthew 25:31-46                                                                                W 26^th Sunday after Pentecost

“You Did It for Me”

In the name of him who is coming to judge the earth, dear friends in Christ: “Like a shepherd dividing the sheep from the goats” ... one group on the Lord’s right, the other group on his left. ... There’s something disturbingly absolute and final about today’s Gospel reading.  The separation is done, the judgment of the court is announced, and then it’s all over.  People go either to heaven or to hell.  No appeals. No extenuating circumstances or matters in mitigation.  No time to hear character witnesses.  No consideration for good intentions; no alibis or excuses.   There’s no “I tried to, I wanted to, I meant to but for reasons beyond my control I couldn’t.”  And there is no middle ground:  you will stand on either the right or the left, the sentence will be passed, and then it will all be over – forever.  ... On which side will you stand?

            Not sure?  Well, let’s look at the criteria our Lord uses for judgment.  Have you fed the hungry? Given drink to the thirsty? Taken in strangers? Clothed the naked? Visited and cared for the sick and those in prison?  It’s apparent that the King thinks these are vitally important activities; where do they rate on your priority list?  Knowing that’s how he’s going to judge you, how much stress have you put on doing them?

            You might think, “Well, I pay my taxes, and they go toward doing some of those things” – but, of course, the wretched souls standing on the left could say the same thing because, for the most part, they paid their taxes too.  You get the feeling the King is talking about something more (and certainly more personal) than taxes.  Then again, maybe you could name a few specific examples when you did these things: “Hey, a couple of times I’ve given food to hungry people.  Sure. I’ve donated to Feed the Children or one of those other outfits that put on TV those horrible images of starving kids rooting through steaming piles of garbage that make you feel so bad while you’re sitting there watching a show and scarfing down Twinkies and potato chips.  And once when I was in the city, I gave a panhandler the change in my pocket – which likely as not he spent on some cheap wine – so you might say I gave drink to the thirsty.  You suppose that’s what the Judge means?  Okay, let’s see what else we’ve got here:  strangers invited in ... that’s a little tougher; but maybe I put up an exchange student, or traveling church worker, or ball player for a while.  I wonder if picking up a hitchhiker counts? I used to do that once in a while before it became too dangerous.  Naked people clothed:  check! I’ve given my worn out old clothes to the Good Will lots of times.  And I’ve been to see sick people on several occasions – of course, they were mostly relatives or friends in the hospital – but that ought to count, shouldn’t it?  And then we’ve got prisoners visited ... hmm … well, maybe not; but five out of six is pretty good, isn’t it?”  Do you get the uncomfortable feeling that the answer is, “No, that’s not enough”?  Do you feel that if these are the standards of judgment, you really ought to be standing with that unhappy lot on the Lord’s left side?

            “Whoa, just hold on here a minute, Pastor.  You stand up there week after week and say that we are saved by grace through faith and faith alone and not by the works we do. And now we hear that when Jesus comes to judge the earth, he’s not even going to mention our faith.  Before he passes sentence, he’s only going to look at what we did or failed to do.  You’ve spent all this time telling us to work on building our faith through worship and partaking of the Sacrament of Communion and the study of God’s Word – because you said that’s what’s going to save us; but all this time you should have been telling us to get out there and help the poor and needy because that’s how we’re going to be judged.  Pastor, if we’re in trouble on the Last Day, it’s going to be your fault!  You have to take the blame!”  ... Well, that may be so; but whether I accept the blame or not, if you were deceived, you’ll still be standing there on the left, won’t you?  Standing there with everyone else who was deceived by a false teacher – and with them you will be condemned.  That is, if we’re looking at this correctly.

            But before you drag me out into the parking lot in righteous fury and have me horsewhipped, and then come back and turn this church into a social welfare agency, I’ll ask you to look again at today’s Gospel with me, because I want you to see that even this text is teaching salvation by faith alone in Christ Jesus, and not by anything you do.

            Take notice that the ones that Jesus calls “righteous” are completely unaware of the good they have done.  They are genuinely surprised to hear Jesus commending them for their deeds of compassion.  With bewilderment they ask, “Lord, when did we do any of those things you’re talking about?”  The last thing they are doing is standing there trying to come up with a flimsy list of scattered incidents to justify the words of commendation he’s showered on them.  They really don’t know what he’s talking about.  That’s because the righteous are, above all else, not aware of any good in themselves.  They are instead conscious of their own shortcomings.  With St. Paul they confess, “I know that in me, that is, in my sinful flesh, there is no good thing.”  They know that they have no trophies or achievements worthy to lay at the Lord’s feet. They look at their lives and actions and can see only the evil they did.  They see the opportunities they lost, the times they failed to do the things he mentioned.  They know that before the Lord their greatest accomplishments are filthy rags.

            It’s precisely because they see things this way that they have despaired of saving themselves by their own efforts, and have instead put their trust in what Christ did to save them.  Their focus has been on Jesus:  His righteousness, his suffering for them, his death, and his resurrection – all for them.  They have been living by faith in the Lord Jesus – and living by faith something remarkable has been happening to them that they’ve been largely unaware of.  Without faith it is impossible to do anything to please God; but with faith, because of the indwelling of the Spirit of God in those who believe, Christ has worked through their human bodies and spirits to accomplish his good will in the world.  He has been changing their hearts to be compassionate like he is – and so as they’ve gone along they have been doing his will, but it has been second nature to them so that they’ve done it without even thinking about it.

            What have they done?  Exactly what Jesus says they’ve done:  they’ve treated others, especially others in need, with Christian kindness and compassion.  As a matter of fact, if you look again at the list of things Jesus names, it sounds a lot like the vocation of every Christian parent:  what parent doesn’t feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome a stranger into the home, clothe the naked, and take care of the sick? And sometimes when the child needs discipline, it can even be said that the parent visits and encourages someone in “prison”.  It’s on a small scale, to be sure; but I want you to see that the faith of the parent sanctifies these things we consider routine parental duties so that they become works acceptable and pleasing to the Lord.  And I don’t mean to limit things to Christian parents either; I’m only using this as an example to show you that the sorts of things we do everyday in our work and for our families because we are motivated by the Spirit of Christ – things we do automatically, without thinking about it – become the very acts of love and compassion that the Lord would have us do.  But don’t mistake me to mean that we shouldn’t make a conscious effort to reach out to others who are in special need when we see them.  As the Lord gives us opportunity and the resources, we should and do respond to people’s problems.

            And the Lord certainly gives us plenty of opportunities to do so.  The world is filled with people in need.  We have only to open our eyes to see them.  This year especially, what with the dreadful hurricanes that struck the south coast of our country, or last year with the tidal wave that caused so much death and destruction in Southeast Asia – not to mention other earthquakes, mudslides, and disasters of all descriptions throughout the world – there’s no shortage of people who need help.  And there are a lot of them much closer to home:  people in our own community who are in need, who are struggling to get by but who are nevertheless continually losing ground and sinking steadily into poor health, debt, and despair.  There’s much we can do to help – but at the same time, it’s necessary to say that some people are helped best by not assisting them directly. They’ve been “helped” so much that they have learned to be dependent on handouts and so have never learned to take responsibility for themselves; so we want to be wise in the distribution of the resources the Lord entrusts to our care.

            But I also want you to see that there’s a spiritual dimension to all of this.  We have been speaking primarily of physical needs:  hunger, thirst, nakedness, and so on.  But people can be spiritually hungry, thirsty, estranged, naked, sick, and in prison.  In fact, these kinds of needs can be far more severe and pressing than anything in the physical realm.  On top of it, they have eternal consequences unlike their physical counterparts.  And only we Christians can respond effectively to these sorts of needs.  

            What I’m saying is that each of you has been equipped to feed hungry souls with God’s Word, which is the Bread of Life.  You can offer the Water of Life to people thirsting for real meaning and joy in their lives by sharing your faith in the Lord Jesus.  You can invite and welcome people who are strangers to God into the household and family of faith.  To people who are ashamed of themselves, whose souls are naked and their sins exposed to the world, you can give the white robe of Christ’s righteousness that covers all shame and disgrace.  To human souls that are sick with envy, pride, hate, and other spiritual diseases, and to those trapped in dungeons of guilt, temptation, or substance abuse, you can bring the cure to heal and the key to release them.  And the point is that as you walk along with Christ, and continue in his Word, you are doing these things.  Are you doing them as well as you could be?  No, certainly not.  And where we fall short, we ask for the Lord’s forgiveness and the power of the Spirit to do better.  That will draw us closer to the Lord so that he can better work in us to do his will.

            In this way we will serve him and do the things he wants us to do.  And what’s even more remarkable to me is who will be the receiver of our work for the Lord. Jesus says, “I was hungry, I was naked, I was in prison.”  Listen to what he’s saying:  whenever a member of the body of Christ suffers, it is Christ himself who suffers.  It is he who bears all our griefs, and sins, and sorrows.  He is present and hidden in all of our afflictions.  That’s a profound truth, but it is the very heart of what it means to say that Christ is our Savior from sin and all its consequences. Our problems are his problems.

            That should change the way we think about things. Look around you.  Who do you know who is in need, either physically or spiritually?  Open your eyes of faith and see the Lord Jesus hidden in that need.  Ask yourself, “How can I help?” and then do it as the Lord directs your heart.  And here’s what’s amazing:  you see the Lord in your brother’s need – and he will see the Lord in your response to his need, because it is Christ in you that moves you with love and compassion to act. And of course, we can reverse that: we need to see Christ in our own afflictions, and see him in others who offer their help to us.

            In this way the collective body of Christ is preserved and cared for by him whose Spirit dwells within us.  As we share our sorrows and bear one another’s burdens, we are in a sense Christ to each other.  And the things that he is doing in the world he lays to our credit, so that he can say, “You did it for me.”  May he keep us in this true faith that relying on his mercy we can be his willing hands in the world doing the good he would have us do, until he comes again in glory and says to us, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” Then, with all the saints on his right hand we will be able to respond, “Yes, thank you Lord Jesus.  You did it for me.”  In his holy name.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!