Inherit the Kingdom

Matthew 25: 31-46

Charles J. Tomlin, March 21th, 2021,

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Kingdom of God Series, 12 of 14

 

31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.

 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,

 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;

 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'

 37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?

 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?

 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'

 40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,1 you did it to me.'

 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;

 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,

 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'

 44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?'

 45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'

 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (Matt. 25:31-46 NRS)

 

We have been considering important passages about the Kingdom in the gospel of Matthew.   Up to now, we’ve been looking the possibility, growth, potential, and the nature of God’s kingdom.  But today, the closer we get to the cross, Jesus’ kingdom message becomes stronger, sharper and more somber.   The question now becomes, not only what is God’s kingdom, but what happens if  what happens when God’s rule is rejected in our world just like it was in the world when John the Baptist was beheaded and when Jesus was crucified.   Are we accepting or rejecting God’s rule over our lives?  What difference does this make?

 

THE SHEEP FROM THE GOATS (32) 

Of course, there are many ways to understand what God’s rule means in this world.  What is finally being revealed here, which perhaps this whole gospel has been preparing to say all along (Tom Long), is how Jesus reveals most fully and completely, that God’s kingdom isn’t a place, a period, a religion, nor even a political movement, but God’s kingdom is a certain attitude that leads caring, compassionate actions like are being revealed in this text.   The doing of these deeds of mercy cause the King of the kingdom to say: 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.' (Matt. 25:40 NRS).   This is how the kingdom comes; this is how God’s will is done, and this is how the world receives God’s rule, by what is done for ‘the least of these’.    

     Now, let’s back up, for a moment and understand why Jesus put’s these amazing kingdom words into the ‘king’s mouth’.   The turn in Jesus’ tone has already come. After Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem, he is facing increasing opposition.   Since Jesus ‘condemned the fig tree’ in chapter 21, criticizing Jerusalem’s fruitless society, things have been going downhill fast.  Then in chapter 23, Jesus directly renounced the religious leaders in Jerusalem as a bunch of hypocrites, then envisions the end of their religious and political world (24).  In this current chapter Jesus expounds his apocalyptic message with 4 parables of ‘end of the world’ warnings, of which, this teaching about the sheep and goats gives a climatic conclusion.

The very image that Jesus uses is that of a shepherd, carefully separating his sheep from his goats.  I find it most fitting, that although Matthew omitted the story of Luke’s shepherds learning about Jesus’ birth, he now concludes with a ‘shepherd story’ about the Son of Man coming back to earth in ‘glory’ sorting out his sheep.   What Jesus is doing with this parable is what he refused to allow his disciples to do when he told them to let the weeds and wheat to grow together until the harvesters sort them out.  Jesus now envisions how that final moment of separation has come.

  To make his point more vivid, Jesus has personalized this coming ‘separation’ with living creatures, representing the very real choices humans of all nations have made, making one group like goats and the other like true sheep.   Interestingly, there is no ‘religious’ designation being described in this separation.  The choice that makes one group a goat and the other a sheep has to do with how God’s final judgment is based not one’s religious fever, not upon one’s nationality or social status, but God’s judgment is based upon whether humans act compassionately within their faith and culture.   The judgment that is coming under God’s rule is grounded, not only in goodness and grace, but also in God’s righteousness and justice that must be ‘fleshed out’ in our own lives, which should cause us to consider and examine our own individual actions as well.

   

LORD, WHEN WAS IT (37,44)

         The surprise in this story is that these actions that determine our individual destiny in God’s kingdom aren’t actions chosen only for oneself, but these individual actions and choices have an impact on others, on society, and on the destiny of nations too.  

The ‘twist’ is that the ‘surprise’ of who actually ends up being a ‘goat’ and who ends up being a ‘sheep’.   This is what makes the story a warning, but strangely also a promise of blessing too.   It’s a warning because the ‘goats’ thought they were being sheep, but weren’t.  They did nothing for those who were the ‘least’ in the kingdom.   On the other hand, the unexpected blessing came to the ‘sheep’ because they were helping these people, but didn’t fully realize how they were really helping the Lord himself as they carried out all these compassionate actions.   Thus, the kingdom comes, is realized as humans participate in God’s kingdom rule through their own compassionate response to those who are in need.

What unnerves many people when it comes to a teaching like this is that it appears that Jesus is playing a trick on those who don’t get into the kingdom.  How could a Jesus make something so serious, out to be so surprising?  How could the ‘goats’ be judged based on not knowing that their King was hidden among the least of these?   Is this really a fair judgement, that all of eternity is based upon what you or I failed to do in our very short lives?   Surprise?  Surprise, indeed.  What you do in your very short life, does indeed matter.

The ‘surprise’ Jesus uses here, is much like the old Christmas legend that comes out of medieval times.    According to the legend, on Christmas Eve the Christ Child wanders throughout the world looking for places where he will be welcomed. Those who love him, those who hope he will visit their homes demonstrate this by placing lighted candles in the window to invite him in.   But no one knows what he will look like when he comes.  He might be a beggar. He might be blind. He might come as a poor and lonely child. So devout Christians welcome into their homes everyone who knocks on their door on Christmas Day. To turn anyone away may mean rejecting the Christ Child (www.day1.net/index.php5?view=transcripts&tid=90).

I think all of us get ‘who’ this parable is mostly about.   It reminds us just how carefully we should treat people, especially those who are in need.   In other words, we must make space in our busy, preoccupied lives for people who beyond our own little family circles, church circles, and community circles too.   Our saving experience in Jesus Christ isn’t just about our own personal relationship with Christ, but our relationship with Christ when fully lived, is a life-changing experience which is proven to be genuine in how we relate to everyone, especially those in need.

         As an example, Pastor Kenneth Carter tells about a man in his congregation. This man is involved in a local homeless ministry.  The man’s motivation for helping the homeless came from his relationship with his brother.   You see, this man’s brother, who now lives across the country from him, suffers from a psychological illness which sometimes leads him to paranoid delusions. These delusions have caused him to become one of the homeless.   Because of his illness, his brother travels from one homeless shelter to another.   Because this man understands what his brother is going through, and he can’t help his own brother directly, he has chosen to get involved in serving and assisting homeless men in his own community.  Every time he goes to the shelter he imagines the one he is serving as his own brother (Day1.org).

           So, the point Jesus is trying to get across is exactly what Jesus originally warned  about at the conclusion of the sermon on the mount.    Jesus said, “Many who say to him Lord, Lord, won’t enter the kingdom, but only who those who do the Father’s will’ (Matt. 7: 21).   What determines our ‘doing’ the Father’s will is ‘who’ we care about and how we care about them, not just ‘saying’ that we care.   This is the emphasis Jesus is trying to underscore in the final, last message of his preaching and teaching ministry.   Don’t miss this, he means, or you will miss everything.

 

YOU DID NOT DO IT (45)

           So, as we conclude, let’s understand, as much as we can, what we can, about missing ‘everything’ means.   What makes Jesus’ warning so sharp, so definite, and most serious, is that Jesus underscores how the deeds and attitudes we have now in this life, will have an impact on the kingdom that is still to come.  

To put this conclusion as simply as possible, look again at the contrast Jesus is making.   Those who respond to human need among ‘the least of these’ will enter into the ‘joys’ of God’s coming kingdom.   Those who fail to see the King in the needs of the ‘least of these’ and do not respond, will ‘depart’ from the king into ‘the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’,  This kind of suffering and ‘eternal punishment’ for the ‘accursed’ is the polar opposite of the destiny of the ‘righteous’ who receive ‘eternal life’.   The difference in the destiny assigned them is based upon caring for or caring less about the real needs of the ‘least of these’.

Through the years, many have tried to soften the impact and implications of Jesus’ very negative ending.  It has been said that these images of ‘eternal fire’ and ‘eternal punishment’ here are not to be taken literally, but that they represent the absolute annihilation of the human soul in the same kind of complete destruction that will one day come to all that is evil in this world.   It’s not the fire and suffering of eternity that is eternal, it is said, but the full and final destruction that is eternal.   

Many find this interpretive approach to aid in understanding the horrid image of people suffering in the fire of hell forever.   The problem I have with this ‘softening’ of Jesus’ teaching, is that it misses the point.   In trying to fix the ‘problem’ of hell, they sill don’t address the real problem of what happens to the ‘least of these’ who are still alive in our world, and still need someone to care about them.   If all God wanted to do was  to explain ‘hell’,  Jesus could have given more details than this, don’t you think?  

The point we should stick with here is the one that is most shocking for God’s people, as well as, for the world.   When we minister to other people in need, especially those who are helpless and hopeless, we are serving Jesus, as if Jesus is the very one who is helpless and hopeless.  When we serve, care and have compassion on the ‘least of these’, we practice the kind of religion that the book of James says is ‘’pure and faultless’ is to ‘visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (Jas. 1:27, NIV).  James got Jesus’ point precisely.

Some of you may be familiar with Jim Wallis. Wallis is the head of the evangelical Magazine, Sojourners, and he is often featured on TV news talk shows as a spokesman for the Christian community.  Wallis often tells about the ministry of the Sojourners Neighborhood Center in Washington, D.C., his hometown. This center stands just one‑and‑a‑half miles from the White House.  On a given day, three hundred families stand in line outside the center to receive a bag of groceries which is critical to getting them through the week.

Just before the doors are opened and all the people come in, all those who help prepare the food join hands and say a prayer. The prayer is often offered by Mary Glover, a sixty‑year‑old black woman.  Mary knows what it means to be poor and she knows how to pray and get hold of God, as we say.  She prays like someone who knows to whom she is talking.  She has been carrying on a conversation with her Lord for many, many years.  When Mary prays, she first thanks God for another day, “Another day to serve you, Lord,” she says.   Then, Mary Glover may pray something like this, “Lord, we know that you’ll be coming through this line today so, Lord, help us to treat you well.”   

Isn’t this the most important message of Jesus before us in this text?  We must always be careful of how we treat anyone we meet. For the truth is, because Jesus isn’t the only time God has been here, incognito, that person may end up being Jesus in disguise.   So, making this a teaching only about hell, or trying to explain hell away, either way this isn’t Jesus major point.  Jesus’ point was always about being the kind of people who bring God’s care and compassion back into this broken world.    

One of the most influential people of the last century Albert Schweitzer. Schweitzer was one of the most brilliant students in Germany.   He was outstanding in philosophy.  He was one of the greatest of all organists, and in particular, played Bach as no one else could play him.  But at the back of his mind there was a feeling that would not be stilled. He once said that as far back as he could remember, the thought of all the misery in the world had deeply troubled him. He came to believe that he did not have the moral right to take his happy youth, his good health and his ability to work for granted. He believed that we must all take our share of the misery which weighs so heavily upon the world.

So, Albert Schweitzer decided to give everything up and to study night and day to be a doctor.  He went as a missionary to Lambarene in Africa, where he established a hospital.   One day, a poor African man in much pain was brought to his hospital. “Pain is a more terrible than death itself,” Schweitzer said.  Dr. Schweitzer laid his hand upon the man’s head and said: “Don’t be afraid.  In an hour’s time you will be put to sleep and you will feel no more pain when you wake up.”

When the operation was over, the man discovered Schweitzer waiting there beside the bed.  The man looked around, and suddenly said again and again and again: “I have no more pain!  I have no more pain!” Then, the man reached for Dr. Schweitzer‘s hand and would not let go.  That was all the payment Albert Schweitzer ever got for that procedure.  It was all that he ever needed.  Albert Schweitzer had a tender heart for the suffering of the world.  He saw Christ everywhere, in everyone. He gave his life to relieve the suffering of others.  And while we may not be doctors, this is human calling too.   I don’t know why people suffer, but if there somehow the reason is only answered in the rest of us.  

While Jesus may not be calling us to devote our lives in full-time missionary service, or to be a medical doctor, like Albert Schweitzer, Jesus does call us to do something.   Whether it is visiting a nursing home, or helping in a soup kitchen, or simply taking an interest in a needy family you know, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and as a human being too, it’s our human calling to care about those who are less fortunate than ourselves.    This is something we do, not as much for them, but we do it for ourselves.   It is so easy for us to isolate and insulate ourselves from those in need.   We can grow even more callous to human need.   We then begin to imagine that we somehow deserve our good fortune, and our hearts grow colder and harder.   We forget our purpose for being here, and we feel even more empty, so we go after material luxuries, becoming miserably more self-indulgent.   Eventually, we even stop looking for Jesus anywhere, not in church or in others in need.

Many, many years ago a man moved into a small town. His little house was near the railroad tracks. Every morning he noticed an elderly lady walking along the tracks picking up something and putting it into a bag. The man got curious. He went to a small grocery store nearby and asked the owner about this lady. “Oh, that’s the widow Jacobs,” said the grocer. “Every day she comes half-way across town to pick up the coal that is spilled on the tracks when the early morning train runs through town.”

“But there hasn’t been a steam locomotive using coal on these tracks for years,” replied the new resident.

“That’s right,” said the store owner. “When the steam train stopped running, old Mr. Simpson who runs the hardware store was concerned that the Widow Jacobs would no longer have coal to heat and cook with. He knew she was too proud to take charity, so he decided to get up early every morning, to take a bag of coal and drop it along the tracks. The Widow Jacobs still thinks the steam train runs by here every morning.

I think Old Mr. Simpson has been doing that for about 5 years now.”

A few lumps of coal dropped along a railroad track each day. It’s not much to do, but it’s something.  In this story, Jesus is reminding us that God calls each of us to do something to make life better for someone else.   Isn’t that the main thing in this text?  Jesus’ stories were always making one main point.  The point is clear:  “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink . . .”  This story doesn’t say we can solve all the problems of this world.  Only God can do that.   But God is calling us to do something for somebody we know, and perhaps even doing something for somebody we don’t, and we need to know.  “I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”   That’s it.  It’s doesn’t sound like that much, but Jesus means what you do for someone can make a small difference in someone’s life.  And if I understand it, Jesus also means, this could make an very big, if not eternal difference in your own life, too.   Amen.