Reign of Love

Ezekiel 34: 11-16, 20-24; Matthew 25: 31-46

FPC; 11-23-08

          When I was a boy growing up near Spartanburg, South Carolina my brothers and I played a game called ‘king of the hill’.  The hill we used for the game was located on the front lawn; it measured three or four feet in height with a gradual slope.  The person who was king would stand at the top and guard that hill while the rest of the participants would run towards it with the intent of pulling the king from his throne.  If the king was strong enough, he could withstand the onslaught; if not, the king and his kingdom would be toppled. 

          My experiences playing that game supported my conventional notion that a king is always physically powerful, a person whose influence is felt through personal strength or the strength of his army; a king, I once thought, always maintains his throne by warding off those who would seek to overtake it.  He stands above and apart from the people he rules and is among the most advantaged people of the world.

          On this Christ the King Sunday, those conventional understandings of kings and kingdoms collapse in the story of King Jesus.

          His life had a non-king-like beginning.  The first few hours of his life were spent resting, not in a custom made crib, a crib fit for a king, but in a make-shift cradle with a mattress made of hay.

          As he grew, he spent more time with paupers than princes.  Instead of being served, he served others.  When he died he was wearing a crown of thorns, not a crown made of gold.

          In today’s gospel reading, we see a depiction of King Jesus that shatters notions of what a king is.  We see him in the lives of the hungry and thirsty.  We see him, not living in a protective castle, but living with people unprotected from disease and hunger.  We see him not surrounded by a royal entourage, but in the company of people whose lives have been wrecked by despair. 

Edwin Markham, the great poet, captures the essence of today’s gospel text in his poem, “The Guest”.

While the cobbler mused there passed his pane

A beggar drenched by the driving rain;

He called him in from the stony street

And gave him shoes for his bruised feet.

The beggar went and there came a crone

Her face with wrinkles of sorrow sown;

A life of labor bowed her back,

And she was spent with the wrench and the rack.

He gave her his loaf and steadied her load,

As she took her way on the weary road.

Then to his door came a little child,

Lost and afraid in the world so wild,

In the big, dark world.  Catching it up,

He gave it the milk in the waiting cup,

And led it home to its mother’s arms

Out of the reach of the world’s alarms.”

The day went down in the crimson west,

And with the hope of the blessed guest;

And Conrad sighed as the world turned gray;

Why is it, Lord, that your feet delay?

Did you forget that this was the day?

Then, soft in the silence a voice was heard;

Lift up your heart, for I kept my word.

Three times I came to your friendly door,

Three times my shadow was on your floor;

I was a beggar with bruised feet;

I was a woman you gave food to eat;

I was a child of the homeless street.”[1] 

          “Lord, when did we see you a homeless child welcome you, or a hungry beggar and feed you?”  When you did it to one of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.   The poor, the hungry, the sick, the thirsty stranger are Jesus’ brothers and sisters.  They are despairing and need the care of the hopeful.    They are not well and need the love of people who are well.  Many of them are easy to love.  It is easy to Christ is many of them, to see that they are his brothers and sisters. 

          Take Harriet as an example.  She has multiple sclerosis.  She depends on her family to care for her.  She brightens up their lives with her bright smile and vibrant and vivacious spirit. It is easy to see Christ in her.  

          But it is different with Frankie.  His life started out with great promise.  He and I were schoolmates, good friends, nice guy, Frankie, smart too.  Football player, great baseball player, had the starring role in our high school’s production of Showboat.   “Old man river, just keeps rolling along.”  His bass voice sang it beautifully.  I don’t know when it happened, sometime I guess after high school.  The drugs.  The addiction.  One day he went to his mother’s home and asked for money.  When she refused to give it to him, he went into a fit of rage and anger and killed his mother.  He spends most of his day sitting in his prison cell.  It’s hard to see Christ in Frankie, difficult to think of him as a member of Jesus’ family. 

          “Lord when did we see you naked and give you clothes, in prison and visit you, or hungry and feed you?” 

        In her comments on this passage, Deborah Fortel wonders: “How could we ever see the judge and lover of all humanity in the mother of a homeless family as she alternately hugs her children fiercely and yells at them equally fiercely? What kind of crazy imagination would it take to see the Holy One in the schizophrenic, who has quit taking his medication, wanders into the worship service, the sanctuary, and disrupts everything?”[2] 

          Lord, when did we see you?  If only we had known that you are present, that you live in the lives of the poor, the strangers, the hungry, thirsty, imprisoned, sick people of the world. 

          Now we know.  We know that Christ, our King and Lord, will judge us, not so much on our creeds or on how well and often we pray or worship or read the bible.  Those are all important matters, for they enhance our spiritual well-being.  But they’re not what the Shepherd King will want to know from us.  He will want to know how well our deeds match our creeds.  He will want to know if we have lived according to his reign of love and mercy; he will want to know if we have helped somebody in need.

          Thursday is Thanksgiving Day.  What a great time to count our blessings and to lift our prayers of thanks to God.  “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise, give thanks to him, bless his name”, ‘give thanks to him, not only in word but, also, in deed.  What a great time also to extend God’s blessings of love and mercy in to the lives of people in need, who are members of Jesus’ family.