Seeing Jesus

After God has gone to all of the bother of beginning his creative work, and gives to us the possibilities of staying close by or wandering around like sheep usually do,

he could see the direction that things were taking.

Give us freedom, and we will abuse it; give us responsibility and we will try to wriggle out of it:

“Just who is my brother,” we ask, “and why should I bother?”

“There is a voice of rebellion deep in the heart of the wicked,” the Psalmist declares, and we know that it is true.

How are you and I doing on the sheep/goats scale?

Anybody want to claim stunning successes?

Let's just imagine if one of us were to be so bold.

And then let's sit down with that person, (let's give him the name “George”) and imagine a conversation.

Let's use as the basis of conversation the Ten Commandments, nothing more elaborate than that; just the Ten Commandments and Luther's explanations that we have heard so many times over the years.

“Well”, we'll ask George, “have you been able to keep all ten, or nine, or eight, or even one of them today?”

“What about the 5^th Commandment? I haven't murdered anyone today,” George offers.

Good, but then very few people are murderers in that sense, are they?

Luther's explanation does not let us off the hook, however.

“We are to fear and love God so that we do not endanger our neighbor's life or cause him any harm, but help and befriend him in every necessity of life.”

“Oh,... I guess that I have not really helped every neighbor in every way, have I?

There are so many needs, so many opportunities

...I throw away most of the appeals I get in the mail; they are just overwhelming

...and then there are the folks down the block,

...and I heard about the one losing his job quite unexpectedly.

... and another one fighting cancer

...and I guess that I haven't really helped my neighbors in their every need.'

“So you have fractured the Fifth Commandment, haven't you?”

“But I've been really good about one of the other commandment lately, the one about coveting.”

“And didn't you have just a little twinge of satisfaction when the senator pointed out that each of the auto executives came in his own private jet to the meeting to beg for money?”

“Well, yes, I did,

...but I kept the 8^th commandment, the one about bearing false witness.”

“Really? and in the political season finally concluded, did you speak of the persons in the other party in a way that matched Luther's explanation: ...'apologize for him, speak well of him, and interpret charitably all that he does.'?”

“Well, no , no I can't claim that.

But I can say that I've been in church every Sunday for 2-1/2 months, so I'm keeping the Sabbath Day commandment, right?

Let's listen to Luther's explanation again: We are to fear and love God so that we should not despise his Word and the preaching of it, but deem it holy, and gladly hear and learn it.

How glad were you that morning that you really wanted to sleep in?

And aren't you one of those who thinks that you learned all that you needed to know as a kid and don't really need to spend any particular time in study now?

“I guess that's true.”

“So you haven't really kept that command either!

And if we continue, we couldn't find even one that you haven't twisted, fractured, or outright broken in many different ways, could we?

Where is George on the sheep/goat scale?...and where are we?

That was a painful conversation, wasn't it?, but that is the truth of things.

After this examination, is anyone left on the “sheep” side?

We've all been classified on the “goat” side, and Jesus himself is the only person on the other side of the divide, the only sheep that is and does what the flock of God should be and do.

Is Jesus' story then one of utter despair for us?

If we mess things up at every turn, what hope is there?

If Jesus' story is about the end of all things, then there is no hope for any of us.

But it is a different thing if the announced fate of the goats is the judgment given early on, in the manner of the judgment so often announced by the prophets of old Israel; a judgment that says :

'If you continue on the present course, these are the things that certainly will happen with you.'

How can the announced outcome be changed?

“Will someone come and help us?” we cry out.

Silence.

“Lord, will you send one of the dead, one who has gone through all of the pains and suffering like ours, in order to help us?”

The Lord declines: “They've had their chance with you, and you with them.”

And so we, on the goat side of the divide, have a continuing job:

to be the ones who remind Jesus in our prayers that he knows our situation,

he knows what we truly need,

he knows what he must do.

We pray:

“Remember O Lord, the pain you have felt when we have wandered far.

Remember O Lord, the pain you felt when you were abandoned by mankind and nailed to the tree of the cross.

Remember, O Lord, and do not leave us in the same loneliness in which we left you.

Remember, O Lord, your promises, made to the un-worthy.

Remember, O Lord, the words of St. Paul: For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. [Romans 5:6]

A deep silence falls on the judgment scene. We have used his best lines on Jesus in our prayer,

the lines he himself has taught us to pray.

And he will step across the great divide.

He will reach us, the independent-minded goats that we are.

Somehow he will slip up behind us and pull us back from our self-destructive ways.

He will re-direct us, as a father redirects a small child onto a different activity.

How will he accomplish all this?

The wisdom and ways of God are far deeper than we will now understand, but this much we can say:

when we come to the Table of the Lord, it is as if we are still too short to see all that is going on; we can only peek over the edge of the table, and get a little sample to eat and drink, ...baby food.

We can't see everyone or understand all of the joy and laughter in the heavenly conversation, only enough to know that in God's good time we will grow into it.

And the Host of the meal gives us time:

time to feed someone as we have been fed,

time to be merciful as he has been merciful with us,

time to hear and learn and say and do things that fit with banquet behavior.

Some may scoff that what I have just proposed to you is a tired old vision of universal salvation, which leads to the tired old line ”It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you are sincere.”

No, I am not saying that at all.

I don't know anything about universal salvation; that is God's business, not mine.

What the Lord clearly is offering to us, and asks us to share the news, is a universal opportunity.

As we said with our kids in First Communion preparation sessions:

“There's a place for you.”

In every illustration in that little book, there was a spot marked with an X, often quite close to Jesus, and an arrow with the logo “A place for you.”

This place is marked by food-sharing:

at the Communion rail and in Thanksgiving baskets.

This place is marked by shelter: as this nave shelters us from the windy weather, and as Journey House and Family Promise, and Habitat succeed in the community.

This place is marked by the words and beyond-words of music: as bells and organ and voices here echo the songs of heaven, and as frozen instruments struggle to tell the community that the approaching season is about more than shopping and consuming.

This place is marked by the love of Jesus determined to change our course so that the pre-judgment given in Jesus' parable is not the final verdict.

This place is where Jesus is,

sometimes hidden from our eyes, and sometimes audible, visible, and tangible.

In this place, let all who hear his Word, rejoice in confidence. Amen

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.