“Come and Be our Judge!”
November 24, 2002
The Rev. Dr. David M. Wendel
Saint Luke’s Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Lessons: Ezekial 34:11-16, 20-24; Ephesians 1:15-23; St. Matthew 25:31-46
“We believe that you will come and be our judge. Come, then, Lord, and help your people, bought with the price of your own blood, and bring us with your saints to glory everlasting.”
These words are from the Te Deum laudamus, in use by the Christian Church at least by 498 A.D., probably written at the beginning of that century by Christians, once again, concerned with right teaching, right preaching, and right believing. The hymn, as a whole, is a creedal statement, that could be chanted again and again, to reinforce orthodox, catholic understanding of scripture. It served the church well, for at least 1500 years. Does it continue to serve us well? Only if we believe that it says. Only if we pay heed to what it affirms as right, true teaching from Holy Scripture. And on this Festival of Christ the King, the Te Deum begs the question: “Do we indeed, believe that Jesus will come and be our judge?”
In our gospel lesson, yet another parable about the end time, Jesus tells us plainly that it is so. Jesus said to his disciples, “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. 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, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.” Jesus himself says, he will come and be our judge—and judge of all nations and peoples. But do we believe it?
There are indications that many in our world don’t believe it. Serial killers, a rapist loose on our streets, CEO’s and CFO’s falsifying information for their own gain, these are just a few markers that point to the fact that many don’t believe that Jesus will come and be our judge. And there are markers within the church, as well as without. Clergy who no longer believe in the Holy Trinity, or the bodily resurrection of Christ, lead their flocks astray into error and false teaching, as if there will be no judgement. Priests have abused the vulnerable and the innocent as if they will not be held accountable. Congregations are split asunder by members who fight and bicker over their own individual wants, needs and desires—as if the Church is their to shape as they wish—as if their will be no accounting of their behavior. You look around, and it looks very much like the Church, and many individual Christians DO NOT believe that Christ will come and be our judge. And so, they go right on being goats. There is no repentance for sin and disobedience. There is no change of heart and mind. There is no amendment of life, because there’s no concern for judgement. And though Jesus makes it clear, elsewhere in his teaching, that His kingship is a reign of love, not fear—in this parable, he’s trying to impress upon us, and all Christians throughout time, that their will be a judgement! There will be a separating of the sheep from the goats! The blessed sheep will be taken away into the kingdom prepared for them, eternal life—while the goats will go away into eternal punishment. No matter how lovey-dovey we may think Jesus is—no matter how much we have convinced ourselves that because God loves us, it doesn’t matter what we we do in life—no matter how completely we have deluded ourselves into thinking that ultimately, all people will be saved; Jesus teaches otherwise. Jesus affirms that He is, Christ the King—and He will come and be our judge, ready or not, whether we want to be judged, or not. And He tells us this, not necessarily to strike fear into our hearts; not necessarily to make us feel guilty—but to drive us to repentance. To drive us to amendment of life. To drive us, now, to see Him, in the faces of all we come in contact with in life—so that now, our lives may be re-oriented—to do the works of the kingdom—to do works of love, justice and mercy. And we can learn several things from Jesus’ parable about these works of love, justice and mercy.
First, they are to be simple things. He doesn’t say, go to South Africa and minister to the starving babies—although that may be the calling of some. Rather, he says, give food to the hungry, welcome a stranger, care for a sick person, visit someone in prison. You don’t have to do all those things—but we all have opportunity to do one of those things. Right here, you can bring food for our pantry, which goes directly to feed hungry people. Right here, on any given Sunday, you can welcome a stranger, a guest or a visitor. In your own family, you can care for a sick person—care for someone who’s ill, or lonely, or depressed, or struggling. It’s freeing, really, that Jesus doesn’t say, here, you have to give away thousands of dollars, or become famous, or rule the world. It’s freeing, really, that Jesus doesn’t say we have to be successful, or be great parents, or be the best spouse in the whole world. It’s simply giving help to the people we meet every day. It’s showing love, and justice, and mercy, to our family, our co-workers, our neighbors. It’s doing those things that we’re called upon to do, by those around us, just because it’s the right thing to do…oddly enough, never realizing we’re doing it, for Jesus, himself.
So, second, these acts of love, justice and mercy, are to be for the sake of the person in need. Those who helped in the parable, never though that they were helping Jesus and so piling up eternal merits. They weren’t helping with one eye on the person in need, and another on Jesus in heaven, to make sure he was seeing and marking down the appropriate points. They helped because they couldn’t stop themselves. They helped because that’s what disciples of Jesus do—they do acts of love, justice and mercy—because someone’s in need, not because we’re trying to earn our way into heaven. Because we have been loved and helped, by God; because God has shown us justice and mercy, the disciple of Jesus does the same, in return, to the neighbor in need. The disciple of Jesus, more and more, looses self-centeredness, looses selfishness, looses greed and ego-centrism, and gains, the mind of Christ, which loves God, and others, above everything else.
Which brings us to the third and final aspect of Jesus’ teaching in this parable—the wonderful truth that though we act for the sake of the person in need—when we do so, we are giving help, love, mercy, to Jesus himself. Two faithful disciples learned that this is so—as they did simple acts of care and compassion. One was St. Francis of Assisi, who was healthy and well-born, and known to be a carouser who cared for no one and nothing but himself. One day he was out riding and met a leper, repulsive in the ugliness of his disease. But something moved Francis to dismount, approach the leper and embrace this wretched sufferer—and as he did so, the face of the leper changed into the face of Jesus Christ. The second was St. Martin of Tours. He was a roman soldier and a Christian. One cold winter day, as he was entering a city, a beggar stopped him and asked him for alms. Martin had no money, but as the beggar was cold and shivering, Martin took off his soldier’s cloak, worn and frayed as it was; he tore it in two, and gave half of it to the beggar man. That night, Martin had a dream. In it he saw the heavenly places and all the angels, and Jesus in the midst of them…and Jesus was wearing half of a Roman soldiers cloak. One of the angels said to him, “Lord, where did you get that battered old cloak?” And Jesus answered, “My servant, Martin gave it to me.”
The point is not that these were saints who did great things—but that saints are people, as Mother Teresa said, who do simple things with great love. The point is that are saints, sheep, in the eyes of Christ, our King, when we do simple, everyday acts of love, justice and mercy, not for the sake of salvation, but for the sake of the person in need. And we count on Jesus to come, to judge our simple acts—but we also, as we sing in the Te Deum, pray that he will come and help us, his people, to do these acts, and to bring us, with all the saints, to glory everlasting.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.