Episode 552: Whatever You Do To The Least of These

That's okay, I just won't move. I'll stand here. So, well, good morning again. I have to switch caps here from that over there to this over here a little bit, but I've enjoyed these last couple of weeks, and I don't know if you have or not, but this is my third week doing this in a row, and I'm not used to doing that much speaking on Sunday mornings. So thanks for your graciousness to me and Next week, I think Pastor Jeff's going to be back with us, so— but I've really enjoyed my time with you. Thank you for, um, just the several of you have made some very kind and, and honestly encouraging words to me, and I really appreciate that. And thanks for your patience. Continue to pray for me today as I do my best to bring the word this morning. It's a passage I'm honestly a little nervous about because it's a passage that has scared me in the past. You ever have a scary Bible passage that you think, I don't, I don't want to talk about that one too much, it kind of scares me. This is kind of one of those passages, and it's a parable. And, and if you don't know what a parable is, I know maybe all of us need a refresher from time to time. Um, this passage I'm about to read comes from Matthew chapter 25, so if you have a Bible and you want to go ahead and start turning there, you can do that. But I wanted to just give you a quick definition of a parable. Because there's a lot of different understandings of what they are, but a parable— parables are a form of storytelling, and they're used to convey a moral, spiritual, or philosophical lesson through symbolic or allegorical means. They're meant to make us think bigger and make us dive deeper, so they often use everyday situations and characters to make them relatable and, and easy to remember, but But then they flip the script usually, especially Jesus's parables. They then challenge you by using this thing that was everyday to people in his time. They expected the story to go one way, and then it completely flips on the other end. And it's, it's supposed to kind of disorient you in some ways. Um, the reason I say today it's okay if we have scriptures that even scare us a little bit sometimes is because it's supposed to disorient us a little bit. Jesus is using some images that, that can be quite frightening but also can be amazingly comforting at the same time. And they're always open to interpretation. You can ask 5 different people about a parable and probably get 5 different things that they got from it. I mean, and they are supposed to be open-ended. You aren't necessarily supposed to necessarily— this is kind of an old Jewish tradition of parables and storytelling you don't necessarily have to find just one meaning from the story. So I'm going to share the parable with you today, and then I get to share— I'm going to share what it means to me right now in my life, uh, partially through something that someone said to me one time. So Matthew 25, I think it's going to be on the screen too, but we're going to start at verse 31. You've probably heard this passage before. It's the sheep and the goats. Okay, um, and it goes like this: When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. 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.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?' 'When did we see you sick or in prison or go to visit you?' And the King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me.' And then he will say to those on his left— this is the scary part, all right— 'Depart from me, you who are cursed.' into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger, you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison, and you did not look after me.' They will also answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you?' And he will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for the least of these, one of the least of these, 'You did not do for me.' Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. I'm glad I wasn't chewing gum when I first read that, because I would have swallowed it. I think it's kind of a scary passage, isn't it? It's okay, we can admit that. Wow, Jesus, those images are, are strong. And that's kind of what kings would do back in the day. It was a very familiar image of the king being the judge of the land and bringing people in to judge them, and then to say, 'If you didn't bring me the best offering, well, I'm going to punish you.' And so they would always bring gifts. They'd bring their best treasures to the king, and if it was good enough, they'd be okay till the next time. But Jesus flips that whole thing over. He says, 'It's not what you brought to me It's what you brought to each other. It's how you cared for each other. I didn't need your treasures, they did. It's a startling parable. I remember when I first heard it in church camp. I think I was a teenager and I was scared to death. I think I went to the altars 3 times that night because I was so scared about— did I miss somebody along the way? I'm scared I'm gonna miss somebody. And to be honest, we would like for it to say something different. Wouldn't we? If it went with our American Christian culture, we'd rather it say this: The King says to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.' For you went to church every time the doors were open, and you had your devotions every morning, and you prayed and you read the Bible regularly, and you didn't drink or smoke or chew or go with those that do. You prayed the sinner's prayer one time and you're good. Welcome into the kingdom. But the parable doesn't say anything about those things, as important as they may be. Too often we read parables like this one— at least I do. Are you like me and you make it all about yourself when you read it? I think I do that a lot. But this parable is actually about Jesus and where we find Jesus in the world. Jesus uses the treatment of others as the basis for separating people like sheep from the goats. And you know, our Sunday morning worship, as important as it is, our Sunday morning worship is not inherently good just because we do it. There's even scriptures about that, and I want you to use your imagination with me for a moment. I want you to imagine living in a place that's doing pretty well financially, okay? People have plenty of houses, plenty of food. Things seem to be going pretty well on the surface. Well, this was the situation in Israel where the prophet Amos lived about 2,800 years ago, roughly. The prophet Amos was just a regular guy. He was a shepherd, he was a fig tree farmer, but he noticed something wrong. And even though people were wealthy and they seemed happy, and you know, even the ones who weren't super wealthy had enough. They, I mean, they drove cars, they bought gas. It was expensive, probably, you know. Oh wait, I'm sorry, I got them mixed up with us. Most of us are not too impoverished in here, although we do have impoverished people in our community. Sorry, back to Amos. Amos noticed something wrong. Even though people were wealthy and seemed happy, this was the problem: the rich were getting richer by exploiting the poor, and the leaders were corrupt and unjust And people were just going through their motions of their religious rituals, but they weren't truly living out their faith in how they treated others. So Amos started speaking about these issues, and he told everyone that God was not happy with how they were acting. He said that the true worship of God wasn't just about their ceremonies and rituals, but about treating people fairly and with kindness. And if they didn't change their ways, Amos warned that bad things would happen, like foreign nations invading their land and taking over.

Over.

In short, Amos was telling people, stop being so selfish and corrupt. Start living justly and righteously, caring for others, especially the poor, especially the vulnerable, but also everyone. This is the word of the Lord that, that came, that came from the prophet Amos to the people of Israel who came gathered to worship one day. I think we're gonna have it on the screen. It says this. These are the words of the Lord from Amos. I hate, I despise your worship services. That's what that is. I despise your religious festivals. Your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your guitars— your harps, I mean. Oops, I keep getting this mixed up. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream. Wow. It's like God doesn't care about our worship services and our beliefs nearly as much as how we treat others. I didn't say he doesn't care about them. I say he doesn't care about them nearly as much. Have you ever been challenged in your beliefs before? Maybe it's happening now, I don't know. But if you ever had a person in authority who you really respect deeply challenge your beliefs, it's awesome. It's not really, but it is. I mean, especially when it happens at a job interview. In the summer of 2022, I was being interviewed at Kettering Medical Center for their residency position as a chaplain. I had already been there most of the summer volunteering, working as an intern chaplain 40 hours a week, but there was no pay involved and there was all kinds of school. And so if I was a resident, that would mean I'd still have to do all that same work, but at least I'd get paid a little bit to do it. And that hour drive every day, at least I would get some gas money for it. So I'm sitting in the interview, and Néstor Bruno, who is a wonderful man from Argentina, he's the head of mission for Kettering Medical Center. And he's got this wonderful accent. I may try to do it, but if I mess it up, you know, he's much better at it. But he's interviewing me and he says this important question: Rick— he would say Rick like that— Rick, do you want people to see Jesus in you, or do you want to see Jesus in them? And I said, uh, well, I want people to see Jesus in me, right? I mean, well, wait, let me think about it. Like, yes, think about it a moment. Do you want people to see Jesus in you, or do you want to see Jesus in them? And I said, I don't know if I've thought about that before. And he— I, I said, well, can it be both? And he said, well, yes, it can be both, but think about Matthew chapter 25. It does not say anything about people seeing Jesus in me. It says everything about me seeing Jesus in them. And it was like Mic drop. I'm done. That one conversation I had— by the way, I did get the residency, by the way— but that changed every perspective for me in ministry. I think I used to be so caught up in what people are going to see in me, and there's pressure. I have to let people see Jesus in all that I do. But when he said that to me, and I looked at Matthew chapter 25 again, it changed my perspective completely. And I realized that every hospital room I walk into, I'm not going in there to see a patient only, I'm going in there to see Jesus. And Jesus may be sometimes cussing at me and throwing stuff and saying, "Get outta my room, I don't want a chaplain!" But that's still Jesus. Because Jesus is behind the eye of every person that we encounter according to this parable. Whatever you have done to any of these, my brethren, to the least of these, you've done it unto me. That changes things for me. It means that now witnessing is not so much about what I proclaim and what I tell people. Witnessing is about what I see. I get to witness something in others. I get to see Jesus working in the lives of people each day. As I look across this room this morning, I remind myself Jesus is sitting at every space in this pew today. Jesus is all over this room. And the way it seems that we are going to be judged one day is not about how pious we were and how many scriptures we memorized and how good our theology was and how many songs we could sing and how good a guitar players we are and how many times we came to the altar It was what we did to the people who needed. There's no quiz about your theology when you get to heaven. I, I don't know, it's just because Jesus says he cares this much. It's all through the Old Testament, it's all in the New Testament. We miss it so often, but it's true. How we treat the stranger, the immigrant, refugees, people in our midst. These are the ones that are Jesus. They are not people to be feared. They are not people to be cast out. They are people to be loved because they are Jesus. Did you hear that today? Those people who aggravate you, they are Jesus. All right, remind yourself of that throughout the day. Maybe even just say, Jesus, help me see you today. Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see Jesus, to reach out and touch him, to say that we love him. I'm gonna close with a song today. I told— I don't know if I told everybody. I told the Sunday school teachers and the praise team, but I just got back from Chicago area last evening. I was up at Olivet University. It's not in Chicago, it's kind of outside. It's the— it's the part of Chicago without traffic, if it's It's a suburb of, you know, Chicago. But we did for 3 days. We started Thursday and we met with people from around the United States. We even had people from Hawaii come in. We had somebody from Germany that showed up. And we were there to write songs for the church, for the Wesleyan tradition. It was called the Wesleyan Songwriting Summit. And I got back, you know, not super late, but kind of, you know, 7 o'clock-ish last night. Tired from the road, but also exhilarated because we've been writing songs for the church. And we were encouraging people there. I was one of the group leaders with songwriters, and we said, "Try to write something while you're here that your church could use." And in my mind I'm thinking, "I can't think of a song that I could play that's about the sheep and the goats." So the assignment became, "Maybe I should write a song about that today. What could I write that helps us with this?" So this is what I came up with, so don't throw your tomatoes or anything, okay? But I wanted to kind of close with it today. So give me just a moment to make the transition. I think I left the mic on. And this is sort of a reflection for us today, okay? It's kind of my reflection on this parable. I think it's so important that we learn to see Jesus in others. I think we cultivate that kind of lifestyle where we look and see the living Christ, and he is living in the people around us, next door to us, down the street from us. And I think that's what the thrust of the passage is, that how we care for others is how we care for Jesus, that we love Jesus in the way we love others. And when you saw me hungry, you gave me food to eat.

When you saw me thirsty, you gave me water. And when I was a stranger, you opened up your door. And when you saw me shivering, You clothed and made me warm. Whatever you do to the least of these, you do it unto me. When you serve the broken, the poor, the lost, you're serving Christ your King. And when you love your neighbor, and when you love your enemy, Whatever you do to the least of these, you do it unto me. When you saw me hurting, you came to soothe my pain. When you saw me locked up, You came to my prison. When you saw me hopeless, you brought joy into my life. When you saw me suffering, you stayed right by my side. Whatever you do to the least of these, you do it unto me. When you serve the broken, the poor, the lost, you're serving Christ your King. And when you love your neighbor, and when you love your enemy, whatever you do to the least of these, you do it unto me. The faces of the poor are the faces of the Lord. The faces of the sick are the faces of the Lord. The faces of the addicts, the drag queens, the convicts, the The atheists, the Muslims, the racists, the Jews, the gays, the Christians and the straights, the Republicans and the Democrats, the prostitutes and the diplomats, and the elderly and the homeless, the disabled and the The fatherless, the blind, and the deaf, and those unsure of their righteousness, and the doctors and the lawyers and the pacifists and the soldiers, and the humble and the vain, and those abused in Jesus' name, and the cowardly and the fearless and the selfish And the generous and the hardworking and the lazy, those who the world calls crazy, and the bitter, the downhearted. Oh, we've barely gotten started. 'Cause whatever you do to the least of these, Oh, whatever you do to the least of these, do it unto me. Do it unto me. Oh, you do it unto me.

Would you all stand with me this morning? I just— oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate your kindness, but I want you to sing along with me on this if you could.

Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see Jesus, to reach out and touch him and say that we love him. Open our ears, Lord, and help us to listen. Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus.

I think we're going to sing that again, and I, I don't want to presume how the Spirit might be leading in this moment, but I always want to make the invitation that these altars are open anytime. They're actually a place of refuge where we come not because we feel like necessarily we have done any great sin, but because we just need a place to go to God and just kind of lay our burdens down. In scripture, altars are symbolic of those places of God's help. And maybe today you just need to come and leave a stone and say, God met with me there today, or I really want God to meet with me today. And we aren't the judge. None of us are the judge. We just read a parable that says there's only one judge, and it's not me, and it's not anybody in this room. But if anybody would like to just spend a few moments in quiet prayer, I think we're just going to sing that again, okay? And we just want you to be obedient to whatever the Lord is speaking into this moment.

Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus. To reach out and touch him and say that we love him. Open our ears, Lord, and help us to listen. Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus.

Our Lord, we don't want it to be said of us as it was of the people in Amos's time, that you hate and despise our religious gatherings. Lord, we want to love you. And Lord, if I just admit it for myself today, I have not always loved you with my whole heart, because I have not always loved the people around me with my whole heart. Just in this moment, I not only ask for forgiveness for me, but I pray for a newness in my life to be able to see Jesus in the people around me again. The people I've called my enemy, the people that I have othered in my life, people who I have cut off. Lord, let today be a day when the gates swing open wide again. I pray, Lord Jesus, we do pray you'd open our eyes and help us to see you, because whatever we do to the least of these, we we do it unto you, Lord. The whole earth is full of your glory, the scripture says, and that means everywhere, including the people in this room today, Lord. They are your glory, they are your delight. We are your delight. I pray, Lord, that we would live delighted lives. Enlightened that you are here with us. Lord Jesus, fill our hearts to go out and love the world, to love ourselves, and to love our families, and to love each other in the way that you have called us to love. Have your way, Lord. We are so grateful for your presence in this place.

Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see Jesus, to reach out and touch him. Keep singing.

And All right, before we have our benediction this morning, look to your right. And look to your left. Jesus is there next to you today. Spirit of the Lord fills his people, and the whole earth is full of his glory. Amen. Amen. The benediction for you to receive this morning: May the Lord bless you and keep you as you go forth with hearts of compassion and hands of service. May you be like the sheep ever mindful of those in need, offering kindness and mercy to the least among us. May you find strength in living out the love of Christ, embracing opportunities to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and clothe the naked. As you walk in the light of God's grace, may you be a beacon of hope and justice in a world that yearns for his presence. Go now in peace, knowing that in serving others you serve the Lord. Amen. You are dismissed.