The Rev. Kristin Krantz
St. James’, Mt. Airy
Christ the King/Proper 29
11/22/2020
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 100
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46
Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them;
take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.
Next Sunday, with the start of Advent, we begin a new church year, which makes this the last Sunday of the church year. In the lectionary cycle this means we’ll be moving from Year A, where we read through the majority of Matthew’s gospel, to Year B and the gospel of Mark.
As we get ready to enter Advent, that season in which we wait expectantly for the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King, in which we look to the Reign of Christ enthroned in glory at the end of time.
This is fitting as today’s parable is the final of three parables about the end of time – each an exhortation about how to live here and now. What kind of life does God want you to live? A mindful, joyful life (the parable two weeks ago); a daring, fruitful life (last week’s); and finally a generous, compassionate life (this week’s grand finale). This is Jesus’ final teaching before the passion. These are the words he wants ringing in our ears as he takes his leave.[1]
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At our vestry meeting last Tuesday during our scripture reflection time, I mentioned that this is perhaps my favorite scripture passage. One person asked me why and I gave a short answer – but here’s the fuller origin story as to why it means so much to me.
The summer I was eleven I went to church camp for the first time. Nestled in the woods of southern Indiana, close to the town of Bean Blossom, Waycross Camp was where I first encountered this parable.
It was, of course, if you know anything about church camp, in the form of a skit. It went like this.
A woman was sitting at home reading a book when the phone rang. Surprise! It was Jesus! And he was calling to say he was coming to visit today! So the woman started to do all those things you would naturally do if Jesus is coming – vacuum, dust, bake cookies.
Only, as she attempted to get ready, she kept getting interrupted by people knocking at her door.
First it was a neighbor who smelled the cookies baking and was hungry. But the woman was impatient – the cookies weren’t ready yet and she didn’t really want this person just hanging around until they were done. You know, in case Jesus arrived. So she told him she was expecting company and sent him on his way.
The next knock at the door was a group of neighborhood kids who had been running around and playing, and were hoping for some lemonade (she was known to share it usually). But they were dirty and dusty and covered in grass stains and she didn’t want them tramping into her clean house before Jesus arrived, so she told them to run around back and drink from the garden hose (this was the 80’s, we still did that then!).
Just as soon as she returned to her chores someone else was at the door. This time it was a neighbor who sick. The last thing she wanted was to do was leave to take her to the doctor – she might miss Jesus! And because these were the days before 911, she told the neighbor to go see if another neighbor could take her to the hospital.
The woman closed the door, went to pull the cookies out of the oven and placed them on a cooling rack, then she sat down to wait eager with anticipation. She waited. She waited some more. There were no more knocks. But then the phone rang. It was Jesus!
She was so flustered from waiting she said to Jesus, “You’re late! Are you still planning to visit today?” Jesus of course replied that he had already visited. Three times. And that each time instead of inviting him in, she had turned him away.
It was all very dramatic, around a campfire ring out in the woods. I imagine there was some sort of group discussion or art activity afterwards that I don’t remember.
What I do remember was the way I felt – alive with the Spirit. It was as if the pieces of the puzzle for what it meant to be a Christian slotted into place for me. My heart was on fire.
I was eleven and knew nothing of the salvation through works versus grace debate. Nor do I remember the eschatological framework of the sorting of the sheep and goats.
What I took away from the story was that God is in each of us, and we have a responsibility to care for one another. That means we have to pay attention for opportunities to be generous and compassionate.
Though over the years my understanding of this Gospel has shifted and new insights have emerged, especially around that sorting of the sheep and the goats, this has remained my guiding scripture. It is for me a distillation of how to live faithfully and follow in the footsteps of Christ.
Because this parable tells us just as much, if not more, about who we are called to be as followers of Christ, as it does about him enthroned in glory.
Perhaps that is why we tell it on this feast day, why this parable is the one Jesus wants ringing in our ears as we begin the new church year.
Maybe, instead of being the last Sunday of the church year – and an ending – today’s Feast of Christ the King is better understood as the eve of a new year, a thin space in which we stand – and from which we can look back, but more importantly from which we are being called forward.
I have always thought of this Sunday as the capstone of the church year, as it were. But just maybe it exists as a both/and – distilling a final message of who Jesus was and what it means to be Christ’s followers, while at the same time beginning to prepare us for the Incarnation.
For next Sunday, when we enter Advent, is it not only the start of our church year, it is also the beginning of the time we set aside and return to every year to prepare to come close to the Mystery of Christmas – when God became flesh and the fullness of God’s love was born among us.
Matthew points us toward this beginning, and gives us a key to coming close to the Mystery.
Because just like the woman in the skit I saw at church camp all those years ago, sometimes people can walk right through a mystery and not even know it’s there.
When our own vision turns myopic and we succumb to everyday busyness and worry, we need to remember how it is that we are to come close to that Mystery.
These last three parables about “The End” in Matthew’s gospel are meant to clarify the stakes of our lives and decisions here and now, and to exhort us to serve, to walk the walk, to focus again and again on “the least of these.”[2]
When we do this we not only come close, but we enter the Mystery, and in doing so we proclaim the dawning of Christ’s reign of love and mercy. A kingdom not of domination, but of servanthood; not of mockery, but kindness; not of cruelty, but compassion. We become a church that waits, prays, and hopes and prepares as the season of Advent begins.[3]
So pay attention, and when the phone rings and when there is a knock at the door, answer with love. Amen.
[1] SaltProject, Lectionary Commentary for the Reign of Christ the King Sunday.
[2] SaltProject, Lectionary Commentary for the Reign of Christ the King Sunday.
[3] SaltProject, Lectionary Commentary for the Reign of Christ the King Sunday.