Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during the funeral for Timothy Gene Gress on Monday, January 8, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. Scholarship commentary, and reflection by M. Eugene Boring, Scott Hoezee, and Dennis Linn inform the message.
Reading the Bible is as much about challenge as it is about comfort, and for my money, the lesson I’ve chosen to share with you from the Gospel of Matthew is about as challenging as it gets.
That’s because, with our celebration of Christmas behind us, the work of Christmas has now begun. Or maybe more to the point: When the celebration of Christ’s birth is over, the work that Christ calls us to do begins.
That’s why we’re still basking in the glow of holiday light here in the Sanctuary. We’re hoping to create twinkling conditions for reflection on how we might bring the light and be the light after the tinsel comes down and the manger scenes are packed away. Be open to bright ideas as you listen for the Word of the Lord in Jesus’s description of what will happen when he re-enters our world in the flesh for a second time.
Listen to the Word that God has spoken. Listen even if you don’t understand.
“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. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
“Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
“Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-46)
Why are they so clueless? Why do they miss so much?
Why aren’t they paying more attention as life ebbs and flows before their very eyes? – both the “sheep” and the “goats,” that is.
Both herds have absolutely no clue that the poor in body, mind and spirit stand in Jesus’s sted. Did you catch that? Jesus doesn’t give the righteous sheep a pat on the back for seeing him in the poor, the hungry, the naked and the imprisoned. Because they don’t! They simply treat all such folks with love.
And the so-called “goats”? Those who don’t treat all such folks with love? Those who ignore the Lord’s greatest commandment to love neighbor and stranger? Well, they’re left scratching their heads and wondering when they brushed aside Jesus.
“When?” Jesus responds. “Every time you brushed ‘them’ aside.”
But suppose the “goats” were to ask a different question:
“OK, but how were we supposed to know that? If we’d known all along that they were you, Lord, they by golly we would’ve acted differently!”
“If we had known it was you, Lord …,” the goats could claim in self-defense. “Why didn’t you just say something?!” Maybe the reply would be something like this: “You didn’t have to know it was me all along. It should have been enough to realize no more than this other person was a human being created in the very image of God!
“If you had known no more than that – and you did, or should have, then that would have been enough. You didn’t need to know it was me. If you’d just acknowledged their humanity, their God-likeness, then you would have been led to do the right thing.”
And therein lies one of the great challenges of following Jesus – seeing the true humanity – the image of God – in the people of this world who find themselves living behind the eight-ball on the margins of life.
Too often we’re quite happy talking in generalities – content to paint with broad strokes that conveniently let human specificity fall away.
We lump problems and people together: the homeless, the entitlement class, the welfare queens, the mentally ill, the unemployed, the immigrants, the Republicans, the Democrats, the shades of purple in between. There is scarcely a human face to be seen in any of those broad categories – no one whose name you’ll ever know much less anyone whose story you’ll ever hear.
We seem content to acknowledge no more than that this-or-that problem area of life exists. And we sooner or later start to forget that the people who are homeless, or hungry, or naked, or imprisoned really are people. And that all those people make up the various images of the very God among us! Jesus simply asks us to see God – and by extension, himself – in each and every person. Friend, neighbor and stranger are chips off the divine block as surely as you and I are.
Even so, our eyesight isn’t always perfect, and there’ll be times when you and I will pass by or overlook the face of God in another. That possibility puts a lump in your throat and ties a knot in your stomach, what with Jesus talking about “eternal punishment” for those goat-moments in daily living.
Let me share a different way of seeing ourselves.
A man named Dennis Linn was leading a spiritual retreat for a group of retired Roman Catholic nuns, and they were discussing what it means to see the image of God in others and how seeing that image of God should govern attitudes and behavior.
One sister raised her hand and asked, “But what about the story of the sheep and the goats? It says right there that the sheep go to heaven and the goats go to hell.”
Mr. Linn responded by asking the whole group, “How many of you, even once in your life, have done what Jesus asks at the beginning of that passage and fed a hungry person, clothed a naked person, or visited a person in prison?” All the sisters raised their hands.
“That’s wonderful,” Mr. Linn replied. “You’re all sheep.”
Then he asked, “How many of you, even once in your life, have walked by a hungry person, failed to clothe a naked person, or not visited someone in prison?” Slowly, all the sisters raised their hands.
“That’s too bad,” Mr. Linn said. “You’re all goats.”
The sisters all looked understandably worried and definitely puzzled. Then, suddenly, the hand of a very elderly nun shot up high in the air, and she blurted out, “Oh wait, I get it! We’re all good goats!”
She understood that language about heaven and hell in the story of the sheep and the goats is symbolic.
Heaven and hell are not specific geographic places. They reflect inner realities or states of being. All of us who have felt alienated, unloved or overwhelmed by failure, shame or addiction know what it’s like to be in hell. And all of us who have been welcomed home, who have seen our goodness reflected in the affirming eyes of another, or who have been loved into recovery, know what it’s like to be in heaven.
We all have wheat and weeds with us. We’re all part sheep and part goat. Yet the Kingdom of God is within us, and we’re all good goats.
That’s a lovely way to understand the grace by which we are all saved. You and I are saved by grace, not by what we do or don’t do. The Jesus who speaks in our lesson knows that, of course. It is his Gospel, after all!
But also he seems to know that the faith and the salvation that come from divine grace create new ways of seeing Creation, new ways of seeing the merciful, loving God who created it all, and new ways of seeing the divinely inspired faces of everyone who dwells in it.
That’s much how I expect Tim saw the faces of those in the various communities of which he was such a beloved part.
Tim saw the face of God in the littlest among us, the face of God in family members, the face of God in kids who needed a warm, safe, dry place to call home. And for Tim, in forever seeing the face of the Lord God reflected in the face of another, that was reason enough to extend the gracious hospitality of unconditional love.
May that way of seeing be yours, mine and ours, as we carry on the work of loving and caring, forgiving and healing, including and inviting. Let the work of Christmas continue!
Amen, and amen!