Psalm 100:1-5 • Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 • Ephesians 1:15-23 • Matthew 25:31-46
Yesterday was the last Sunday of the church calendar, known as Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday. Next Sunday begins Advent and a new church year. The Reign of Christ gives us pause to think about our participation in God’s kingdom on earth now. We can think of yesterday as a church “New Year’s Day,” complete with a review of how we participated in kingdom work over the last year and with imagination to see areas we might move toward in this next church calendar year.
The theme for this week is the why, what, how, and when of kingdom participation.
- Psalm 100:1-5 sets us up to think about why we want to participate in kingdom work and why we praise God at all.
- Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 further defines the why by using rich metaphors of a caring shepherd and flock, as well as showing what caring for others looks like.
- In Ephesians 1:15-23, the how of kingdom participation is outlined with a focus on the hope we’ve been called to and the power we’ve been given through Jesus Christ.
- The sermon text comes from Matthew 25:31-46 where the what, how, and when of kingdom participation is detailed in the well-known metaphor of sheep, goats, and judgment.
SPEAKING OF LIFE
The Why of Praise
Jeff Broadnax
Many people are familiar with Psalm 100. It’s called a “psalm of thanksgiving,” and it encourages the entire earth to “make a joyful noise.” That sounds like a good time to me! But what I want to focus on today is the why – why should we “make a joyful noise?”
Let’s set the stage by reading what we should be doing:
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.
Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him; bless his name.
Psalm 100:1-4 (NRSVUE)
Notice all the things we “should” be doing – making a joyful noise, serving with gladness, singing, knowing that God is our Creator, and giving thanks and blessings to the Divine. While these verses can be instructional, if you’re like me, you often want to know “why” you need to do something. And by knowing why, it connects the head with the heart. Our actions become linked to heartfelt emotion, and what might have been routine, mindless acts suddenly become infused with meaning.
Let’s look at the last verse of Psalm 100 to understand why we would even consider making a joyful noise, serving with gladness, or any of the other actions the first four verses tell us we should do:
For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations.
Psalm 100: 5 (NRSVUE)
The reason we respond with a joyful noise and thanksgiving is because God is good, but verse 5 does more than leave the definition of “good” up to our human imaginations. It defines God’s goodness as “steadfast love” and “faithfulness.”
The phrase “steadfast love,” can be more expansively defined as “kindness or love between people” or the idea of giving yourself fully to another. God gives steadfast love fully to each one of us, and we know this by Jesus’ crucifixion, where God’s Son endured the hatred and mistreatment of humankind so that we could be brought into the triune relationship. We also have evidence of the fullness of God’s steadfast love through the gift of the Holy Spirit, our Helper and Comforter, who lives in us.
The word “faithfulness,” refers to trustworthiness in relationships. God’s way of moving in the world reflects his loyalty and commitment to humanity. This trustworthiness in relationships was demonstrated by Jesus’ commitment to people who were often marginalized in his culture, like women, children, and Gentiles. Jesus went out of his way to encourage, hang out with, and even heal those who had no power or money to offer him. This is God’s way of showing his trustworthy commitment to people while pointing out the problems with man-made systems and cultures.
God’s complete commitment and loyalty to all of humanity is what inspires our praise. When we make that “joyful noise,” it’s because we understand the goodness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
May we make a joyful noise, knowing the fullness of our triune God’s steadfast love and faithfulness.
I’m Jeff Broadnax, Speaking of Life.
The Most Important Time Is Now
Matthew 25:31-46 (NRSVUE)
There’s a children’s book by Jon J. Muth called The Three Questions. It’s based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy, and in the story, a boy named Nikolai was thinking about what it meant to be a good person. He decided that there were three questions he needed to be answered to understand how to be a good person:
- When is the best time to do things?
- Who is the most important one?
- What is the right thing to do?
Nikolai’s three friends, a heron, a monkey, and a dog, tried to help, but their answers were limited. Nikolai decided to check with a wise old turtle named Leo. He found Leo digging in his garden and asked him the three questions. Leo just smiled, and after watching him a bit, Nikolai decided that he could help Leo dig in his garden since he was young and strong. While they were digging, a storm blew up, so they hurried back to Leo’s house. On the way there, Nikolai heard a cry for help and discovered an unconscious panda whose leg had been injured by a fallen tree. He carried her into Leo’s house and made a splint for her leg. When the panda woke up, she cried, “Where is my baby?” With that, Nikolai raced back into the storm to the place where he found her, and there in the forest, he found the baby panda, cold and shivering. Nikolai took the baby to her mother and helped dry and warm her. The next day, the storm was gone, and the mother panda’s leg was feeling better, but Nikolai still did not have the answers to his three questions. He asked Leo the turtle again, and the wise turtle responded, “But your questions have been answered!” He went on to explain:
“Yesterday, if you had not stayed to help me dig my garden, you wouldn’t have heard the panda’s cries for help in the storm. Therefore, the most important time was the time you spent digging the garden. The most important one at that moment was me, and the most important thing to do was help me with my garden.
“Later, when you found the injured panda, the most important time was the time you spent mending her leg and saving her child. The most important ones were the panda and her baby. And the most important thing to do was to take care of them and make them safe.
“Remember, then, that there is only one important time, and that time is now. The most important one is always the one you are with. And the most important thing is to do good for the one who is standing at your side. For these, my dear boy, are the answers to what is most important in this world.” (Muth, The Three Questions).
This children’s story illustrates today’s sermon text from Matthew 25:31-46 where Jesus talks about judgment and how we are to participate in the kingdom of God now. Let’s read the passage together:
Matthew 25:31-46
31 “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. 32 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, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, 35 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, 36 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.’
37 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? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’
41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 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.’
44 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?’ 45 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.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.”
The scripture passage concludes Matthew’s theme of righteousness. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says,
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20, NRSVUE)
Later verses in Matthew point out that this righteousness doesn’t come from our keeping the law, but from mercy and love for God and others (Matthew 9:13; 22:37-40).
When we focus too much on the scary judgment verses in the passage (Matthew 9:41, 46), we miss important points about what, why, when, and how we participate in the kingdom of God. As we reflect on this scripture passage, let’s consider these ideas:
We can be ignorant of what God’s kingdom looks like (what) : Neither the sheep nor goats recognized what they were doing (or not doing) as participation in the kingdom of God. American theologian and Duke University professor Stanley Hauerwas writes, “The difference between followers of Jesus and those who do not know Jesus is that those who have seen Jesus no longer have any excuse to avoid ‘the least of these.’”
Even as Nikolai in The Three Questions did not see his actions as his intuitive answers to the three questions, we also do not always perceive the mystery that is the kingdom of God at work on earth right now.
The “why” behind our questions and actions matters: (why) Both the sheep and the goats express surprise at the king’s allegations, and both groups ask a similar question: “Lord, when was it that we saw you …” (Matthew 9:37-39, 44). However, their motivation for asking the question was quite different.
- The sheep acted kindly toward “the least of these” without considering whether they would be rewarded or praised.
- The goats, on the other hand, ask the question with an unspoken caveat: “if we had only known it was you.”
The goats were still trapped in the works and reward mentality, misunderstanding that grace extended to others doesn’t expect anything in return.
Sometimes in our outreach efforts, we are focused more on identifying and serving those we determine to be “the least of these” than we are on expressing the natural compassion that arises as a fruit of the Holy Spirit. New Testament scholar and author Stanley Saunders writes the following:
Even the broadest definition of the least ones, as anyone and everyone in need, carries a similar consequence if the ensuing acts of compassion are motivated by the reward promised in the parable. When motivated extrinsically, in fact, such deeds cease to be ‘compassionate’ at all. They devolve into the kinds of charity that preserve the vulnerability of the least ones in order to confirm the ‘righteousness’ of the benefactors. In other words, as we pursue our quest to identify the least ones, the jaws of the parable snap shut. We discover ourselves in the goat pen.
We can learn from the example of the boy Nikolai in The Three Questions that we often don’t need to look much further than those who cross our paths during the course of ordinary life. Keeping our eyes and ears open to a need that we might be able to meet is one way to answer the questions of what, when, and how we participate in God’s kingdom.
Creating relationships helps prevent us from turning people into projects: (how) When we take time to develop relationships, we find value in caring for others and in being cared for by others. Rather than turning a person into a social justice or evangelism project, we become the hands and feet of Jesus; we wash others’ feet, and sometimes we are the ones lavishly anointed with perfume.
New Testament professor at Wesley Theological Seminary Carla Works writes:
The blessed ones are those who have seen a King who is not like the kings of this world. They are blessed because they know a King who brings real peace, who sees the needy, and who hears the cries of the oppressed. In God’s kingdom, no one is hungry, naked, sick, or alone. To bear witness to Christ as King is to be a messenger of this kingdom – to serve others and thereby profess the invasion of God’s glorious empire.
The who, what, where, and why questions all revolve around our participation with Jesus. He has invited us to join him in what he is doing. He is building relationships with others and often includes us in the process. If we consider the sermon text in conjunction with the children’s book The Three Questions, we learn that the most important time to show kindness and love is now, the most important person is the one we are with now, and the most important action we can take is to do good, whatever that looks like in the situation we are in.
The why is always, always a deep love for Christ the King, whom we serve as we live and move on this earth.
Call to Action: Be aware of opportunities to show kindness to someone. Do good within your means and abilities, and then give thanks for a chance to join Jesus in what he is doing – some phrase this as being the hands and feet of Jesus – bringing many sons and daughters to personal relationship with Father, Son and Spirit. In other words, participating with Jesus in doing his work for God’s kingdom on earth.
Is there anything about that sermon that stands out for you?
Is there anything that would normally stand out that did not stand out this time?
It seems to me … the focus is more on what the sheep did than on what the goats didn’t do … and, also, on the inheritance of the sheep, rather than the punishment of the goats.
Matthew 25:31-46
31 “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. 32 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, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, 35 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, 36 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.’
37 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? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’
41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 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.’
44 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?’ 45 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.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.”
Related passages …
- 1 Peter 4:17 (NKJV) For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?
- Proverbs 19:17 (NKJV) He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, And He will pay back what he has given.
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- (GNT) When you give to the poor, it is like lending to the LORD, and the LORD will pay you back.
- (NAB) Whoever cares for the poor lends to the LORD, who will pay back the sum in full.
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- Galatians 6:10 (NKJV) Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
From William Barclay: A Spiritual Autobiography, pp. 65-67, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, 1977.
… one of the key passages is Matthew 25:46 where it is said that the rejected go away to eternal punishment, and the righteous to eternal life.
The Greek word for punishment is kolasis, which was not originally an ethical word at all. It originally meant the pruning of trees to make them grow better. I think it is true to say that in all Greek secular literature kolasis is never used of anything but remedial punishment.
The word for eternal is aionios. It means more than everlasting, for Plato — who may have invented the word — plainly says that a thing may be everlasting and still not be aionios. The simplest way to put it is that aionios cannot be used properly of anyone but God; it is the word uniquely, as Plato saw it, of God.
Eternal punishment is then literally that kind of remedial punishment which it befits God to give and which only God can give.
“eternal” … from aionios (m) or aionion (f) … Adjective … from aion (age; eon)
- long-lasting
- lasting for an age
- lasting for life (of an office or title)
- perpetual, eternal, everlasting
Re: #2 … the understanding that should be applied to most occurences in the Bible … lasting for an age … age-lasting … POINT: everlasting would be better understood as age-lasting
Re: #4 … the understanding that should only be applied occurences that refer to God … or to things God-related.
Another meaning …
5. of the age to come
So … eternal life can/should oftentimes be understood as “life of the age to come”
What about the eternal fire in verse 41 (Matthew 25:41)?
Malachi 3:1-2 “Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts. 2 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap.
- A refiner’s fire melts down a metal, such as gold or silver, for purification purposes. Once a metal is in its melted down state, the dross in the metal rises to the top and is then removed from the metal before it cools. God spoke this analogy through the prophet Malachi to describe how he purifies our hearts.*
* From What Is the Refiner’s Fire in Malachi? … by Pamela Palmer (on Bible Study Tools website)
- Exodus 24:17 The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.
- Deuteronomy 4:24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
- Hebrews 12:29 For our God is a consuming fire.