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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
For those who grew up watching—or who have ever watched—Sesame Street, the segment and song “One of these things is not like the others” is quite familiar. We were taught to find what was common between a number of given objects—such as a hammer, pliers, and saw’s all being tools—and then to identify which object was not like the others—such as a tennis shoe’s not being a tool. We might then apply that skill, for example, at places such as petting or other zoos, where animals may be penned separately or intermingled, as they were in flocks at Jesus’s time. So, even we might be able to distinguish between sheep and goats, even if we are not shepherds in the times and places of Jesus—Jesus, Who in today’s Gospel Reading for the Last Sunday of the Church Year speaks of His coming in His glory and separating people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. This morning we consider that Gospel Reading under the theme “Blessed sheep inherit God’s Kingdom of eternal life”.
Today’s Gospel Reading comes at the end of the fifth and final major section of Jesus’s teaching in St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account. Unique to St. Matthew’s account, the Reading contains what may be considered the third of three “parables” about the end times and their last things. Drawing on passages such as today’s Old Testament Reading (Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24), Jesus likens His separating people one from another to a shepherd’s separating the sheep from the goats. But, instead of using white wool in contrast to black hair, as shepherds such as Moses and David might have done, Jesus uses acts of mercy as evidence of faith in contrast to the lack of acts of mercy as evidence of unbelief.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus says that those acts of mercy—giving food to the hungry or something to drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and coming to those in prison—Jesus says that those acts of mercy are done or not done to “one of the least of these My brothers”. Bible commentators differ on exactly whom that phrase identifies, and some Bible commentators make a good case for primarily identifying “one of the least of these My brothers” as those Jesus sends out with His Word and Sacraments. So, we first might consider how we act toward those Jesus sends out with His Word and Sacraments: Do we mercifully give them food and drink, welcome and clothe them, visit and come to them? Of course, we should so act not only toward those Jesus sends out with His Word and Sacraments, but we should so act also toward our brothers and sisters in Christ and to all other people, including our enemies. So, we next might consider how we act toward our brothers and sisters in Christ and all other people, including our enemies: Do we mercifully give them food and drink, welcome and clothe them, visit and come to them?
When we so consider our actions, we are aware that, regardless of whom we identify as “the least of these My brothers”, we fail to act mercifully toward them as we should. We fail to give food and drink, welcome and clothe, visit and come to them, and so we fail to give food and drink, welcome and clothe, visit and come to Jesus in them. In those and other ways, we fail to love our neighbors as we should, and so we also fail to love God as we should. Apart from faith in Jesus Christ, we deserve not only to hear Him say, “Depart from Me, you cursèd, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”, but we deserve also actually to go away into that eternal punishment. But, when, enabled by God, we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better than to keep on sinning, then, for Jesus’s sake, God forgives our sin, all our sin, whatever it may be. To us Jesus not only says, “Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you”, but we also actually go away into that eternal life. For, “Blessed sheep inherit God’s Kingdom of eternal life”.
You may have heard the reports of at least 64 unexplained “loud booms” heard around the world this year, called, after they recently plagued Alabama, the “’Bama Boom” (and that was before yesterday’s college football upset by Auburn). The booms have baffled sound and other experts, who think the booms could be from passing aircraft or exploding asteroids. In Israel, some rabbis think the booms are prophesied signs of the coming Messiah, but, as my niece pointed out the other night at dinner, those rabbis do not recognize that that Savior has already come. But, that Savior’s next coming, for which different sounds are prophesied, will be unmistakable. As Jesus said in today’s Gospel Reading, then the Son of Man will come a final time in glory visible to all, unlike His first humble coming, when His glory was veiled in His human nature, so that He could suffer and die on the cross for the sins of the whole world, including your sins and my sins. Yes, the Lord will separate believing sheep from unbelieving goats, but He is primarily concerned about saving all (Nocent, 4:177-180). He has prepared for us the Kingdom we inherit as a gift from the foundation of the world, long before we ever believed or did any of the acts of mercy the Gospel Reading describes. As we believe in Jesus, Who died for us, God graciously forgives our sins through His Word and Sacraments.
Today’s Old Testament Reading well describes how God searches for His sheep and seeks them out, rescues and gathers them from all the places they have been scattered, and cares for them, feeding them, healing them, and ultimately giving them rest. The Lord our Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14) works through under-shepherds (John 21:15-17) to lead us beside the still waters of Holy Baptism, to comfort us with individual Holy Absolution, and to prepare a table before us in the presence of our enemies (Psalm 23:2, 4, 5)—the Table of His Holy Communion, in which we eat Christ’s Body in bread and drink Christ’s Blood in wine, given and shed for us, for the forgiveness of our sins, so that we “Blessed sheep inherit God’s Kingdom of eternal life”.
In the Gospel Reading, the blessed sheep who inherit God’s Kingdom of eternal life are strikingly unaware that they have acted mercifully toward the King by acting mercifully toward the least of these His brothers. With God working in us, we so act mercifully now, toward those He has sent with His Word and Sacraments, toward our brothers and sisters in Christ, and toward all people, including our enemies. When we fail so to act mercifully, as we will fail, with daily repentance and faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins. When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, those forgiven failures are long forgotten. Any who die in this world before the Lord’s final coming are judged at that time and then resurrected at the end, when the outcome of that judgment is made known, along with the outcome of His judgment on those living at the time. Truly, as we heard in the Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 15:20-28), Christ is the first-fruits of those who have died and will rise—we, too, will rise with glorified bodies—and He will deliver the Kingdom to God the Father, so that God may be all in all.
The Sesame Street song “One of these things is not like the others” has been criticized for focusing on differences and for saying that that which is different does not belong—the social psychology theory is that, if “otherness” were not treated as a negative thing, then there would be less conflict in the world (http://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2015/10/04/httpswww-youtube-comwatchvkzci3eoafk0/). That theory may be true when it comes to society at large here and now, but we in the Church cannot pretend that differences between believers and unbelievers do not exist and will not have eternal consequences. Even if we cannot presently always guess who is not like the others, the Son of Man can tell perfectly, and so only His “Blessed sheep inherit God’s Kingdom of eternal life”. As we prayed in the Collect, may God enable us to wait for the day of His final coming with our eyes fixed on that Kingdom prepared for His own from the foundation of the world.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +