A sermon from 22nd November 2020 – Christ the King.
I was sorry to hear about the Death of Des O’Connor this week. But delighted to reminded of the joke where he’d declared himself to be a Self-made man and Eric Morecambe retorts: “Well its good of him to take responsibility”
This is a sermon about how to make God happy.
Do you remember the film Godspell? “Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord”?
Fabulous 1960s social gospel that very much enjoyed this parable of Sheep and Goats. For this film maker the Parable seemed to be the key parable that held everything together. And it might be that there’s something in that.
Not least because its not actually a parable. It doesn’t start with the expected refrain – the Kingdom of Heaven is like, but it does have a parabolic shape.
And it comes at the end of two lengthy parables – the 10 virgins: 5 bridesmaids were wise and had brought their mobile phone charging cables with them, 5 party girls were foolish and had run out of oil already.
And then the Talents – that was not about being successful, but about being Faithful, not fearful – Mrs Fives and Mr TwoBags got it but Onesie buried it.
And So here Sheep and Goats.
Jesus uses all three to teach us something about judgement, about life and life beyond Judgement
Last week I took you on a slow close up look at the parable of the Talents. We did a sort of Ignatian, lets get down into the scriptures and walk about and look more closely at the situation and the characters. Thank you for the feedback, one or two of you were worried you might be Onesie. And some of you, perhaps kindly, thought I might be Mrs Fives.
Today I’m going to do the opposite. We’re going to climb a tree, a tower, and see if we can get a bird’s eye perspective on this Teaching on the Sheep and the Goats. We could do an immersive reading of the text – why are there sheep and goats together?
Here we see a final judgement and its based upon how we have lived, how we have treated our brothers and sisters – the church family – and if you’re thinking ‘Well that’s a bit narrow, what about everyone else?’ Frankly if you can’t be nice to your own family then its not going to spill out much towards others. So I don’t mind if you prefer the narrow or the broad reading of that.
Note how neither sheep nor goat realise that its Jesus – and there’s a strong sense of ‘Oh if we knew it was you!’ We can often be funny about judging people and then someone tells us a little bit of their background story and we say ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise’. We can be very quick to judge.
All three parables have about them this similarity – they’re all about a final judgement an accountability, a reckoning, they involve people who all pretty much look the same, they have the same task to do.
But they all have slightly different twists.
The Groom arrives to find only 5 wise bridesmaids ready to welcome him and he says to the others who come later – Away with you, I never knew you. It all hangs on knowing Jesus. Its not enough to borrow faith from others, our parents’ oil if you like. (Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning!)
So how are you doing with Knowing Jesus? How is your relationship with Jesus going? Its quite acceptable to be sad, angry, mad at Jesus – that’s fine – because in all of that you need to connect to Jesus in order to have that cathartic release. This isn’t about everything being happy, this is about Knowing Jesus, being connected to God.
Knowing Jesus.
With the parable of the Talents, I explored with you Onesie’s fear, and how he makes his own private hell, and how the other two do not have the same view of their Master – Come and share your master’s happiness.
There’s a love there, that’s surprising to find in a Boss. Onesie had no love at all, only a paralysing fear, a hatred. But Mrs Fives and Mr TwoBags – there’s love there.
Knowing Jesus, Loving Jesus.
And now to this – Sheep and Goats – and if you’re listening carefully you should be able to guess where this sermon is going next.
The Sheep are the ones who are actually following Jesus. They do what they do because they know Jesus, they love Jesus, and they are following Jesus.
They feed the hungry, give a drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the poor, visit the sick and imprisoned.
They’re not being nice to people in case one of them turns out to be Jesus, but because this is the life and hope and faith that comes from being a Christian. The Goats haven’t got this. To all extents and purposes the Goats are part of the family but like the foolish party girls, they are organising a party for themselves, they are living for themselves.
What I love here is the challenge – to see Jesus in the people we meet, and to see how we can help in some small way. Sometimes we get that right, and sometimes we don’t.
So what does that look like? Well from our birds eye perspective up in this tree – we’ve looked back and we’ve seen this run of parables – calling us to Know Love and Follow Jesus.
That ought to remind you of the prayer of St Richard. And that might make you think again of Godspell – “Day by Day, O dear Lord, three things I pray, to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly, day by day”
Know Jesus, Love Jesus, Follow Jesus.
Now look to what comes next in Matthew’s Gospel. What happens Next is that Jesus is at a Party of Simon the ex-Leper when a woman with a bottle of ridiculously expensive perfume comes in and pours on Jesus’ head.
Some of the disciples are not keen on this and Jesus has to put them in their place.
So lets see.
We don’t know this woman or her story, but it seems to me that she Knows Jesus. And it seems to me that she Loves Jesus and it seems to me that she is Following Jesus.
This woman is embodying all three parables in how she lives.
How do I make Jesus happy?
Understand that Jesus wants us to share in his happiness.
It seems to start with Knowing Jesus – he wants us to know him, as friend and brother – even though He is our king. I’ve been watching The Crown, Netflix, skip past the discussion about historicity and go straight to the bit about how odd and awkward it must be to be a proper friend to any of this family. Jesus is your King but he isn’t like that.
So how are you doing with knowing Jesus more?
And as we get to know him more and more, we get to see how he makes a difference in our lives, we see how he loves and treats people and that draws out of us a deep love for our King, for Jesus.
So how are you doing with seeing the difference Jesus makes to your life, to the lives of those you love? It should call us to love Jesus more.
And all of that feeds into the lives we then lead. Blessing other people because we have been blessed, encouraging, building up, feeding clothing visiting.
Mother Teresa always said the disease of the 20th C was loneliness and here this week we are hearing that it has become more and more serious. And you and I know the cure, love the cure and frankly we have the cure to that. You know what to do.
This is how we make Jesus happy, this is how we share in our master’s happiness
Knowing Jesus, Loving Jesus, Following Jesus
So let me close with this prayer:
“Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which you have given us,
for all the pains and insults which you have borne for us. Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may we know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen.”