Christ the King
Last Pentecost
Transcribed from a
sermon given
At St. Barnabas
Episcopal Church
On November 20, 2011
By Rev. Valerie Hart
I’d like you to imagine that it is
200 years from now and you are a graduate student studying cultural
anthropology. You have decided for your dissertation that you are going to look
at the attitudes of Christians at the turn of the 21st century,
which is the beginning of the 21st century, about heaven and hell.
You wanted to know who they believed was going to heaven and who they believed
was going to hell. Now you have all of the newspaper articles, you have copies
of different TV shows and news shows; you even have access to some of the web
sites. You use all these different resources to try and understand what were Christians
thinking at the turn of the century.
What would you find? You’d find
that there were a lot of people out there who thought they know who is going to
heaven. Right? And you’d find different things. If you studied people who were
into sacramental theology you would read that you had to be baptized to go to
heaven. Or perhaps you had to get last rights from the Church to go to heaven.
If you looked at the more fundamentalist side you would find they have all
kinds of ideas of why you might go to heaven. Usually it would have to do with
some kind of right belief. For example, that you have taken Jesus Christ as
your personal Lord and savior. Or in order to get to haven you had to believe
the way that that particular denomination believed. Of course then it depends
upon how large the particular group is to determine how large heaven is. And
then of course you would have the progressives who would say everybody is going
to heaven, there’s going to be no judgment.
So that’s what the 21st
century says about heaven, but what about hell? I need to ask you for help on
this one, or maybe we don’t need to say it out loud. Who’s going to hell? Who’s
going to hell?
The people who aren’t baptized are
going to hell? People who aren’t Christians? People who don’t take Jesus Christ
as their Lord and savior? Or is it more about people who break one of the
rules. We have quite a set of rules. There are so many rules and laws in
scripture. Much more than just the Ten Commandments there are thousands of
other rules and laws if you look through Leviticus.
How often have you heard people
saying that X person is going to hell because they have broken one of the
rules? If you look historically you’ll find that the rules that lead to hell
change with the culture. In Europe a few centuries ago one of the things that
would lead to going to hell was charging usury. That means charging interest on
a loan. This was part of the reason that the banks became so associated with
the Jewish people. Because, “A
good Christian didn’t charge interest.” Then of course in the twentieth century
it was a lot about different kinds of sexual sin. In the early twentieth
century adultery was it, but adultery has become so common now that if everyone
who commits adultery is going to hell… A lot of people don’t want to bring that
up anymore. Especially with the issue of Jesus saying that if you get divorced
and remarried that’s adultery. So divorce is no longer a sure ticket to hell.
But there is always something. And
we know what some of them are that you hear about today. Shortly after I
started at St. Barnabas there was a guy who came in between the services and
told me I was going to hell because a woman shouldn’t be preaching. So we all
know this. You have seen the signs. We used to go to hockey games and there was
a guy who would stand outside saying you are going to hell if, and you fill in
the blank. And then it would have some scripture reading. He would stand in
front of the hockey game. All I could think of was wondering if that somebody
who is trying to turn people away from Christianity, because it certainly isn’t
going to bring anybody in.
Yes, there are a lot of people
that you’ll hear who say they know who is going to hell and that they know who
is going to heaven.
Well here we have this gospel
passage of Jesus, called the small apocalypse. It is one of the few times where
Jesus talks about the end time and the coming of the king in glory. He
describes the kind as dividing the sheep from the goats, reflecting back to
that Ezekiel passage and other prophets that talk about the shepherd of Israel
coming to gather the sheep together. Here the king has come at the end time and
the sheep and the goats, all the animals that have been feeding together, are
brought together and they are sorted out. And how are they sorted out? Well the
sheep are the ones about which he said, “When I was hungry you fed me. When I
was thirsty you gave me something to drink. When I was sick you visited me. When
I was in prison you visited me.” In other words, you cared about me. Little
small acts of kindness. Small acts of kindness that they didn’t even realize
they were doing.
And what of the ones who go into
the eternal damnation? Yes there is judgment her. (So those of us who would say
there is no judgment have to deal with a passage like this as well). There is
judgment, and the ones who are turned away from God are the ones about which
the king says, “I was hungry and
you didn’t feed me, I was thirsty and you didn’t give me anything to drink. I
was homeless and you didn’t give me a place to stay, I had no clothes and you
didn’t clothe me.” In other words, you didn’t take care of me.
Both groups say, “When did we do
that? I never saw you hungry or thirsty.” And then there is that very telling
comment, “When you did it to the least of my family you did it to me.” On the
other hand, “if you didn’t do it
to the least of my family you didn’t do it for me.” So Jesus is saying that
this judgment is not based on correct belief, at least in this passage. It is
not based on whether you are baptized or not, he never talked about that
particularly. It’s not based on being part of a specific community. It is based
on a loving heart. And it actually is based on one of the laws, at least one the
ones that Jesus talks about. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Or in
John’s Gospel love one another as I have loved you. It’s about relationship.
(This was the end of the recording
and the second half of the sermon was not available.)
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