Is Everything up to us after all?
Matthew 25: 31-46
Is everything up to us after all?
What can make one feel very lonely? It is the feeling that something is all up to you and up to you alone. Public speaking can feel very lonely for this very reason. Sometimes, just before I have to preach, I do feel kind of lonely because as I walk up to the microphone, I have this feeling that now, it is all up to me. I am however mistaken when I think like this. It’s a feeling, not reality. Because it is not up to me. There is someone that helps to prepare the PowerPoint and runs the slides. There are people that advised me as I was preparing me sermon. Neil records it. There are peoples that’s hearts has been prepared to receive as mine have been prepared to give. You listen to it and study the Bible yourselves. It is in actual fact a team effort and reminding myself of that eases the feeling of loneliness I sometimes get walking up a pulpit.
Here is the thing about feeling something is only up to you. The mere burden of that thought can make you fail, can prevent you to give it your absolute best. And even when you do succeed, it can lead you to think you are better than anybody else. It can cause you to overlook the people who helped you to achieve what you achieved. We should actually fight against this thought that everything is up to us whenever we encounter it. To think everything is up to you is to play God. To play God is a dangerous game, one you can only lose.
And yet, life has a way to often make us feel like that. Anxiety and stress are rampant because of the pressure people experience everyday. In a world sometimes morbidly drenched of grace the voices that shout everything is up to you, is sometimes overwhelmingly loud. It is hard to hear God whisper that it isn’t true when this happens. “You must perform”, “you must impress”, “you must sell” and “you must profit”. When I worked in the corporate world, I had a sales manager that used to give us outrageous and unrealistic targets and then say: “Make it happen Gabriel, make it happen”. I experienced him as evil incarnated when he did this.
I think this commonly felt message that everything is up to us is what makes the gospel of Jesus Christ such good news. In a world that shouts to us: “You must” from all corners, there is a kind voice, gentle and kind that says: “He did” rather than “you must”. Because Jesus did, we can. Everything is not up to us, especially not our salvation. It is godly agency that saves us, not our own human agency. The good news is that Jesus did because we could not. I will never tire telling people this and watching the relief of the good news spill over on their faces when they take it to heart.
But the passage we read this morning is kind of tricky considering all this. First of all it is Jesus speaking and not only Jesus but Jesus that gets down to business. These words are his parting instructions. He is precise and serious. And He describe the end times. The “game over” day. He separates people. Some go to heaven and some to hell. That in itself is hard to accept especially if you think of loved ones that doesn’t believe in Jesus, but we know all that. What I always found troubling is that the reason given why some are in heaven and some are in hell is not beliefs but deeds. The people who are in heaven did things those who are in hell did not do. Is everything up to us after all?
Let us take a close look at these words of Jesus and see what they teach us before we attempt to answer this question…
Jesus is unbreakably tied to those in need and distress
If you love your child, it would be impossible for me to be good to your child without you feeling I was good to you. As a matter of fact, if you really love your child more than yourself you would experience me being good to your child as better than me being good directly to you. You would prefer me being good to your child to me being good to you. This would be even more so were your child handicapped or in distress. Because you and that child have an unbreakable, strong bond.
There is something we should know. How we feel about the ones we love most, like our children is how Jesus feels about the poor, the hungry the downtrodden and the disenfranchised. Probably more so. What this story clearly shows that in Jesus’s mind a good deed to one such person is considered a good deed unto him. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. If I neglected hurt and harmed your distressed child, you would also consider that an insult and rejection towards yourself.
Now what I just told you, you already know. When we remind ourselves of this, it puts on us an important obligation not to overlook, pass by or worse abuse those who are in some way worse of than ourselves. A sense of obligation like this is sorely needed in our selfish world today. It is a good thing. But it is not the only thing we should see when we read this. We should also spot the promise or reward in what Jesus says here. In a subtle way Jesus tells his disciples here that there is a handy, easy shortcut for connecting with Him. If connecting with Jesus closer is a good thing and if connecting with the downtrodden is connecting with Him…then it follows that connecting is not only something that is good for the downtrodden, it is also something that is good for us. Something that grounds us and something we need.
When do you know you have truly connected with a person in distress or on the fringes? Not when you have paid your dues. Jesus isn’t advocating some kind of poverty tax to be paid here. You have connected with a person when you not only gave something but experienced being ministered to by that person. And ask someone like Mike who works with such persons full time. He and many others will tell you that this is a common experience. I am time and again amazed how my engagements with people who seemingly have nothing to offer gives me perspective, keeps me humble and makes me feel closer to God. The resources we offer such people is our gift to them, but it is like they themselves are God’s gift to us.
Now let’s not romanticize this too much. People like Mike will also tell you that often you don’t feel that connection and upliftment when you do help. Sometimes you experience the very opposite like resentment. That doesn’t mean you should stop helping. Because Jesus feels the same about them even when you don’t. It is interesting that the people who are commended for attending to these people seems not even to remember all their engagements or did not remember experiencing connecting with Jesus in them. They still did it and so should we.
It is important to God that we be politically relevant
The relationships between politics and religion is like being with strangers in an elevator. You just keep quiet and wish the time where you could part ways with the other arrive immanently. How often as a pastor have I heard that we should avoid at all costs to discuss politics in church. I only agreed with the sentiment because I know what this “politics” is in the minds who say it. A power game, a popularity contest with winners and losers. A discussion about who is good and who is bad. These kinds of discussions indeed do the church nor the gospel any favours.
But this might be what politics have devolved to in most people’s minds, but it is not what politics is supposed to be all about. Politics needs a better definition. Politics are about the issues that effect a group of people living together. It is in the way in which we channel power in a way that solves problems and make life better or sustainable for everybody. If there is one thing this passage does not condone, it is being politically irrelevant and passive in the light of this understanding of what politics is. Politics, how we address issues and distribute and use power is of interest and concern to Jesus. For a Christian or a church to be uninvolved in political matters is not only undesirable, but also a sin.
But I do think the way in which the church is to be involved should be distinct from that of the world. In the world political involvement and engagement starts from the top down. You try to get to the top and then do something for those without power so that you can retain power. The Christian approach should be from the bottom up. You stand in solidarity with the powerless and then soldier your way up to those in the echelons of power. That might or might not mean that you fill a position of power yourself. Even in a position of power a Christian can still follow the bottom up dynamic of God’s kingdom. You sometimes see a clear difference between politicians that do that as opposed to do who follow the opposite top-down approach. Jesus the judge in this passage does not distinguish between a widow who shared her bread with the poor or a politician that brokered a good deal to the poor. They are of equal value to Him. And please also notice Jesus never commends anybody for their choice of candidate they voted for. Voting is political participation 101, we must vote. But voting should be only the start not the be-all and end-all of our political engagement.
So then does my salvation depend on my good deeds and even my political engagement?
On one level this story makes it seems so. But as with most things in the Bible one has to go deeper that the obvious to discover the real message and truth. This story does not say we earn our salvation. Jesus wouldn’t say that as He knew better than us what the price of that was and how He was the one that was to pay it. Salvation is a gift of grace. The way salvation becomes a reality to us is through faith and faith is something we cannot attain. Faith is also a gift from God nobody can deserve or earn.
But this story does say that a tree can be known by its fruits. That faith even though it is a gift, is a gift that can by rolled out and utilized for the good of others. An unused gift is a sorry sight. An unused gift gathers dust and breaks down. This story is a plea for us not to allow our most precious gift, our faith in God to be an unutilized gift rolled up in a ball. Jesus is not saying here: “You must do these things in order to be saved”. He speaks to his disciples who came to faith in Him through his grace and he says to them that they can do these things and find joy in these things because of what He has done for them.
He tells them that they will not only be rewarded for these things but they will love doing and find that they cannot help but doing these good things to others. He also makes them aware of the fact that those who does not have faith cannot do these things in any sustainable way. Maybe we should in this read a reminder that we shouldn’t expect Christian behaviour from people who do not believe as much as we shouldn’t assume everybody that says they believe really rolled out that faith and uses it.
I am sometimes saddened by how Christians call for laws that will force people into behaving like followers with Christ without even offering them the grace that will draw them to it and make them love acting in these ways. I do think there is going to be many surprises in heaven one day.
Close
Paul summarizes today’s message well when he says in Galatians 5: 6: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”
When the power of love is greater than the love of power, the world will know peace. May God pour out the richness of the gospel in us that this might become a reality in all our lives. It already does and I praise God for it!
Amen