“He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.”

A lyrical manifesto for economic justice.  There it is, in chapter one of Luke, at the beginning of the Christian story.  Mary’s “Magnificat”, her song to God after learning of her mysterious pregnancy, is full of hope for a structural transformation of society.

Volunteering and making donations to causes that serve people in need are powerful expressions of our faith.  Charity takes hard work and sacrifice; it always will be a necessary and honorable way to live out the Christian life.

But right next to charity is Christianity’s imperative to change economic and political structures.  It is a beautiful thing for me to be able to use our church’s “Pastoral Discretionary Fund”, maintained by the charitable donations of our members, to help those among us who don’t have money or insurance to pay for essentials like medical care.  Every bit as beautiful is the work of California Council of Churches.  For years, the Council has been lobbying hard in Sacramento for universal, single-payer health insurance.  Such a systemic transformation would protect the significant number of people in our congregation who have inadequate health coverage, or none at all. 

Two thousand years later, Mary’s Advent cry for justice still rings.  But churches are often intimidated by it.  Unlike most charitable efforts, working for social change is often controversial. So churches often stick with charity and avoid advocacy that might cause arguments among members.  But if we really care about the sick, the poor, the homeless, and the victims of wars or disasters, the church won’t ignore the social structures that allow these problems to continue.  Surely we can find a way to advocate for justice while prayerfully honoring our differences about how to do it. 

It’s a good thing to feed the poor.  Our church’s Wednesday free lunch for the low-income people of our town makes me proud to be the pastor here.  But getting corporate money out of politics might turn out to be an even more effective way of alleviating poverty in America.  The hard political work required to clean up our deeply corrupt political system isn’t as immediately satisfying as personally filling a plate of food for someone who can’t afford a hot meal.  But if we took special-interest money out of campaigns, we might get structural change that prevents people from going hungry in the first place. 

Mary’s “Magnificat” song makes it little wonder that, years later, her son would turn over the money-changers’ tables in the Temple, where the common people of Israel were being fleeced systematically.  Jesus fed the 5,000, but he didn’t stop there.  In a time when corrupt, unregulated tax collectors could reduce families to starvation, Jesus spoke out for justice. 

Jesus healed not only the sick, but also the systems that sickened them.  He fed the hungry while attacking the structures that starved them.  May the first candle of Advent light our way as we follow him in practicing both charity and change.

John Updike once said he wanted to write with the same dedication as the monks whose vocation is to carve Psalms on the bottom side of choir seats. I can’t find the reference anymore but the quote has lived with me for years. Why? I imagine those beautifully carved choir seats that few people will ever see and wonder about those monks practicing their craft with that same knowledge. Did they carve for the joy of their art, and the praise of God, without any desire that they be recognized? Were there moments when they longed to flip up the seats for the world to see?  And what about John Updike? What did he perceive in these monks that brought him to desire the same attitude for his craft? I think he wanted to find that sweet spot where one’s vocation is fully lived without regard for the recognition of others.

This brings to mind another man who sought a way to live his vocation fully without regard for the recognition of others. Jean Vanier, the French Roman Catholic, who many years ago was so moved by the conditions of mentally disabled adults in an institution in France that he founded a home to care for them. In the beginning he took in only a few men and began to form a community of mutual care. He called this community L’Arche and now there are communities all over the world of developmentally disabled adults living alongside those without disabilities sharing their lives in a very deep way. What makes this similar to those monks carving the bottom of choir seats is the joy that exudes from the people living fully into their vocation. Some of the residents at L’Arche communities could be pursuing high profile careers making large sums of money. Instead, they have found the deepest joy by living in deep friendship with severely disabled persons whose lives are defined not by utilitarian values but by qualities of human dignity alone. Those who live with the same attitude as those monks carving choir seats receive the gifts that severely disabled persons have to offer.

One of the more remarkable things about the congregation I serve is the inclusion of persons with developmental disabilities. We have a group of adults with mental disabilities who have been fully embraced in this community for years. The church has developed a purposefully designed curriculum for their “Friends” class and several members rotate as teachers, while other drive them from their group homes. They participate in worship, sitting alongside persons with advanced degrees and high profile positions in Washington DC. They live with us as a great witness to the love of God and the fullness of humanity.

Last week my wife and I hosted a party for them, as we do each year, at our home along with their teachers and drivers. Our time together was one of the most astonishing events bearing witness to the transforming power of a community of love and compassion.  This year we went with a Hawaiian theme - complete with hula dancing and special Hawaiian music and food. It was just a delight for all of us to be having so much fun and laughter together. I’m certain this is what Jesus meant when he talked about the reign of God coming among us when the least are first and we all sit at table together.

They were traveling up the center aisle to see the body. Moving with faithful footsteps toward the one they dearly loved. Tears filled their eyes and they held tight to daughters and sisters as they came forward to view the deceased, hands folded calmly, suit freshly pressed.

I had lost the battle, you see. My pastoral sensitivity overran my pastoral authority. I am fairly new to the world of ordained parish ministry with a special focus in pastoral care. My newness does not mean that I am new at presiding in worship at funerals. With our congregations aging and with more and more “unchurched” people turning toward the church at the time of death—not knowing where else to go—pastors have a great gift and opportunity to travel alongside families who are grieving, families who are trying to figure out what to do with their dead. Pastors receive this gift frequently. My newness, in this case, meant that I presided over an open casket funeral. Not my practice, not my theology: but there the congregation was traveling up during a hymn to pay their last respects.

We believe that the funeral service is a “Witness to the Resurrection.” The funeral is the place where we affirm that in life and in death we belong to God. It is the place where we say aloud that death has no power to pull us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is the place where we give thanks to God for the gift of life experienced in the one we loved and where we place that one into God’s everlasting arms. All that is to say that the funeral is about God.

But then there is that person—that body: surrounded by memories and stories and jokes. There is that person—that body: surrounded by brothers and daughters, by colleagues and choir buddies—all with tales and lessons and laughter that they are bursting at the seams to share.

In my struggle, I turned to an amazing article, “O Sing to Me of Heaven: Preaching at Funerals,” by Tom Long (Journal for Preachers, Easter 2006). Long claims, “We have a tug of war between the quiet, but somewhat abstract, ideal of a worship service reflecting on the joy of the resurrection and the Oprah-esque carnival of anecdotes and memories.” I felt comforted that I was not alone in this tug of war. Long recounts what the funeral was for our Christian forebears: Christians washed, anointed and dressed in baptismal garments the bodies of the deceased. Then they would carry them to the grave, singing as they traveled. The dead were seen as saints traveling on to God. The focus was on the journey and ultimately the destination.

Traveling to God—not to a lifeless body—that is what we are doing at funerals. All of life is a pilgrimage toward God. The dead have finished the journey; they are home.

The next time I watch people travel up the center aisle at a funeral—the next time I receive that gift, I will try to speak a word about the One to whom we all are traveling, a word about the heaven to which we are going, and yes, a word about the person who is home and what there journey there was like.
 

It was on July 4th that I read this news release from across the pond:  “LONDON (ENI):  The Church of England has welcomed Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s proposal to parliament to remove the prime minister from the process of choosing the church’s bishops in the future.”  Good news!  What could be better than to have the church be the church, unfettered from governmental, or any other, oversight. Hard to see a down side to that article.  Then I thought some more.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the very act of choosing bishops, or their respective equivalents in denominations with differing governmental structures, has caused such hurtful and terrible fighting among so many of the church’s faithful in so many locales within so many denominations in this country and around the world. The curse of choice?  Perhaps.  Power politics is a closer approximation of the truth.

How do we choose bishops or other church officers?  On what basis?  Litmus tests of various sizes and shapes exist and are driving forces in so many cases.  Why?  For exceedingly good and important reasons, no doubt. I’ll confess to having a strong opinion or two on matters I consider central. “If we could only get a bishop (or regional minister, or presbyter, etc.) who would  _______, then this church could really stand for something.”  Or, “we can’t allow a bishop (or regional minister, or presbyter, etc.) who would do that, then what’s next?”  And yet, who is the “we” and what are “we” constituted for?

I have been spending some time, lately, with Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and the complicated relationship that his descriptions therein of the very real and threatening (at least to him and his “gospel” message) challenges facing the churches in Galatia have with the descriptions of the so-called Jerusalem Council in the Book of Acts chapter 15.  It’s a mess.  The accounts don’t quite line up.  The core issues aren’t exactly clear.  The resolution, insofar as there was one, doesn’t seem to have stuck (for very long). What’s more, at the council itself, there were delegates “secretly” brought in to “spy on” others (Gal 2:4)—who’s ever heard of something like that happening at a church meeting?! 
And yet, Paul emerges from that ugly, messy, complicated and ambiguous affair with one thing very clear:  “that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do” (Gal 2:10).  Now that’s quite an outcome, no?  
 
What about the many local and national church councils which are being held this summer in this country alone, many of which have contentious items, or elections, on the agenda? I wonder what will be decided, and how, and who will be elected?  I wonder too, finally, how important the answers to those questions would be, or even how soon the very questions would begin to melt away IF, at each of these conventions, the delegates emerged so committed: “that we remember the poor” as we are “eager to do.”  Now that would be a church council, and a set of decisions, worth recording!   

I’m sick and tired of the world being divided into 2 opposing groups: blue or red states, gay or straight, conservative-liberal, evangelicals and-everybody-else. Whether it’s coming from the media or politicians or our pastors or even from my own inability to think creatively, it’s like we are back on the school playground and we’ve got to choose sides for dodge ball. But when we’re adults we’re no longer content throwing rubber balls at each other. No, when we “grow up” we try to get the other group in a legislative full-nelson to coerce them do what we want. That’s what politics has become. That’s usually what’s going on at our annual denominational conferences. That’s what many of our pastors would have us believe we should do to groups that don’t look like us, act like us, love like us.

Take any national issue these days, whether it’s Iraq, immigration, taxes, healthcare, Bush, you name it, we’re either “fer it or agin’ it”. When I was reading through the Gospel of Matthew just the other day, there it was again: either we are sheep or goats with the latter finding their unfortunate and terrifying end in a lake of fire, which by the way is a much more satisfying way to end the contest than just strangling our opponent in a full-nelson, don’t you think? That is, unless I’m on the goat-side of things.

That’s the burr under my saddle at the moment, so I thought I would take this opportunity to explore the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25: 31 and following to hopefully find something redemptive in it. For this passage is really one of the ultimate social divisions imaginable: only 1 team is left standing, and they win it all, big-time.

I remember hearing sermons on the parable of the sheep and goats as a young Southern Baptist in the South (That’s a heritage one can never completely overcome. The only way I can deal with it productively short of alcoholism and therapy is to write about it.). I was afraid that I was going to be one of those poor hapless goats, and I wouldn’t even know about until it was too late. It’s like that recurring dream I used to have all through school where I discovered I was late for a final in a class I didn’t know I had. You show up on judgment day without a prayer wondering “how did I get here?!” I didn’t sign up for this! I can remember praying to God late at night begging “him” to spare the divine wrath that I was so sure had my name on it.

I couldn’t understand how I could be punished for something I didn’t know I did. I was trying to be good and believe all the right things, but I didn’t know if I was being good enough or believing enough, and from the story there was no way to know the difference. How is that fair? How is that justice?  I prayed to God, “just let me know which side of the fence I’m on, the sheep-side or the goat-side. I’ll do whatever, just tell me!” Of course the scripture says it quite plainly: visit the criminals and the deathly ill. Feed the hungry, give your clothes to the naked. There it is in black and white. What’s so hard about that?! But when you’re 8 or 9 years old, those are some pretty high standards.

Still, the fact that the goats hadn’t a clue really disturbed me. But what really rocked my world was that the sheep didn’t have a clue either. Well, if the sheep don’t know what they did to deserve a pat on the head, then what hope is there for any of us? I just wanted to know what the deal was; then I would try my best to pick the right path.

I hope you, the reader, don’t mind, but I have a ‘path’ story, another childhood remembrance, so I pray you’ll indulge me. When I was in the 6th grade, my class went camping outside our small Louisiana town in a place called Magnolia Park. It was kid-heaven: densely wooded, lots of trails that meandered around, and flowing through the middle of it was Magnolia Creek, a small river that was great for swimming and canoeing. It’s a fast-moving stream that had cut its way into the earth so the water level was about 5-6 feet below ground level. Every so often a rope would be hanging from a tree at the water’s edge, and we’d hoop and holler as we swung out into the creek like little monkeys.  

Late one night several us of boys were going to play a trick on the girls to frighten them. As a group of them came through the woods with their flashlights blazing in the inky blackness, my friends and I scattered through the forest to get into our attack positions. My orders were to run around and come up from behind them. So, unable to see a thing I took off running through the brush and down a trail.

Full of jittery excitement, I ran hard and fast until suddenly my feet left the trail….I was airborne, floating for a second in midair, then falling fast, and with a hard splash, I found myself submerged in icy water. At first I was so disoriented that I had to realize that I was actually in water and I needed to find the surface. Breaking through, it was hard to fight the shock to catch my breath. It took me a minute longer to figure out what I had done and where I was — in the creek. Then as my circumstances grew clear, I was mortified. In the distance I could hear my friends calling out to one another: “What was that noise?”… “what happened?” Then another cried out, “I think somebody fell into the creek.” Then another, “must have been Robert!!” And everyone – the boys AND the girls – howled in laughter as I crawled up the muddy bank wishing I could disappear in shame to escape their torturous ridicule. That was a path I wished I hadn’t taken.

The journey of life leads somewhere. The paths we choose lead us to our destiny. In the parable of the sheep and goats, Jesus is warning his disciples to wake up, to be aware, to realize that what they do matters. I’m thinking about this in three ways:

1. What we do makes us who we are. In the parable, those on the right did not start out as sheep; those on the left didn’t start out as goats. They became who they are by what they did. Everything we do, every action, every place we go, every relationship we have is making us more of a sheep or more of a goat.

In “Pinocchio” (both the Italian book and the Disney movie), the little wooden marionette who wants to be human joins with a group of foolish boys who are lured into riotous living on Paradise Island. There they lose sight of the spiritual and moral dimensions that make us human. Out to have a good time carousing, thinking only of themselves and of their fleeting diversions, they ultimately make asses out of themselves. They found out that we are not only what we eat, but more importantly we are what we do.

2. Our actions matter because what we do creates a world around us. The way we treat our spouses and children makes us a more loving family… or not.  At the office, the way we treat our colleagues either makes our work together more enjoyable and productive… or not. Our clothing purchases provide decent living conditions for people all around the world… or not. The way we interact everyday on the streets makes our society more livable… or not. The food we eat is grown in sustainable ways or in ways that degrade the planet. The point is that our actions have consequences, and what we do to each other creates the society and environment in which we live.

3. Most importantly, our actions matter eternally because this is God’s world and the Spirit of God is everywhere, in all things. In Colossians we are told that all things were made in Christ and for Christ, and in Christ everything is held together and will one day be reconciled through the Spirit. What a beautiful and wondrous vision: we are always and at all times held in Christ, whether we know it or not. Christ is all around us and we are dwelling in Christ.
As Romans says, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God”; the psalmist sings, “even in the depths of Sheol, there will I find you”. Yes this is God’s world, and what we do in God’s world we do to God.

This is a key point in the parable of the sheep and goats: what we do to each other we do to God. It is not just a matter of being ‘nice, holding right beliefs, and obeying the laws. In fact, in the parable, Jesus didn’t ask anyone what they believed or which laws they followed. According to the parable, the difference between being a sheep or a goat lies in what we do to the least among us, to the lost and outcast. Are we clothing the naked, helping the poor, visiting prisoners, feeding the hungry?

But now we are back to the originating question: who are the sheep and who are the goats? As I struggle with this passage now, it is coming to me quite differently because I am not primarily seeing the world dualistically. Rather, I think this parable is not so much about divisions on the outside, but on the inside. It’s not about dividing society into heaven-bound and hell-bound, but it’s about cultivating a more heavenly and beloved community.

Sometimes I care for the needy. Sometimes I have given to the poor, visited the sick. So perhaps I have a little bit of sheep in me. But I also know that I walk by the homeless, and I don’t think very much about those in prison. So I think I’ve got a little bit of goat in me as well. I’ll bet that is true for us all, and it is also true of our communities as well as our nations.

And this is what I think the parable is mostly saying to us. Not that Jesus is going to throw billions of people into a fiery pit. Rather, something wonderful happens as we join the God who seeks the lost and welcomes the outcast: a little bit of our goat is thrown into the lake of fire. Our fear of those who are different from us is thrown into the fire; our haughtiness is thrown into the fire; our pride, likewise –  into the fire. It is like separating the wheat from the chaff or burning impurities from gold.

I yearn to have the goat inside me thrown into the fiery pit to be burned up forever; I yearn to be cleansed of my self-preoccupation and of my fear of those who are different from me. I want to be more fully a sheep that is welcomed by the Good Shepherd into eternal life.

But the decisive test is not how we treat those like us, those in our family or even those in our congregation. The true test is what we do to those who are most different from us, those who scare us, who disgust us, who repel us: what do we do to the least and the lost, the forsaken and the outcast, all of whom are in God’s family.

Jesus wants us to be pure and holy in our loving service to the most vulnerable in society.  And only when we do that, when we lovingly serve the least in our human family do we reflect the pure and holy image of God in which we are made. Only then is Jesus’ life and ministry manifest in and through us. Only then is our prayer fulfilled through us, incarnationally: Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

So now when I hear the Word of God proclaimed through this parable of the sheep and goats, I hear a Word of hope not fear, of encouragement not despair. When we show compassion to the least of those in God’s family, there we will meet Christ; there we will be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ, who is the true Lamb of God.