The appointed Gospel lesson for most Lutheran churches for today is a well-known passage from the 25th chapter of Matthew which says that someday Jesus will return to earth and will separate people into two groups like a shepherd who separates the sheep from the goats. And the dividing line is between those who gave Jesus food when He was hungry, gave Him something to drink when He was thirsty, clothing when He was naked, visited him when He was in prison . . . and those who failed to give Jesus any of those things in His hour of need. . . with the former granted glory and the latter given eternal punishment. And when the condemned protested “wait a minute, we never saw You hungry or thirsty or naked, or imprisoned” Jesus replies that whenever you saw the lowliest person amongst you in need and failed to help them, you were failing to help Me.” It is an amazing passage…. and even for someone who regards everything in the Bible as nothing but fiction, this is still a very powerful picture of how we need to live and what it means to really care about people. And within the space of a single week, I heard two really remarkable sermons on this passage.
The first was this past Wednesday morning at Carthage during chapel, when Gary Williams read this lesson and then spoke for a few minutes on it. Gary is one of my very favorite people. He was a real all-star as a Carthage student a few years back – captain of the football team, president of student government, sterling student, all- around great guy. And he returned to Carthage for some years as one of the coaches of the football team, but now is full time as an academic advisor for nearly all of Carthage’s student-athletes. And for as funny and breezy as his personality might be, he is an extremely thoughtful person- and a man whose religious faith is truly central to his life.
After Gary read this lesson, he shared a story from his undergrad days, when on top of everything else he was an R.A. in South Hall, which for a long time (at least since the days my wife was a Carthage student) has had a reputation as being the rowdiest of the dorms – and any RA assigned to South earns their paycheck the hard way. Gary told us about a time when he had a hugely important project due and found it all but impossible to work on it because of the wild shenanigans in South which required his attention. He walked into Sunday evening’s Catholic mass feeling very grumpy – and not even Edith Padgett’s famous cookies did much to brighten his mood. It was a smaller turnout than usual for mass, so there were plenty of leftover cookies, and Edith sent them with Gary to distribute to the guys in his dorm… the guys who had irritated him so mightily and who did not begin to deserve even the crumbs off of these cookies. But an order from Edith is not easily disobeyed, and Gary took them and dutifully distributed as he made his way through the dorm- all but throwing them at the guys, to hear him describe it. The last guy he encountered was a student who had been the cause of some trouble and with whom Gary hadn’t managed to connect very well at all – about as opposite from All-American Gary as one could be. But when Gary offered him the rest of the leftover cookies, he seemed appreciative and said thank you. I don’t recall now if it was later that very night or the next night that Gary received the news from his hall director that there had been a suicide…. and it was this young man.
If anyone had even glanced at Gary and this young man, there is no question who would have been labelled the Goat. But it’s not our job to separate the Sheep from the Goats – that’s for Jesus to do – and this passage warns us not to dismiss the hurts and needs of those whom we deem unworthy of our time and attention. When we do that, it is as though we are dismissing Jesus Himself. Powerful, sobering food for thought- thanks, Gary.
Then this morning came the second sermon on this passage, and it came courtesy of my dear friend Walter Hermanns. Today marked his official return to the pastoral staff at Holy Communion, and it was such a joy to hear him preach again in that sanctuary. And to help bring alive this story of the Sheep and the Goats, he actually engineered a little contest between the two sides of the sanctuary to see who had the most impressive Baaaaah! Much of his sermon focused on the danger of trying to hard to be a Sheep versus a Goat… but what stays with me most potently is his final story, which was about some impressive Christmas performance which he and Lynn attended. One of the climactic moments came with a family in a beautiful living room setting, enjoying gifts on Christmas morning. Suddenly there’s a knock on the door, and it turns out to be someone who needs a place to be warm. They are welcomed into that living room and is even given gifts, because – in the words of a song that is sung at that moment – the world needs to see Jesus in us through the love that we share with others. There’s some truth to that. But Walter said that in fact that song gets it entirely backwards. This scripture is not about the needy seeing Jesus in us. It’s about us seeing Jesus in the needy. Wow, that was vintage Walter…. helping us to see something in an entirely new and better way.
I want to return to Gary’s sermon for a moment because it made another point which he probably didn’t consciously intend to make. . . but which I think bears repeating. The story of that young man who committed suicide is on one level a cold dose of reality for anyone who wants to believe that our acts of kindness always make a difference. If life followed a Hollywood script, then those cookies which Gary gave to this young man would have been that single transformative act of kindness that kept him from stepping into the abyss. But life isn’t as simple as that. But at least Gary knows that his final encounter with this troubled young man was a positive one . . . and just because this story ended so sadly doesn’t change the fact that kindness is still an incredibly powerful force and even the smallest acts can make all the difference in the world. I still remember a day in fourth grade when I had an exceptionally rough time in gym class – and afterwards, while standing in line for the drinking fountain outside of our classroom, I overheard a couple of my classmates laughing about how awful I had been in the outfield. I took a really quick swig of water, then bade a hasty retreat to my desk, where I lifted the lid and pretended to look for something… when in fact I was crying. Unbeknownst to me, my teacher- Mrs. Ronken- had been standing in the hallway and saw and heard everything in that exchange…. and the next thing I know, she’s gently tapping me on the shoulder, and then leaning down to whisper to me that she had just told the boys making fun of me that she was pretty sure that neither of them could play the organ for church like I could! It was EXACTLY what I needed to hear in that moment of terrible despair – and more than forty years later, I can still feel her tapping my shoulder so gently and whispering those affirming words. Kindness does make an enormous difference- especially in those moments when we feel like one of the goats.
pictured above: Pastor Walter delivers his sermon at Holy Communion this morning.