Matthew 25:31-46
November 20, 2011
I Was a Stranger
Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa
How many of you have heard this passage before? That’s what I was afraid of. This text is easier to preach if it’s unfamiliar. But you already know the story. The scene is the judgment of the nations. A figure, we presume it’s Christ, called unhelpfully the “Son of Man” in our translation—unhelpfully because even in English we still have no idea what that might mean—or “the king” sits in judgment on the nations. They are judged according to how they have treated him only—here’s the catch—he has only appeared to them in disguise. He has come to the nations as a starving man, as a thirsty woman, as a poorly clothed child, as an imprisoned criminal, as a stranger, as someone on their sick bed. Not knowing who it was who had come to them, some responded with compassion to what the person they saw. They fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, clothed those dressed in rags, welcomed the stranger, visited the prisoner and cared for the sick. Others, also not knowing who it was who had come to them, ignored the suffering they saw.
Both groups are surprised to discover that it was the Son of Man or the king who had come to them in need. If they had known, of course they would have done everything they could to meet the need. Who wouldn’t? But neither group saw past the disguises, so their true characters were revealed in how they acted.
Now, if you hadn’t heard this story before, I could simply retell it and the element of surprise would do all the work. But you’ve heard the story and you know how it turns out. We are not reading this for the first time. We are not first readers. We are second readers. And for second readers there have to be rewards in the text besides a surprise ending that has been spoiled.
What sort of rewards are there, then, for us second readers? Why do we read anything a second time if we already know how the story turns out?
One answer to that question is that when we read something the second time, we notice things that we missed the first time.
Reading this text a second time, we might notice that it is “the nations,” or as the NRSV has it “the peoples,” that appear before “the king.” It is “the nations” or “the peoples” who are separated from each other. This is not a judgment of individuals. It’s collective and falls on nations or ethnic groups. Noticing that we could wonder how nations should provide for the care of needy persons and not rely solely on private efforts.
Or we might notice the phrase “the least of these who are members of my family.” Does this mean that Jesus only adopts the guise of the hungry, thirsty, badly dressed, stranger, prisoner, or patient who is also a Christian? that we won’t be held responsible for our treatment of non-Christians? Then we would have to think about how that fits in with what we know about Jesus from other stories. Didn’t Jesus teach us not to draw firm lines between “them” and “us” by telling us the story of the Good Samaritan? Can we let ourselves off the hook by taking the “who are members of my family” part with strict literalness when it was the legal expert’s question about who his neighbor was and the implied attempt to let himself off the hook that caused Jesus to tell the story in the first place? Probably not.
And so we are left with a story that on first reading thrills and terrifies us but on second reading is reduced to a rather tedious moralism: Feed the hungry because one of them might be Jesus in disguise. Or, put in another way, Expect the unexpected, which we all know is impossible by definition.
In any event, the sheep in the story did not set out to care for Jesus/the Son of Man/the king, but rather to care for the hungry, the thirsty and so forth. They didn’t know that he identifies so completely with the destitute that he counts care for them as care for him. It was their ignorance in caring and their lack of self-serving that obtained their reward.
But since Jesus has spilled the beans, we can’t be ignorant in our caring. We know how Jesus counts a visit to jail, caring for the sick, and welcoming the stranger. If we already know how this works, then there can be no surprise, no news. And without news there can be no good news.
And anyway, even if we’re hearing this version for the first time, this story is not new. In fact the event at the center of the story is quite common in fairy tales and folk stories. For example, the hero or heroine starts on a journey and meets an old peasant woman. She asks for help of some kind, like drawing water from a well or some such. Or a wandering beggar comes to the door of a palace during a blizzard. He asks for shelter. The response of the hero or heroine determines the rest of the plot, for the peasant or beggar turns out to be someone powerful—usually magical—who gives a blessing or a curse. The rest of the story is about how that blessing or curse plays out.
This theme is found in the biblical story, too. Think of Abraham who entertained three angels without knowing it and was blessed with the promise of a son to be born in his and Sarah’s old age. The rest of the story of Abraham, the entire story of the Bible, and even our story as the people of God are about how this blessing plays out.
So, the story that we have before us today is not so much about how we ought to feed the hungry, how we ought to give the thirsty something to drink, how we ought to clothe those who need good clothing, how we ought to welcome strangers, how we ought to visit prisoners and how we ought to care for the sick. Our story shows us the pattern of God’s way with us and holds before us the possibility that our lives will matter to the degree that this pattern becomes ours. We can become a part of a story that is so much bigger than the stories of our individual lives.
This is good news already, but I think we can go deeper yet. We see in the story that Christ never comes to us as we expect him to come. We expect God as a king, but Jesus comes to us begging bread and water. We are awed by military power, but Jesus comes to us as a prisoner. We find talk show hosts persuasive, but Jesus comes to us as a despised foreigner. We are envious of great wealth, but Jesus comes to us in rags and tatters. We celebrate the young and beautiful, but Jesus comes to us in the body that is ravaged by age and disease.
We are looking for something to value, something that matters. We are hoping to find the truly important, the divine. We are seeking God. In Neil Young’s words we “keep searching for a heart of gold.” But we are looking in the wrong places and not just a little wrong, either, but 180 degrees wrong!
The story suggests that we might find all of this by ceasing to search for it. If we quit looking for God, and especially if we quit looking for something that God can give us, if we simply go about the work that Christ left for us to do: to care for the destitute, to speak out on behalf of the marginalized, to share our lives with each other, to tell our stories, and to sing with grateful hearts, God will come to us. Somewhere and sometime, in an unlikely place and at an un-looked-for time, God will come to us. We may not know it when in happens, but it will be true nonetheless. And, living in this way, we will be changed and our world with us.
©2011, John M. Caldwell. Permission is given by the author to reproduce and distribute the unaltered text of this sermon provided this notice is reproduced in full and provided that this sermon shall not be offered for sale, nor included in any collection or publication that is offered for sale, without the express written permission of the author.
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