Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
November 24, 2002 Consecration Sunday
Matthew 25: 31-46
Preacher and teacher, Barbara Brown Taylor, shared this reflection after a visit to the National Cathedral in Washington, DC: “Those of you who have been there know what a stupendous place it is. Perched on the highest hill in town, it is like something out of a dream, with towers so tall they seem part of the sky…There are three large doors at the entrance – two that are merely large and a central one that is huge – with creation scenes carved into the arches above them: the birth of the moon on the right side, the sun on the left, and in the middle, the first human beings, their graceful forms emerging from the swirling waters of creation.
“To step past them is to enter a sacred cave, filled with whispers and footsteps, and three tiers of stained glass windows as high as the eye can see. When the sun is right…it is like walking through a rainbow. But even after your eyes have adjusted it is not possible to see the high altar…that is how big a place it is. To see the high altar you have to travel past all the monuments of the faith, past all the memorials to human achievement and long-gone saints, past the statue of Abraham Lincoln and the pulpit carved with the profiles of apostles.
“Only after you have taken that long walk do you arrive at the high altar, where Jesus sits on the throne at the end of time, surrounded by the whole company of heaven as he balances the round earth on the palm of his hand like a ripe fruit. It is Christ the king, preparing to judge the world, preparing to evaluate everything that has happened since all things came to be. That is the brilliance of the cathedral space. Even the most casual tourist enters through the doorway of creation and winds up at the altar of the last judgment, moving from the beginning of time to the end, to stand before the One who will sort out everything that has happened in between.”
And friends, that is where we stand today. This Consecration and Thanksgiving Sunday also happens to be the last Sunday of the year. You may have thought that the last Sunday of December is the last Sunday of the year, and for much of the world that is true, but not for the Christian church. For us, this is the last Sunday of the Christian year, a Sunday known for centuries as the Feast of Christ the King. Next Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent, is the first Sunday of a new Christian year as we begin our journey to Bethlehem. And as we move through the year, we will encounter Christ the baby, Christ the healer, Christ the teacher, Christ the friend (I know that last month, I hoped we would encounter Christ the Giants fan! I guess it makes sense he would root for Angels). But today, we stand before the throne of Christ the king, the judge, who seemingly knows everything we have ever done.
In the words of Taylor, “Sobering, isn’t it? As the sign over the cash register at the National Cathedral’s gift shop says, ‘We may not have seen you take it, but God did.’ God sees, God knows. And according to this Gospel lesson, what God will do with that knowledge on the last day is to sort us into two groups – goats to the left and sheep to the right. And who are you?”
Interesting language – language you seldom hear from this pulpit; actually, language you never hear from this pulpit. The idea of judgment on the last day! Certainly doesn’t seem to fit the mood of thanksgiving, does it? Well, the fact of the matter is, I don’t take all this judgment, last days, end of time language and imagery literally. But I do take it seriously. Matthew gets my attention. And I believe that these strong words of Jesus are in fact words that do speak to us, powerfully, on a day of thanksgiving and consecration.
The story is told of a monk who in his travels found a precious stone and kept it. One day he met a traveler, and when the monk opened his bag to share his provisions with him, the traveler saw the jewel. He asked the monk to give it to him. The monk did so readily. The traveler departed, overjoyed with the unexpected gift of the precious stone, a stone worth enough to give him wealth and security for the rest of his days. However, a few days later he came back in search of the monk. When he found him, he gave him back the precious stone, but then had one more request, “Now give me,” he asked, “something more precious than this stone. Give me that which enabled you to give the stone to me.”
That story reminds me of last week’s children’s sermon. Those of you who were here may recall that Tara had a bunch of pennies for the kids and one dime snuck in there somehow. She put the pennies on the floor and pretty soon the kids were grabbing them. Tara talked about our gifts and how God wants us to share our gifts with others. Pretty soon the kids were sharing those coins with each other. Afterwards at the church coffee hour as coffee was being served, one of the children came up, took a glass of lemonade and placed the dime on the table. A little child, generously giving what she could of herself. (See, they do listen!)
“Give me that which enabled you to give the stone to me.” It is the dime on the table. “As you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Underneath all of Matthew’s end of the world, judgment day imagery, what I hear is that there is an urgent claim on my life. I am not a free agent, able to give my life to the highest bidder, to any god who happens to come along. God in Christ has claimed me already. I realize this is not a popular thing to say in a value-neutral, non-judgmental, do your own thing society where we like to believe that there is no higher standard of judgment than my own conscience. But like it or not, the Jesus of Matthew states plainly that we are accountable, not just to me and what works for me and what I think is right or wrong; no, we are accountable to none other than Christ himself. That’s the judgment, but it’s also an invitation.
Reflecting on thanksgiving and gratitude, author Kathleen Norris has said, “True gratitude is magnificat; that is, it magnifies. It refuses to remain strictly private…Gratitude in this sense reverberates throughout one’s relationships with others and the world.”
Jesus is talking precisely about this kind of reverberation, the reverberation of gratitude. It is what enables the monk in the story to freely give a valuable stone. It’s what enables a small child to lay a dime, a precious dime, on the coffee hour table as a gift. As you know, our theme for this Fall’s stewardship drive has been, “Paying It Forward”. Do you recall that scene from the film of the same name, when the homeless man who has been helped so much by Trevor, the young hero of the story, encounters a woman who is about to leap to her death from a bridge. He decides not to pass by on the other side but decides to reach out to her – to respond to blessing by being a blessing – to pay it forward. He asks her to come down. She argues with him, saying that he just wouldn’t understand, that she has no reason to live. But he gives her one. He invites her to climb down and go share a cup of coffee with him. Then he says, “Let me save you, so that you can save me.”
Gratitude as magnificent. It magnifies, it reverberates. I reach out to you, you reach out to me, together we pay our blessings forward into a hurting world. And, here’s the surprise, as we do so, we encounter none other than Christ himself, clothed not in royal majesty, but coming to the world hidden among the “least of these,” maybe even among you and me.
And today, as we bring forward our offerings and our financial pledges to be consecrated and blessed, we also have the assurance that we are not in this alone. As we seek to respond to the call of Christ, as we seek to pay our blessings forward, let us never forget that we are part of a community and that sometimes we can do things together that we cannot do alone. This is the community we commit ourselves to this day. We are part of a flock. I count on your courage when mine fails, and I will stand in for you when yours runs low. We can hold each other up and calm each other down. We discovered yesterday we can heal each other. Never underestimate the power of a community gathered in prayer, or of a loving touch. We can welcome others into our fold, pressing our limits, widening our embrace. And we can do all this because, in the words of Barbara Brown Taylor, “We are one flock, tended and fed by the Good Shepherd who is also, I suspect, the Good Goatherd. When the time comes to sort us out, those are the eyes that will meet our eyes, the eyes of the judge who sees, who knows – who knows when we have looked and when we have looked away, who knows the last, the lost, and the least – not only the ones outside of us but also the ones inside of us – and who finally lays down his life for us all.”