Who Cares?
sermon based on Matthew 25:31-46
By Dr. David Rogne

When Vince Lombardi, the eminently successful professional football coach in the 1960s, was asked how he produced winning teams, he declared that any group of naturally-endowed football athletes could win more games than they lost if they concentrated on the "little things" of the game, the fundamentals.  After a close game won by his Green Bay Packers, Lombardi called a special session for Monday morning because he felt his players were losing sight of the small details that guarantee victory.  Appearing before his players, he held a football above his head and announced:  "Men, we need to review the basics of the game.  This is a football."  Max McGee, so the story goes, drawled, "That's a little fast, coach.  Go over that again."

In the passage we read from the Gospel according to Matthew this morning, Jesus has gathered his team, his disciples, around him for one of the last teaching sessions of his career.  Throughout his ministry he had been attempting to help his followers understand the meaning of the "Kingdom of God":  what it is, who is in it, what is expected of people who are a part of it.  He takes this occasion once again to clarify what it means to be a part of God's Kingdom.  He returns to fundamentals, and in the process he helps us to understand how the game of life is to be played.  In order to help you remember the fundamentals of Jesus's message in this passage, I offer them as six "S"s, hoping the alliteration will aid memory.

One of the things he says is that scrutiny is part of the process.  There comes a time when our conduct is subjected to judgment.  He says that nations and people come before the King, and there is a separating of people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  Studdert-Kennedy, the British poet, said that he once had a dream about this scene.  In the dream he saw people coming face to face with Jesus, and he heard Jesus ask each of them one question, "Well, what did you make out of what was given to you?"  Such a question would be a challenge to any of us.

But the prospect of having to give an accounting of what we have done with the gifts God has given can have a positive impact on our conduct.  One morning in 1888, Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, the man who had spent his lifetime amassing a fortune from the manufacture and sale of weapons of destruction, awoke to read his own obituary.  The obituary was a result of a simple journalistic error--Alfred's brother had died, and a French newsman carelessly reported the death of the wrong brother.  Any person would be disturbed under those circumstances, but to Alfred Nobel the shock was overwhelming.  He saw himself as the world saw him--"The Dynamite King," the great industrialist who had made a fortune as a merchant of death and destruction.  This, as far as the public was concerned, had been the entire purpose of his life.  None of his other aspirations--to break down the barriers that separated people and ideas--were recognized or given serious consideration.  As he read his obituary with horror, Nobel resolved to make clear to the world the true meaning and purpose of his life.  And through the final disposition of his fortune, he established the most valued and prestigious prizes given to those who have done most for the cause of world peace, the arts, and sciences.  At some point in our lives, Jesus says, we submit to scrutiny, we have to give an accounting.

Jesus goes on to say that the evaluation process elicits surprise.  Those at the King's right hand are told that they have rendered service to the King himself.  They are surprised and say that they were not aware of it.  The King says that when they were serving others they were serving him.

Often we are not aware that an act of caring or compassion has any effect beyond our immediate view.  Stephen Lewis, formerly Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, tells of visiting Pashawar, the city in Pakistan closest to the Afghanistan border.  There, he and a Canadian External Affairs member--whom he identified only as Barbara--met an Afghan poet.  For writing a poem critical of the Afghan government, the poet had spent four years in solitary confinement--one of many prisoners of conscience.  But now he was free.  "How did you get out?" the Canadians asked him.  The poet replied that the Afghan government had been beseiged by a torrent of letters and postcards on his behalf, organized by Amnesty International groups all over the world.  Barbara nodded.  "Yes, I know," she said.  "Before I came out here I was a member of Amnesty Group . . . . "  And then suddenly she realized that this man, sitting before her, was one of those for whom she herself had written letters, back in Canada.  And he realized that he owed his release, his freedom, his life, to this woman and others like her.  Even though they had not known each other, the actions of one had had a profound impact on the life of the other.  One day we, too, will be surprised to discover whose life we have impacted.

Note, further, that the story Jesus is telling is about small things.  "I was hungry and you gave me food," the King says to those on his right.  For most of us, our opportunity to please God will not be the result of some benevolent act that impacts all of humankind.  It will be a small act of caring directed toward an individual.  W. W. Lax was a British Methodist minister, and he tells a story from his own experience that underscores this point.  He served 40 years among the people who lived in the East End of London.  Once he was asked to visit an elderly gentleman who lay very ill in a one-room flat.  But when the preacher called, the man rebuffed him by turning his face to the wall and refusing to speak.  While the minister was trying to carry on a conversation, he noticed the poverty of the room, the inadequate heat, and no evidence of food.  When he left the house he went to a nearby restaurant and arranged for a lamb chop dinner to be delivered to the little apartment.

He called again in a few days, and the crusty patient was a little more receptive.  On the way home, the preacher left another order for a lamb chop dinner to be delivered.  By the preacher's third visit, a radical change had occurred in the man's attitude.  He was congenial and smiled several times.  And he listened as the minister read the Scripture, talked about faith in Christ, and prayed before he left.  A meeting took the clergyman out of town for a few days, and when he returned to London, he learned that the old man had died.  However, a neighbor reported to the minister that the old man's dying words were these:  "Tell Mr. Lax it's all right.  Tell him that I love Jesus and that I'm going to God.  But be sure to tell him it wasn't his preaching or praying that saved my soul.  It was those delicious lamb chops."  "I was hungry and you gave me food, and as you did it unto one of the least of these members of my family, you did it to me," says the King.  In small things love is revealed.

That love is also revealed in simple things.  "I was thirsty," says the King, "and you gave me a drink."  Showing that we care, doesn't require an elaborate system of social service.  Mabel Shaw, a missionary to Africa, relates how she was telling her little Bantu children in Africa about giving a cup of water in the name of the Chief, which is what they called Jesus.  They were tremendously interested because in a hot country a cup of cold water can be beyond price.  Not long afterwards she was sitting on the veranda.  Up the village street came a string of porters, obviously exhausted.  They sank down wearily at the side of the road.  And then something happened.  These men were of another tribe; that could be seen from their clothes and from the way they wore their hair, and there was suspicion and often hostility between tribe and tribe.  Out from the veranda came a little line of primary-age girls.  Each had on her head a water pot.  They were obviously a little frightened, but just as obviously determined to see this thing through.  They went out to the tired porters; they knelt before them and held up their water pots.  "We are the Chief's children," they said, "and we offer you a drink."  The astonished porters knelt in return, took the water and drank, and the girls ran off.  They came running up to Mabel Shaw.  "We have given thirsty men water in the name of the Chief," they said.  In any ordinary village, had these men asked for a drink they would have been told, "You are not of our village; get water for yourself."  It was reverence for the Chief that bridged the gulf.  And it is clear that the simple act of the Bantu children would do more to make Christianity real to those porters than any number of sermons.

Long ago Mohammed said, "What is charity?"  And then he answered.  "Giving a thirsty person a drink, setting a lost one on the right road, smiling in your brother's face--these things are charity."  These are the kinds of things that anyone can do.  So often, because we can't do something great, we do nothing at all; but there are kindnesses which anyone can do.  To do them is to walk the Christian way and in the end to win the approval of the King.

Obviously, this message of Jesus makes much of another "S," serving.  "I was sick and in prison," says the King, "and you came to me."  We are challenged to do for others what they cannot do for themselves.  Henri J. M. Nouwen, noted theologian, author, professor, and speaker, made a move from the faculty at Harvard Divinity School to the staff at Daybreak--a residential community for mentally handicapped people.  What a dramatic transition this must have been--from working with the world's brightest and best under the spotlight of constant recognition, to laboring almost invisibly with people that the world would sometimes like to forget altogether.  A typical day in the Harvard setting might include lecturing to packed auditoriums, perhaps an outside speaking engagement, an interview with a magazine editor, and some time at the typewriter working on a magazine article or book manuscript.  At Daybreak, the day begins by helping others out of bed, bathing, feeding, and clothing them.  Tending to their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs as part of a ministry team fills the day.  Nouwen shares what led to this change.  "Most of my past life has been built around the idea that my value depends on my accomplishments.  I made it through grade school, high school, and university.  I earned degrees and awards, and I made my career.  Yes, with many others, I fought my way up to the lonely top of a little success, a little popularity, and a little power.  But as I sit beside the slow and heavy-breathing Adam (a resident of Daybreak), I start seeing how violent that journey was.  So filled with desires to be better than others, so marked by rivalry and competition, so pervaded with compulsions and obsessions, and so spotted with moments of suspicion, jealousy, resentment, and revenge."  In serving those who cannot help themselves, Nouwen heard the voice of Christ:  "Just as as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."

The final "S" is sovereignty.  It is, after all, the King who says to those at his right, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you."

What Jesus has been talking about is the Kingdom of God.  It sounds as though he is saying, "Do these good things and you get in."  But that runs counter to so much that Jesus and the New Testament say about God's gracious acceptance of us regardless of our merits.

I think that what Jesus is sharing with us here is not a formula for how we save ourselves by our good works, but, rather, a description of how people who have pledged allegiance to Christ live out that allegiance.  Acts of caring and compassion toward the least and loneliest demonstrate that a person is a citizen of the Kingdom, even when they don't realize what an impact their actions have.  As we are involved in these little acts of kindness, we are helping to make the Kingdom of God more visible.

When Ignatius Loyola and his band of nine followers went to petition Pope Paul III in the 16th century to form the Society of Jesus, the Pope was unimpressed.  Although the men arrived in Rome with glittering degrees, doctors of divinity among them, the Pope was still unimpressed.  And then came the winter of 1538, the most desperate in Rome's memory.  These ten people took upon themselves the burden of the city's destitute.  They put the sick into their own beds, begged straw mattresses and food for the rest, and at times had as many as three or four hundred crowded into a ramshackle residence, which was all they could afford.  So spectacular were their efforts that the Pope could no longer ignore them, and in 1540 he granted them the right to call themselves a genuine religious brotherhood--the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).  Their actions indicated whose they were.

Undergoing scrutiny, registering surprise, not overlooking small things, involving ourselves in simple acts, serving "the least of these," acknowledging God's sovereignty--these are ways we come to recognize God's Kingdom and give evidence that we are part of it.  In time, others will notice that the Kingdom has come close to them.  They may not know what to call it, but they will know that something has happened that makes life better.

I close with this.  One of the best letters of reference ever received at the University of Alabama Medical School, according to the Director of Admissions, came from an old mountaineer.  The letter read:  "I knowed this kid from the day he was born.  He played with my kids, helped me with the chores.  I don't know if he has sense enough to make it in medical school, but I do know he'll be the kind of man I'd like to come here to take care of me and my folks."  Jesus would say "Amen!" to that.  "As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me."