When We See
a sermon based on Matthew 25:31-46
by Rev. Randy Quinn

There are two kinds of people in the world. There are the people who separate the world into two parts and there are those who do not.

In seminary I had a professor who had a word for those who divided the world into two parts. And in almost every lecture he gave, he found a way to use the word. I’ve only seen the word a couple of times since my seminary days, and I’ve often wondered if I would ever use it. In fact, we had an ongoing challenge to find ways to use the word, but I never had an opportunity. Today is my first chance to use the word.

Bifurcate. Have any of you ever heard the word before? When you bifurcate something, you divide it into two pieces.

We often see that happen in political rhetoric, but it doesn’t just happen there.

We have the rich and the poor.

We have the educated and the illiterate.

We have the immigrant and the native.

We have the black and the white.

We have the religious and the secular.

We have the good and the bad.

We have the young and the old.

There are Protestants and Catholics

There are Christians and Jews

People live in the developed world or in a developing country.

I could go on, but I think you sense what it means to bifurcate. It’s when you divide the world into two categories.

When Professor Young used the word, you knew he was speaking about things in a negative way. He understood that God only created one world. There is a divinely intended unity in our world. And any attempts to bifurcate our world are, in his mind, sinful.

To bifurcate the world God created is to work against the will of God. So he found the very concept offensive.

But I wonder what he would say if I suggested that Jesus is bifurcating the world in our passage today. Jesus divides the world into two types of people when he separates the sheep from the goats.

I suspect Professor Young’s answer would be similar to those who say that Christ’s will is not that enemies be defeated; Christ’s will is that opponents be converted.

It’s easy to read our text today as a judgement against some people, maybe even a judgement against one self. But I am convinced that Jesus tells it to encourage conversion, to challenge us to see things and people from God’s perspective.

It’s a matter of having new eyes that allow us to see the unity of all humanity, to see how each of us and all of us reflect some of God’s nature. This story is an invitation to open our eyes and see what we might otherwise miss.

Several years ago now, in the United Methodist Women’s mission magazine, New World Outlook, there was an article written by a man who had visited our new churches in Lithuania. I’d like to read a portion of his article:

I was driving a Lithuanian family home from the hospital one snowy afternoon – a mother and her two young boys. I asked them if they would like to eat at the new “McDonald’s Restoranas.” The boys in the back seat nodded rapidly and glanced at each other with raised eyebrows. Pausing near the front door by the plastic statue of Ronald McDonald, the boys looked wistfully at the colorful sliding board. “Ne galima,” their mother said with a quick shake of her head. “You would have to pay.” When I reassured them that the slide was free, she let the boys walk over.

The boys disappeared into the slide’s interior. Only the muffled sound of their giggles proved they were still there. Then both reappeared at the top of the slide with wide smiles. Each time, as they reached the bottom, they jumped up and down, shouting, “Hooray!”

One boy sniffed the air. “What a delicious smell,” he said. Inside, I tried my best to explain the menu. “What would you like to eat?” I asked. They looked at each other nervously. The mother turned to me and said quietly: “Whatever you eat, we’ll have one too.”

“Four cheeseburgers ‘kompleksai’ (with fries and sodas), please,” I said. The older brother carefully pulled one, two, three, four napkins out of the dispenser – then one, two, three, four straws. The younger brother helped me carry the trays to the table. I began eating before I realized that the mother was saying a prayer of thanks to God for “these beef steaks and these potatoes.” I stopped chewing the french fry I already had in my mouth.

I had almost finished my burger when I realized that none of them had opened the wrappers of theirs but had only been eating their fries. “May we bring these home?” asked the mother. “The girls will like them.” Both brothers began gathering the empty paper french fry pockets and gently inserted the wrapped burgers into them. Then the boys wiped out each of our four paper cups with a napkin and stacked them into one another.

The younger brother folded up one of the paper placemats – now spotted with grease. “You keep this one,” he said as he folded and handed an unspotted one to me. “You can give it to Hannah.” (That’s our four-year old daughter.) I put the paper placemat in my pocket and swallowed hard.

As we left, both boys shook Ronald McDonald’s plastic hand and said with a smile, “Thank you for the good potatoes!”

“God has given us a great day,” said their mother.

God HAD given us a great day. And I’d almost missed it.

 

It’s amazing to me what we sometimes miss because we don’t have eyes to see.

How many of us ever order a cheeseburger at McDonald’s and give thanks for the “Beef Steak”?

How many of us even think about french fries as a potato?

How many of us eat at McDonald’s and think God has given us a great day? (I know I normally wonder what I’ve done wrong to eat at such a place . . .)

We don’t have eyes to see, so we miss the wonders of God’s blessings.

One of my favorite retreat sites is Holden Village. To get to Holden Village, you ride a ferryboat up the length of Lake Chelan before riding in a bus up a canyon road.

On one of my trips to Holden Village, I saw a man pointing to the hills along the lake’s shore. Then the woman he was with pointed to the hills. Every once in a while, they would suddenly point. Each time, I’d look to see what it was they were seeing. I only saw the hillside.

Then I saw a deer.

I hadn’t seen the others before because my eyes weren’t trained to see deer. This couple practiced and saw things I never saw.

I didn’t have eyes to see, so I never saw the deer.

I don’t have the eyes of a child in Lithuania, so I don’t see the beef steak at McDonald’s.

And all-too-often, I’m afraid, I don’t have eyes to see Christ, either.

I’m too busy trying to bifurcate, to sort out good from bad; worthy from unworthy; loveable from unlovable.

There are several Christian communities that make a covenant to practice hospitality. One of the better known communities is the Benedictines, men and women who follow the Order of Saint Benedict.

The Benedictines are intentional about welcoming the guest as if it were Christ himself. Serving as a host, in their understanding, is serving the Host of Life, our Lord Jesus Christ.

A story is told of one Benedictine monk who was awakened by the sound of someone knocking at his door. When he opened the door, he saw a man whom he had seen dozens of times. Each time the man came and asked for a meal and a place to sleep. And each time the Benedictine monk followed the Benedictine rule of hospitality, serving him a bowl of soup and showing him where to find a bed with clean sheets.

As he realized who the man was on this particular night, the Benedictine said, “Jesus Christ, not you again.”

I remembered that monk this week because we received two phone calls asking for food or money. One was a person who has a long history of asking for help. She has called so often that Marilyne recognizes her voice on the phone. And normally, when Marilyne refers to her by name, the woman hangs up.

The other is a woman who has called me no less than five times in the past six months. And I need to confess to you that I didn’t help her the last two times.

I told her the truth – actually, it was a half-truth (and the problem with half-truths is always the other half).

I told her I didn’t have any more money.

The full truth is that money wouldn’t help her and I wanted to help. The truth is that there are things we could do to help if she was interested in being helped.

As I reflected on what I had done, I remembered a story I heard a long time ago. I think it was told of John Wesley, but since I couldn’t find the story I’ll say it was a preacher – it could have been any preacher, including John Wesley.

The preacher was walking down a street when he encountered a beggar. When he handed the beggar some money, a friend of the preacher asked him if he thought the money was going to help the beggar.

“No,” was the simple and straightforward answer, “but it helps me to give.”

You see, the truth is that when we are no longer concerned about who deserves help and who doesn’t, when we no longer bifurcate the world into the good and the bad, we begin to serve the one true God who created all of the world.

Only then do we begin to see the world as God sees it. Only then do we find ourselves meeting Christ in the face of the hungry child or the lonely prisoner. And when we see Christ in the faces of the homeless or the naked or the sick, we begin to respond to their needs differently.

But first we must learn to see. We must train our eyes to see Christ and to see the bounty that God has provided for us.

And when we see, we learn there are many more reasons to give thanks than we had ever thought possible.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.