Margie Quinn
My niece Gabrielle is a sophomore at a college in town. She is currently taking a class called “Understanding the Bible” as part of her fulfillment for college credits. She struggles with this class—every Tuesday and Thursday around 3pm, I start receiving phone calls and texts (yes, during class) with questions or concerns about what she’s learning. “Jesus seems like an unhealthy helper,” she texted me once, “like doing too much for everyone and then getting really mad and flipping over tables when they don’t do stuff right.”
Once in a while, she comes over afterward to quiz me on her most recent exam, asking me questions that I :should: know all of the answers to. While some of these questions may seem easy, like, “Who found Jesus after his resurrection?” Gabrielle didn’t grow up going to church. We laugh about the time she asked me a quiz question regarding the twins of Isaac, Jacob and Esau. She pronounced Esau, “Ooh-so.”
This week, after her Thursday class, she came over to my house in frustration once again. She shared the latest questions from her Bible quiz, one of which was this:
True or False: To receive the free gift of salvation, you must place your faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. John 14:6 says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
This one really ticked me off. Other than my own ministry, this is my niece’s first introduction into Christianity. Two months into learning about Noah and Moses, Mary and Jesus, she is asked to have the answer for salvation. And it all comes down to a checkbox.
For a long time, I lived my faith in the “True or False” category and it turns out that this flavor of Christianity only isolated me from dear friends of mine; friends of other faith traditions, sexual and gender identities, friends who I thought drank too much or didn’t come to church enough.
While we can talk about the many discrepancies or paradoxes of Jesus’ words in scripture over a cup of coffee, what strikes me about our passage today is this:
In one of the final chapters in Matthew, Jesus doesn’t tell them what to believe, he tells them what to do.
Our passage this morning sits on the cusp of Jesus’ arrest. It almost feels like an act of urgency, like he’s sharing his final parables and remarks in a hushed tone, as if he’s looking over his shoulder trying to impart as much information to his disciples as he can before his imminent crucifixion. It is as if Jesus is saying, “I am about to be arrested and I am entrusting you with this kingdom. And I’m not concerned about what you believe, I am concerned with what you do.”
Jesus begins with a little bit of foreshadowing, “When I come into my glory,” he begins (Jesus already knows that he is going to defeat death), “on which side of me will you stand? Will you be a sheep or a goat?”
Jesus isn’t mincing words in his judgment of the people, he makes it pretty dang clear: be blessed or be damned.
So who does he bless? The ones who get all of the questions right on an exam?
No. The ones who encountered him.
I was hungry, and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked, and you gave me clothing, I was sick, and you took care of me, I was in prison, and you visited me.
These are all tangible acts in which we must go and look someone in the eyes or touch their shoulder or reach out to them. Yet the Disciples are sure they’ve never done anything like e
Um…Jesus…pretty sure we’ve never given you food or water, clothed you…
Jesus replies, Just as you did it to the least of these who are my family, you did it to me.
Way more convicting than a quiz question is this charge by Jesus, not what did you believe but how did you live? Are we encountering Christ in our lives or simply reading about him? Are we seeking out members of Jesus’ family, the least of these, or are we retreating from the very places he claims to be? Are we trying to be perfect students of Christ instead of faithful followers?
Beyond these individual acts of mercy in which you will encounter me, Jesus wonders, does your witness extend to addressing the root causes of hunger, thirst, homelessness and imprisonment? Are you willing to help with immediate needs and also put in work for the long-haul vision of a kingdom of earth in which we all have enough? Are you willing to advocate for the vulnerable, fight to remove medical debt, shatter systems of oppression and exploitation?
Jesus is kind of a scary Bible teacher. Sheep or goats, blessed or damned, right hand or left hand, true or false. But in this class, the righteous are not the ones who check the right box. They are the ones who take the quiz, rip it up and leave the classroom to go encounter him.
I want you to take a look at your bulletin--- at the image on the front. This is a picture of our God-made-flesh who is always flipping the script:
A ruler that opposes the ruling class.
A King that empties himself out to become a servant
The son of God who spends his time with the overlooked and abandoned.
A Lord who sits with the lowly.
A God who is chastised, criminalized, and yes crucified for going against Roman rule.
Christ the King who does the very acts of mercy he’s asking for. Who has experienced deep suffering. Has shivered on cold winter nights and been turned away by strangers. Begging us to go find him not in the kingdoms of Herod or Caesar, but in the Kingdom of God—which is here, among us.
“If we are honest,” Lauren Wright Pittman writes, “it is extremely difficult to reject the tempting power and wealth this world has to offer and allow our life to take the shape of good news for all. The choice isn’t an obvious one. One side looks like an opulent pile of riches, a crown, and endless power, while the other looks like tattered and worn hands with new life blooming out of wounds, work, burdens and relationships. This choice may seem like a distant decision made long ago, but it’s a decision to be made every single day, one moment at a time. In working for and with the downtrodden, poor, orphaned, widowed, ostracized, and oppressed, we will find ourselves.”
This man who is always flipping the script, whose quizzes confuse us, who wears a crown made of thorns, who rides into town on a donkey. This is the God we proclaim to follow. A God who says, Clothe them. Feed them. Give them water. Visit them in prison. Fight for their liberation. March for their freedom. Proclaim love on behalf of them. When you do that for the least of these, you did it for me.
So rip up the quiz, leave the classroom and go encounter him.
Amen.