Matthew 25:31-46
Sheep, Goats, Identity Politics, and the Way
James Sledge November
26, 2017 – Christ the King
In
the past, I’ve questioned whether it might be time to retire the term
“Christian.” To my mind it has become a meaningless label that anyone can
bestow on themselves. The label tells little about how a person acts. Quite
often it does not mean that the person diligently seeks to follow the teachings
of Jesus. It’s simply a label that wants to claim some bit of divine blessing
for that person and their views. Hillary Clinton says she is a Christian.
Donald Trump says he is one. Some members of the alt-right insist they are
Christian. And Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore claims to be a champion for
Christians.
Speaking
of Roy Moore, the recent controversies around charges that he preyed on high
school students when he was in his thirties, along with ardent support for him
from some evangelical Christians, have prompted a number of articles and blog
posts about the term “Christian” losing its usefulness. Moore helped this
process along when he was the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice. He insisted
on a display of the Ten Commandments, even after the US Supreme Court ruled
that unconstitutional. In so doing, he only drug the term “Christian” further
from any notion of doing what Jesus said, instead coopting the term as one more
label in the identity politics that have so divided our culture.
When
you think about it, the Ten Commandments are a rather odd choice for a
Christian symbol, Yes, the commandments are in our Bible, but there is nothing
distinctly Christian about them. They don’t come from any teaching of Jesus.
Why not the Beatitudes? Why not “Love your enemies.”? Why not, “Not
everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but
only the one who does the will of my
Father in heaven.”?
We
seem to have reached a point where “Christian” is such an empty label that we
have to modify it to give it any real meaning: Evangelical Christian, Mainline
Christian, progressive Christian, and so on. And even then, these labels likely
tell us more about people’s politics than about how serious they in actually
following Jesus.
Of
course labels are nothing new. Presumably they’ve been around from the time
humans began to form societies. For the Jewish culture Jesus lived in, the big
labels were Jew and Gentile. These were the ultimate us and them labels.
According
to the book of Acts, the original label for the Jesus movement was “the Way.” All
labels can become meaningless over time, but at least this one suggests a path,
a particular way of living, one presumably taught by Jesus, and not simply the
veneration of his name. And this Way would eventually supersede the labels of
Jew and Gentile.
At
the very end of Matthew’s gospel, the risen Jesus commissions his followers
saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” The word
translated “nations” is more typically translated “Gentiles.” Jesus sends his
followers out into the world, outside their religious confines, out to them, to
those others. But the early members of the Way struggled with just how they
were to do that. Initially, they required all who joined them to become Jews as
part of the process. The Apostle Paul argued vehemently against that, although
it seems his view was not fully embraced until after his death.
Matthew’s
gospel is written well after that death, after the mission to the Gentiles has
gone mainstream, but it is also written to a congregation that considers itself
Jewish. These members of the Way still have a worldview where Jew and Gentile
define us and them.
That’s
not our worldview, and so we may not notice this issue of Jews and Gentiles cropping
up in our reading for today. That reading begins with the return of Jesus, enthroned
as Lord and king of all, and it says, All the nations will be gathered before him.
“The nations” probably seems to us simply a way of saying “everyone.” When
the Son of Man returns, all people will be gathered before him for judgment.
But I doubt the people of Matthew’s congregation heard it this way.
Here
also, “nations” is that word more typically translated “Gentiles,” and I have
to think Matthew’s Jewish congregation heard Jesus’ words something like this. When Jesus returns, an event we’re waiting
and ready for, all those other folks, who didn’t realize Jesus was God’s
anointed, will find themselves before his throne. And I wonder if some of
those in Matthew’s church weren’t expecting to hear that those Gentiles were now
going to get what was coming to them.
But
the judgment that comes pays no attention to labels of us and them. It does not
care that the gathered Gentiles did not previously recognize Jesus. It only
notices their kindness and mercy, or lack of it, especially to Jesus followers,
to the
least of these who are members of my family.
How
different this is from typical views of Christian evangelism where the faithful
share the good news of Jesus with people whose fate hinges on whether they
embrace the gospel or not. But Jesus
says that when Gentiles show kindness and mercy to his witnesses, loving them
as neighbor, it means they’ve embraced Jesus unawares.
But
what does this scene say to those of us who claim we have already recognized
Jesus as king? What are we who celebrate Christ the King today to do with this
story of those who unexpectedly found themselves to be serving a king they had
not recognized?
If
nothing else, surely it says something about the nature of this king’s kingdom.
Surely it speaks of a reign with little use for labels of us and them. Surely is speaks of a day that rejects identity
politics that attempt to claim Jesus for our side. Surely it speaks of a church
not only committed to proclaiming the good news of God’s love in Christ Jesus,
but also a church committed to the way of kindness, caring, steadfast love,
mercy, and tenderness, especially to those who are strangers or hungry or poor
or sick or incarcerated.
To
say that this Christ is our king calls us to move away from Christianity as an
identity like all those other identities of liberal and conservative,
Republican and Democrat, educated and working class. To proclaim Christ king is
to reject Christianity as a label and to live it out as our Way.
Christ
is king! Christ is lord of all, Halleluiah! Let us live in ways that show the
world the hope of God’s new day.
No comments:
Post a Comment