Matthew 25:31-45
“Inviting To: A Relationship with the World”
Preached Sunday, August 28, 2022
We are now halfway through a 4 part sermon series called “Inviting To: A Relationship with…” This sermon series is laying the foundation for living out our 2022-2023 vision goal which we just kicked off at the beginning of this month and is already well-underway. That vision goal is: In order to build, strengthen, and renew connections with Grace, we will extend 500 invitations with the hope that 50 or more will be accepted.
And so, welcome to those who are here today by invitation! We’re so glad you’re here and yes, the rumors are true, there will be ice cream right after the service.
But back to the sermon series - we started by talking about “Inviting To: A Relationship with Jesus.” A relationship with Jesus means abiding in God’s loving, knowing and feeling that you always have a home in Jesus where you are deeply known and deeply loved, just as you are.
Then, we moved on to “Inviting To: A Relationship with Christians.” A Relationship with Christians means that we who claim the name of Jesus belong to one another - we need each other to be the full body of Christ in this world. And through being the body of Christ together, we know God is with us when we are gathered. And our relationships with each other helps us live out our relationship with Jesus AND strengthens that relationship as we see God in and learn about God through one another.
And then we took a week intermission with a fabulous guest preacher and now we’re following the natural progression of the series which leads us to: “Inviting To: A Relationship with the World.”
Now, some Christians (or really, any sect of any religion or sort) like to paint themselves as “us against the World.” World - Us. This mindset really creates a false dichotomy of sacred versus secular where in order to embrace the sacred, we have to reject all that is secular…and that’s simply not how any of this works. The world and our lives and our faith are not as black and white as any would like us to think. There is a lot of gray, a lot of blurring lines, a lot of overlap between what would traditionally be called sacred and what would be called secular. Now there are “things of this world” that truly are not of God. In our Baptismal vows we promise to reject evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves! And that’s important to reject those - AND there are things, quote on quote, “of this world” - secular rather than obviously sacred, if you will, that we would do better to open our eyes and hearts, and see God in, to blur the lines, to let sacred and secular overlap and see how God is in all the world, even places we might not have thought to first look.
Okay, okay - I don’t want to go too much into this tangent cause it really is a whole other sermon AND as Christians, it’s time to think of not “us versus the world,” or “us or the world,” or even “us and the world” - we need to think of “us WITH the world.”
As a relationship with Jesus necessitates a relationship with other Christians, relationships with Jesus and other Christians necessitate, and even naturally progress, to a relationship with the world.
Matthew 25 is probably *the* prime example of how we are called to be in relationship with the world. We are in relationship with Jesus in this world with how we react to the pain, hurt, and suffering of the world. We are only so much in relationship with Jesus as we are in relationship with those experiencing the brokenness of this world. Matthew 25 specifically lifts up how we are in relationship with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked (the have-nots, if you will), the sick, and the prisoner.
And that should really give us pause. As a word of indictment against those who claim the name of Jesus in our country, I often think we should be so much more collectively horrified with how our systems treat those in need. The hungry that are ridiculed. The thirsty who cannot get clean water. The strangers who are turned away. The poor who are criminalized. The sick who are saddled with debt and the prisoners who are dehumanized and profited off of. According to Jesus in Matthew 25, how we treat the least of these are how we treat Jesus himself. How we are in a relationship with Jesus. Collectively, as a whole, it’s not looking good for us when it comes to the separating of the sheep and the goats.
Again, a slight tangent there.
But when we seriously look at Matthew 25, we see that a relationship with Jesus doesn’t just necessitate a relationship with the world - a relationship with Jesus IS a relationship with the world - a relationship WITH the least of these: the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, and imprisoned. A relationship WITH them IS a relationship with Jesus. To fully be the body of Christ with and for the world, we are called upon as the whole body of Christ, in relationship with each other as Christians, to show the abiding love of Jesus to the world.
Looking out at the world and seeing the hurt and brokenness is where we are invited to live out our relationship with Jesus as we partner together to be co-creators of God’s Kingdom here on earth. And it’s not so much that we are holding something we disperse upon the world, like we’re removed from it or above it… but that the hurt we see around us draws our hearts to engage because we love Jesus so much.
I know I’ve said this before and it bears saying again: love of Jesus and love of neighbor are flip sides of the same coin. Love of Jesus pushes us out to love those in pain and those who need love. How we experience God in our neighbors then pushes us back to further love of God.
Another illustration is the Wesleyan Means of Grace and the cross.
So picture the vertical line of the cross, okay - up and down. This line is vertical cause it directs us “up” - if you will, toward God. And it’s made up of both individual acts of piety: these are things like prayer, reading the Bible, devotions, meditations AND communal acts of worship: and these are things like, well, worship, Holy Communion, Baptism, singing hymns together. So as an individual and as a community, we are oriented toward God.
But this isn’t a cross - it’s just one line.
So then comes the horizontal line. And this line is horizontal cause it directs us out, toward each other. And this line is comprised of both individual acts of charity: these are things like generosity, serving at a food kitchen, doing good works AND communal acts of justice and these are things like working toward systemic change and freeing of the oppressed - a classic example we use is how Wesley spent the latter part of his life speaking out against the slave trade.
Okay so you have a vertical line that, individually and communally, directs us toward God. And you have a horizontal line that, individually and communally, directs us toward each other. They’re just two lines, not the whole picture. And when you put these two lines together you get: the cross, the Gospel, the full picture of Jesus and what it means to live out our faith: love of God and love of neighbor as self.
And so, to invite into a relationship with the world is to not only invite those who are already in a relationships with Jesus and the church to see Jesus in the brokenness of the world and then to BE Jesus in the midst of that brokenness - to invite into a relationship with the world is also our biggest way to invite others to know Jesus. For those who are used to “us versus the world” instead of “us with the world” this may seem counterintuitive. Yet the early church didn’t grow because of the right doctrine or amazing worship services or family friendly programming or even because of ice cream socials. The early church grew because of the radical way they showed up and showed love to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned.
As the favorite hymn goes:
“They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
May we love God and love the world.
Amen.
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