Matthew 25:31-46 - "The Least of These"
/“The Least of These”
Matthew 25:31-46
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was 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.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Today is the final part of our short series on neighboring. For the last two weeks, we’ve talked about two different gospel passages in which Jesus directly commands his followers to love their neighbors. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves, but we are also called to take it one step further and love as Christ loves us, a much taller order.
Today’s scripture reading is a bit different than the last two. It starts with that apocalyptic vision of The Son of Man coming in glory as he separates the sheep, the good, from the goats, the bad. What determines if someone is a sheep or a goat depends on how they acted and how they treated Christ himself. Both groups are confused because they have no recollection of seeing Jesus hungry, naked, poor, sick, and imprisoned. And yet, Jesus says, “Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Ah, they realize. Those people who we considered least? Those were you in disguise.
This passage has radically shaped Christianity and the call for Christians to be “sheep.” When I was a kid, we sang a song in Sunday School called “I just wanna be a sheep” ba ba ba. We all knew that we did not want to be called goats, after all. My question for us today, is where is Jesus in disguise around us? I kind of hate the phrase “the least of these” because when I say it, it feels like I am saying that there are people that I consider less than me. But that’s not how Jesus uses it. He isn’t saying that they are less, but that they are treated as less. Less worthy, less valuable, less important.
I don’t think it’s too radical to say that in this country, not all people are treated equally. The ideals of our forefathers that ‘all men are created equal’ has never really applied to all people living here. We have always had people in our society that were “less” than others. For a long time, it was legal– enslaved black Africans were literally considered only 3/5ths of a white person. Indigenous people weren’t considered people at all. Over the centuries, landmark legislation and supreme court rulings have inched us closer to equality, but we’re never quite there. There are informal ways that importance in our society is shown– race, class, and most of all, wealth, but there are also still formal ways that our society deems people “less” than the rest of us. Less desirable, less respectable, less worthy of equal treatment under the law. It hasn’t even been a decade that queer couples could get legally married in all 50 states. Disabled people aren’t allowed to have more than $2000 in savings lest they lose the health and financial assistance that keeps them alive. They are trapped in poverty by a system that is only too happy to forget they exist. Our country thrives while “the least of these” suffer.
And then, there are the incarcerated. Since the abolition of slavery with 13th and 14th amendments, America has created a different kind of subclass of citizens. Black men can vote? Well felons can’t. So we slap the word “felony” on everything from credit card fraud to drug dealing and boom– 4.6 million people no longer have the right to vote today. And if you can’t vote, you have no say in who represents you, who makes the laws that incarcerate people just like you, and who changes things for the next generation. And on it goes.
In June of this summer, I had the privilege of leading a trip with my good friend from Bethany Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Suzzanne Lacey, who runs a non-profit organization Museum Without Walls. The vision is to educate and inspire the next generation to become informed and engaged social justice leaders who will ignite change in their communities. The trip was to the South, to teach students about Civil Rights history. We walked through Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Alabama where children were sprayed with fire hoses by Sheriff Bull Conner. We walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma where John Lewis and other marchers were beaten on Bloody Sunday and we went to Montgomery to walk the pavement that the boycotters walked for 13 long months as they protested segregated buses.
The most meaningful part of our trip for me was our last full day in Montgomery, Alabama which we spent at the Legacy Museum, which is the work of Bryan Stevenson and Equal Justice Initiative. You might be familiar with Bryan’s book Just Mercy, which was also adapted into a movie about his life and work as a lawyer defending wrongly and unfairly sentenced prisoners.
The Legacy Museum tells the story of the history of the United States and the legacy of slavery to lynching to mass incarceration. It is a powerful and painful museum that is as much a work of art as it is a place to learn. The museum is filled with memorials to victims of the slave trade, racial terrorism and lynching, and mass incarceration. I wish everyone could have the opportunity to visit because witnessing these memorials is akin to walking on holy ground.
It’s an overwhelming experience to walk through the Legacy Museum. Each era of American history holds so much grief and pain. The part of the museum was on our current era of mass incarceration. There was an interactive exhibit with videos of inmates in America’s prisons. The screens made it look like they were sitting on the other side of a prison visitation room and you could pick up the phone, as if you were visiting them in prison, and hear their story. The recordings told stories of real inmates in Americas prisons and what they were feeling and experiencing. As I listened, I kept hearing Matthew 25:36 over and over again in my mind– “for I was in prison and you visited me.” Injustice is not just America’s history– it is also our current reality. There are more prisoners who are serving life sentences today than there were in the entire federal prison system in the 1980’s. There are children who are sentenced to life without possibility of parole who are forced to grow up behind bars– condemned to die in prison for crimes they committed as young as 13. As I walked through the museum, it was as if I could hear them calling out to me, “SEE ME! SEE ME! I am not invisible!” It strikes me that when Jesus separates the sheep from the goats, he does not say that “for I was in prison and you advocated for systemic reform to free me” but he merely says, “for I was in prison and you visited me.” While I think systemic reforms are a part of how we love our neighbors on a large scale, this passage reminds me that the first thing we must do is to see people as people. We cannot see people if we are too comfortable forgetting they exist.
The “least of these” aren’t invisible. They are Christ in our midst, if we are willing to look for him. I hope you’ll wonder with me what Jesus is calling you to in this season of life. There are needs all around us, always more than we solve on our own. While this passage isn’t a checklist that we tick boxes off of in order to get into heaven, I do think it can serve as a way to understand the heart of God and serve God’s beloved children. Which part of this passage tugs on your heart and makes you think, “I can do more.” Hungry and thirsty people in need of good food and clean water? Strangers in need of a warm welcome? Unclothed or unhoused in need of not just clothing but financial means to buy their own and keep them clean? Those who are sick and lonely? Or those who are in prison and isolated from society? I know what my answer is. I feel convinced, more than ever before, that God is calling me to see prisoners– not as numbers on their clothes or as the worst thing they’ve done– but as beloved children of God. Maybe it will be through volunteering with Hagar’s Community Church, a ministry of our Presbytery located in the Women’s Correctional Facility in Gig Harbor. Maybe it will be through pushing for legislative action with Faith in Action to make our laws more just and less punitive. Maybe it will be in the stories I choose to preach on and the people I choose to see as God’s beloved. Or who knows what else it will be? I hope that by the Spirit of God, I can treat those whom society deems “least” as I would treat Christ on my doorstep.
People of God, may the stories of our history transform who we are in the present. May we be willing to face hard truths. May we be relentlessly hopeful in pursuit of better tomorrows. And may we look on the margins of our society to find people to love as God loves us.
