Happy Old Year
Ezekiel 34:11-16; Matthew 25:31-46

November 24, 2002

“Happy old year” – “Two kinds of people.” I don’t know many who are still tracking the “faceoff” of church signs at Lorne and Victoria. But I do know that I would certainly lose a dueling banjo contest with Hart, or anyone else for that matter. When I tried out my “Happy Old Year” on him his response was “You Guys…” No exclamation point.

As I see it my task this morning is to serve as your retired under-shepherd to prepare the way for Dr. Bob Kitchen’s return from year’s major presentation on Syriac textual exploration.

Hart and the choir are entering a most demanding and taxing musical month. But for the minister and his congregation, this closes our set of readings. And December’s Advent is a door opening on another year’s Biblical interpretation and worship, for which another 52 or 53 Sundays await.

The undershepherd designation fits the Ezekiel Good Shepherd passage. Ezekiel’s shepherd will give preference to the smallest and weakest of the flock, to protect it from those bigger and stronger. He is a shepherd who will keep the wild animals away. And his is a nation that will be judged.

“I will judge between you.” “You pushed the sick ones aside and butted them away from the flock. I will rescue my sheep and not let them be mistreated anymore. I will judge (them) and separate the good from the bad. I will give them a king like my servant David to be their shepherd, and he will take care of them.” “When I break my people’s chains and set them free…then they will know that I am the Lord.” A judging that we carry over into Matthew 25. A judging to restore broken relationships.

Strong, breathtaking stuff! Which the lectionary selectors place in front of Matthew’s judgement parable. Separating sheep and goats. Casting aside those who will not recognize his kingship.

This is the reign of Christ or Christ the King Sunday. Closing the year of readings and calling for a fresh start in the Advent season. When the King and all his angels come he won’t be looking for greatness. It’s the surprise of the righteous that is the most poignant moment of this exercise.

“When did we see you, our king – our king in humble circumstance – hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or in prison and failed to help you?” And those who passed the king’s test were equally surprised that they had served their Christ unawares!

End of sermon. End of old year. A new year ready to begin. Every ending a new beginning.

So what do Matthew’s list of necessities say to his readers, then as now? They are basic necessities of life which open our lives not just as doers, but as recipients of God’s grace.

Mariah Shepherd spoke up. There’s nothing sacred about hunger, she objected. I could only suggest that a first nation vision quest includes fasting. Now as I remember it, a Liberal senator went on a hunger strike to save the Katimavik youth employment program.

Hunger is a death warrant hanging over half the world’s children. Not an easy fact to ignore. And the thirsty? Even Canada’s pride has been challenged on that in Walkerton, North Battleford, and some 50 Saskatchewan hamlets and Indian reserves. The need for clean drinking water used M & S funds to support a Canadian well driller in India. We would add safe shelter and air to water and food. And lift up the example of a Muslim mother whose body provided the pocket of air that saved her little baby. Regina’s Resurrection Roman Catholic Church expands Matthew’s question. They give us opportunity to thank the translator for our Kosovar families. Now that fire has claimed his life too.

Each time Beryl McDowell enters a General Hospital ward she anoints her hands with Isogel. It’s the danger of contagion that makes us wish our kingdom’s compassion had no limits.

Nakedness, #4 on Matthew’s list, loses something in the translation. For we can get lost in closets full of yesterday’s fad and fashion. Ann Leger Anderson reminds us that the poor in Jesus’ day owned only what they wore on their backs. No extra cloak or purse for those who went to spread Jesus’ story. More striking is the contribution of a St. Andrew’s College professor and others to the Post Modern Bible and the Post Modern Bible Reader. In one place they expand on the oppressor’s demand for your coat by giving up your shirt as well. Go beyond what the first century courts allowed its money lenders to take from a debtor. Give him everything and your nakedness will expose his greed, his infamy and his addiction to wealth. “Ask not for the causes of poverty” (expecting to be commended for your curiosity) – “Ask for the causes of affluence. Poverty is the other side of the coin of affluence.” That saying attracted enough enmity in Downtown Chaplaincy years ago to double expose our role in blaming others.

The stranger, Xenophobia, the fear of those we do not understand and therefore lump together is tested every day of our privileged lives. At all our personal and national borders, lumping groups of people together robs them and ourselves of dignity. Matthew’s Christ-followers, expelled by their synagogues and neighbours, knew the high price they had to pay. It was the first step in being scattered to the ends of their Mediterranean world. God would require them to give up even the thought patterns that insulated them from others, once despised and dismissed by what they held dear. God’s new realities burst in upon them, including prison.

Remember Peter’s denial in the high priest’s courtyard? Remember frightened followers hiding behind locked doors? For fear that those who killed Jesus would hunt them down as well. Paul’s jailer could be won over by the prisoners who didn’t escape his custody during an earthquake. Those who fear thunder and lightning can understand that. Prison and prisoners were off limits then as now. Prisoners’ advocates like Clare Culhane are few in number. The wrongfully convicted gain little understanding from us. Without a visitor your sentence might never end; your parole or pardon count for nothing. Your life and will to live extinguished.

Can we make much difference? I believe Matthew thought they could make a difference. He knew how urgent the needs were. We need to recapture that sense of urgency for what we sing and what we dare to preach. For that let us pause and pray: Amen.

Preached by Robert Gay
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan