Bible Speaks by Rev. L. Althouse 

 

Feb. 15, 2015

Background Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46

Devotional Reading: Psalms 10:12-18

The passage we studied last week – Luke 10:25-34, the robbery victim and the Samaritan on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and Matthew  25:31-46, the parable of “The Last Judgment” – are two of the most powerful and dangerous scriptural passages of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

They are “powerful” because they shake up even the most secure Christians. They are also “dangerous” because they threaten a complacency that has become too respectable and impotent. I can posture and say “I’m a United Methodist” and you can claim to be a “stalwart” Baptist, UCC, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, whatever, but those are simply self-assumed labels, not necessarily realities.

The tale of the Good Samaritan and the parable of the Last Judgment deal with realities which are usually more painful than labels. The Parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us we are commanded by Christ to help anyone whose needs we can aid or assuage. The Parable of the Last Judgment tells us when we help those in want, we really are serving Christ and. if we don’t respond to those needs we turn our backs on Christ himself.

“Yes, but we’re saved  by grace, not works – right?” Right, but if we are saved by God’s grace, we can only really accept that salvation if it results in the life God has placed before us. And that is what Jesus is doing in this parable of the Last Judgment.

Interest on God’s gifts

I have never previously realized the connection between the Parable of the Last Judgment and the one directly preceding it in Matthew 25:14-30, The Parable of the Unused Talents.

This is the parable in which a landowner, preparing to go on a journey, called together his servants and gave them sums of money – called talents – to use and invest in his absence.

When he returned he found all but one of his servants had used the talents to earn more – all except the one who said, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man … so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.”

But his master answered, “You wicked and slothful servant! You knew what I expected. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.”

“So take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance but, from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the servant into the outer darkness there will men weep and gnash their teeth.”

Yes, grace is a free gift, but God expects interest on His gift. So, being “righteous” is not a status to be won or earned, but a response to make when it is offered. No amount of works will earn us God’s grace. But unless we respond with acts of gratitude, we will signal that we are not thankful and cannot receive His grace.

The grace comes before the works, not the works before the grace. So in the most practical terms it means this parable confronts us with our true relationship with God, or the lack of it.

How to serve God

To look at it still another way, we all know we are called to serve God, but how do you serve God? Rack up perfect attendance at worship? Always pay your pledge in full? Be ”nice” to everyone in Sunday school? Put a sign on your house: “God Lives Here?”

No, Jesus gives us something much more specific and difficult: “I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”

And when we reply, as many of us will: “When did we see you, Lord?” his reply should shake the ground on which we stand: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these you did it not to me.” Don’t ask: “Am I my brother’s keeper? For, no you are not his keeper; but you are his brother – or sister.”

George Buttrick tells us “this love is the end product or fruit of genuine religion; and by this fruit one’s true relation to God is known.” So to anyone who tells me “I want to be a Christian, so what do I do?” I would reply: “Read Matthew 25:31-46 and do what it says.”

And that’s where the rub is: A rapidly growing prejudice that affects the population in general and Christians in particular – a reaction of exasperation, rejection and hostility to the poor in general and the needy where we live in particular.

There is a troubling assumption that people are poor because they either want to be or they are not willing to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. In a nation where billions of dollars are stolen by the powerful, it amazes me we can become so angry at panhandlers on our streets and “welfare cheats.”

Missionary Frank Laubach challenges all of us with these words: “We have made the slogan ‘Charity begins at home’ a part of our religion – although it was invented by a Roman pagan, and is directly contrary to the story of the Good Samaritan. Charity begins where the need is greatest and the crisis is most dangerous.”

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Those with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.