A sermon based on Matthew 25: 31
The very earliest Christian creed consisted of only three words. Three small words that changed the world. Three words so powerful that, when the early Christians said them, they knew they were putting their lives at risk. The very earliest Christian creed was, “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:9).
To confess that Jesus is Lord is to claim that other things and people are not. Jesus is Lord means that what determines the future is not the state of the economy, not the decisions made by powerful politicians, not any of the events reported in the evening news. The future is shaped decisively by a Jew from Nazareth who lived over two thousand years ago on the outskirts of the Roman Empire.
Sunday by Sunday, Christians say “Jesus is Lord” easily, probably without much thought. However, from Monday to Saturday most of us live in a world where that claim is contested on many fronts.
Some work for companies that don’t believe Jesus is Lord. They think ‘the bottom line’ is. The decisions they make day by day are shaped by whether or not those decisions are going to make a bigger profit for the company. That is why companies are now jumping on the bandwagon called ‘going green’. It is not first and foremost because they are worried about the environment. They are ‘going green’ now because it is profitable or good for business to look concerned about the health of our planet.
Almost every advertisement you see on television tells you that what determines the shape of your future is whether or not you look young, beautiful, energetic and successful. Years ago, the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge wrote about his experience of driving into an American city late at night and seeing all the flashing neon lights that lined the street. Food. Gas. Beauty. Drugs. Muggeridge realized that these lights signaled the chief pursuits of our time. We pursue food, gas, beauty and drugs because we believe that those things will make our lives worthwhile. Somebody said once that, in the middle ages, when a traveler approached on of the great cities of Europe – Chartres or Strasbourg – they would see the towering steeples of the magnificent steeples that dominated the skyline and would deduce that the thing that was valued most there was the human soul. These days, when people approach a large city, they see the bank and business towers dominating our skylines and they know what it is we value the most. Drive west toward Sarnia on the 402 at night and you will be blinded by the lights at Hiawatha Race Track and Slots. Approach the city from the east and you will see the Casino tower lighting up the darkness. Draw your own conclusions as to what it is we value the most.
“Jesus is Lord” we claim but we live with constant pressure to shape our lives under the rule of other gods, other values. Increasingly, Christians who take their faith seriously are faced with the question, “How do you live out a truth that so few other people will acknowledge?” “How do you hold on to that truth in midst of other people who deny it or ignore it or perhaps even think you are foolish to believe it?
This is a new situation for us. For many decades we have been used to the culture supporting us. We have been accustomed to the culture agreeing, at some level, with our view of the world. It is not happening any longer. So, we find ourselves having to become intentional about our faith in ways that did not seem necessary before. It is a challenging time to be the church and to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
We can learn some things from the early church. When the first Christians said, “Jesus is Lord”, they said it in a culture that did not support them either. The Roman Empire was their world’s greatest superpower. In the Roman Empire, Jesus wasn’t Lord. Caesar was. Everybody knew it. You swore “Caesar is Lord” as your oath of allegiance not only to Caesar but also to the Roman way of life.
People believed that it was the power brokers in Rome who shaped the present. Rome’s military legions enforced what those powerbrokers decided. Those same decision-makers decided what the future would be like for the whole known world. They controlled economy and the exercise of political power. “Caesar is Lord”. Everybody knew it.
Except, the Christians knew it wasn’t true. They knew that Jesus of Nazareth had died on a Roman cross, but he had not stayed dead. God had defied the powers of Rome and of evil and of death and had raised Jesus from the dead. Now there was another power loose in the world — a power greater than all the power of Rome.
The early Christians had experienced that resurrection power in their own lives. A new reality was in the world – the presence of Jesus himself, now raised to life beyond the power of death. This new reality was so true, so full of life, that they became convinced that the future was not going to be decided by Caesar or by any Roman power. The future belonged to Jesus and to they way of living that he had brought and taught. It may not have been evident at the time but, one day, it would be. They were so convinced that this was true that they risked everything on it. And some of them paid the price of their lives for it.
Those early Christians did not appear to have a lot of influence in the culture. They could not just go up to Caesar and say, “You’re wrong. You’re not in charge. We want you to run the Roman Empire the way Jesus wants you to.” Caesar wouldn’t have listened.
It would be like us going to the Minor Hockey Association and saying, “We want you to stop holding practices and games on Sunday morning. We think doing so is damaging the souls of our young people. We want you to tell the families that they should take their children to worship instead.”
It would be like us going to the stores and saying, “We don’t want you to open on Sundays anymore. We want you to encourage people to take one day a week off from all their consuming. Instead, encourage them to take the time just to delight in the good providence of God.”
It would be like us going to a multinational corporation and saying, “When you are making decisions, we want you to care about the poor as much as you care about your profit margins.”
We could do those things, and perhaps we should. But the chances are very good that they would not do what we asked of them. We do not have that kind of influence. Not any more.
The early Christians, in a similar situation, did two things. First of all, they lived out the truth of Jesus’ Lordship anyway. They cared for the sick, fed the hungry, visited those who were in prison, clothed the naked. They did those things not just for people in the church. They did them for other people as well. What they did was so remarkable that some outsiders eventually noticed. “See how they love one another,” they wrote.
When the Roman Empire died, it was those small groups living under the Lordship of Jesus Christ that had the strength and life needed to make a new beginning.
The second thing they did was tell subversive stories. They didn’t set out to tell subversive stories. They just told the stories of Jesus, which turned out to be subversive. They told stories like the one we heard this morning. Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him.” The Son of Man then judges the nations and they call him Lord.
Except “Lord” was Caesar’s title. Yet, here are the nations giving it to a poor carpenter who had been crucified by Rome. “Gathering the nations” was Caesar’s job. Rendering judgment was Caesar’s prerogative. Deciding the criteria for judgment was Caesar’s role. Yet, all this is being done by Jesus, ruling in glory.
Matthew tells this story and, thereby claims that somebody more powerful than Caesar is loose in the world. He claims that we shall have to reckon with Jesus and Jesus’ judgments or be found wanting.
Well, you say, it’s just a story. It doesn’t really change anything. Our sitting here telling it again to one another doesn’t make any real difference to what is happening in the world. But, before you dismiss these stories, consider this: We are still telling these stories 2000 years later. They still have power to shape our lives. They compel us to bring food for the Foodbank, to give toys to little children who wouldn’t have Christmas presents otherwise. They send us to the hospital to visit a sick friend. They gather us Sunday by Sunday to sing songs when we could be doing other things that could be considered so much more useful.
They are just stories, but they help us live with hope in a world dying from cynicism and despair. They lead us to look for ways to promote peace in an increasingly violent world. They give us the courage to speak truth instead of settling for lies. All those things make and keep life human in a world that dehumanizes people. That is no small thing. They are just stories, but Jesus meets us in them and they shape us still.
And Caesar? The man who was so powerful in his day? He is now just a name in a history book. All the Caesars are dead and buried. They have returned to the dust.
The Roman Empire was supposed to last forever. It is long gone. Yet, the followers of the man that Rome thought it had killed and gotten rid of are the ones who built a new civilization out of Rome’s rubble.
Keep that in mind whenever someone ridicules you for worshipping here on Sunday mornings. Keep that in mind whenever someone dismisses your kindness to others.
How do you live out a truth that so few others acknowledge? You do what you know to be good and true – you care for the least and the last and the lost in Jesus’ name. You trust that God will take what you offer and use it for His Kingdom. You gather Sunday by Sunday with the followers of Jesus and you tell the stories and you share the meal our Lord gave us. You hold on to him who holds the future in his hands. It may not seem like much, but it is the way God has chosen to work. He will judge the nations on the way they have received our witness.
Jesus is Lord. Against all that would deny it, this is true. Jesus is Lord.
Powerful words. Your sermon resonates with what I was reading in “Dangerous Acts of Worship” recently about worship that “lies about God.” Our worship proclaims that Jesus is Lord, but our lives so often fail to enact and demonstrate God’s purposes… doing justice and bringing mercy into the world. This is to lie about God. This puts other gods before the one true God. Rock on, sister!