Welcome Home: Hospitality as Vocation - Matthew 25:31-46

Cristo Crucifado

Cristo crucificado is one of the most famous paintings of Christ’s crucifixion. Diego Velasquez was a famous Spanish painter in the 1600s and most likely painted the Cristo Crucifado in 1632 for a convent in Madrid. However, it was in the Americas where the painting became legendary. This painting became a painting of hope for indigenous peoples in the Americas. Which was ironic. Velasquez was the leading artist in the king’s court. And his artwork served the Spanish aristocracy as well as its religious institutions. But Velasquez was also a realist. His painting of the Crucified Christ was lifelike. And indigenous people in the Americas who suffered at the hands of Spaniards understood the Jesus of the painting to be identifying and suffering with them. In that painting, the indigenous peoples of Central and South America saw themselves. They saw their own suffering. And in it they identified with the suffering Jesus. Jesus identifies with them. They identify with Jesus.

That is the power of that painting. But that’s also the power of what Jesus says in Matthew 25. We’re continuing our series on hospitality with the one passage that is always brought up when we start talking about hospitality. The story of the sheep and the goats. Today’s story that Jesus tells really isn’t a story. This is apocalyptic imagery. This is the use of imagery to explain what happens at the very end of time. These are images of sheep and goats and a judgment scene.. they are meant to portray what it will really be like.

This story is popular. It’s controversial. It is way too often taken out of context. There are so many myths attached to this story. The biggest myth of all we will dispense with up front. The moral of the story goes something like this: whether or not you end up in heaven or hell depends on how you treat poor people. Behavior does not determine whether you end up in heaven or hell. Ever. This story is not teaching that you better be good to poor people or else you’ll end up in hell.

One thing to keep in mind is that this story Jesus’ tells is part of a long conversation that Jesus has with his best friends, the disciples. This conversation is in the last couple of hours Jesus has with them before he is arrested and crucified. And this story is immediately after another story he tells about the good stewardship of our resources and our time. And Jesus has been preparing them for the catastrophe that is about to take place… the death of the creator of the world. So this story is answer this question: what is it that we are supposed to be doing with our time? How is it that we are to make the best use of our time here on earth, especially when things get bad?

Jesus’ answer here is quite shocking, really.

When the world is ending, what is it we’re supposed to be doing?

Spending time with family and friends? Going to church? Jesus is spending his last few moments with his disciples, and in a few short hours, the world as they know it will be coming to an end. Jesus answers the question of what we are to be doing with a story of sheep and goats and the final judgment. This entire conversation has been about the coming of the Son of Man, and that’s where Jesus begins this story:

Matthew 25:31: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him.”

This is the second coming of Christ. This is the final judgment. In fact, Jesus is painting a scene of the final judgment. The scene that Jesus creates with his words is one that his audience would have been familiar with and one that we know well. The final judgment where this is the final reckoning, the final counting. In fact there are many judgment stories in the Bible and this one is one of the more elaborate. There is a King in this story. And Jesus speaks of all nations being gathered for the judgment…and the righteous and the unrighteous are given the images of sheep and goats. And there’s a separation. This separation sets up two stories being told, one of the sheep and one of the goats. There is a stark contrast between the two groups.

And too often, this is where this story gets derailed. This is where it ends up out of context. What’s funny is that we like to do this. For once, Jesus is operating with the same thinking that I am. We’re all about separating. As soon as Jesus mentions the separation of sheep and goats and he’s doing it along the lines of those who are righteous and those who are not, we’re all in. I have my list of who’s a sheep and who’s a goat. Jesus is talking my language.

And he takes it one step further when this separation comes with the blessing we’re looking for:

Matthew 25:34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

Yes, this is me. That’s how I would be treating sheep like me. But like every other story Jesus ever tells, those feelings don’t last. Jesus isn’t going to let us get comfortable with this idea that He has a sheep and goat list that matches ours. In fact, everything from this point on in the story isn’t anything like what we would say or do.

Jesus’ shocking list

Jesus says something shocking. In fact, he has a list, a list that doesn’t look like anything we would draw up. Jesus identifies himself as having six characteristics and these are characteristics that we would never stick on Jesus:

Jesus is 6 things

I was hungry

I was thirsty

I was a stranger

I was naked

I was sick

I was in prison

That’s not the Jesus we are comfortable talking about. This Jesus is not all about success. This Jesus doesn’t drive fancy sports cars or wear expensive suits. This Jesus is on the other end of the economic scale. Jesus is to be found among the disenfranchised.

And Jesus says the sheep are those who addressed that Jesus. I was hungry you fed me, I was thirsty you gave me something to drink. All the way down the list. The sheep who are welcomed in to God’s presence have identified themselves with that kind of Jesus.

If this isn’t weird enough, the next part of the conversation is just bizarre:

Matthew 25:37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?”

The sheep, the righteous, don’t bask in the pat on the back. They want to know “when”, as in “when did we do all these things?”

They don’t even know when they addressed the needs of Jesus.

This is a fly in the ointment of those looking for this as some sort of morality tale about how we are supposed to treat the poor. They don’t know they did it. And they have to ask Jesus “when?” And this is where Jesus gives his famous line:

Matthew 25:40 “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

Much has been made about the fact that Jesus, in answering the question, says that doing all these good deeds for the least of these is doing it for him. Jesus is in fact, identifying with the least here. There is no question that Jesus is saying that we feed the least we are feeding him. Note the language: Jesus doesn’t say it’s as if we are feeding him or giving him something to drink. We are actually feeding and clothing Jesus himself. But there’s reason to believe that there’s more going on with “the least of these” than it looks like, especially when we are making this a morality tale about feeding the poor.

The key to understanding just what is going on and why sheep and goats are divided along these lines of what they did with Jesus is found in that list that Jesus made about himself.

Jesus is 6 things

I was hungry

I was thirsty

I was a stranger

I was naked

I was sick

I was in prison

If you look at that list and you’ve been paying attention to the story that Matthew has been telling about Jesus, you’ll begin to realize just what Jesus is getting at. These six things are a match for exactly the crowd that Jesus came to identify with. All along, Jesus is known as the guy who eats and drinks with sinners. It all goes back to just who it is that Jesus came for. Matthew tells us from the very beginning that Jesus came to save His people from their sins.

Who does Jesus hang with?

When Jesus first begins his ministry, this is what Matthew says:

Matthew 4:23-24 “Now Jesus began to go all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. Then the news about him spread throughout Syria. So they brought to him all those who were afflicted, those suffering from various diseases and intense pains, the demon-possessed, the epileptics, and the paralytics. And he healed them.”

Matthew here is describing the Good News of the kingdom and its effects. And in Jesus’ activities, he recognizes that the promise made to Isaiah is being fulfilled in Jesus. That

Isaiah 42:7 “the Messiah would “open blind eyes” and “bring out prisoners from the dungeons and those sitting in darkness from the prison house.”

The Messiah specifically came for people who are blind, and sick, and in prison, and hungry. Later, when John the Baptist a report as to what Jesus has been up to, and what Jesus is really about, this is what Jesus says:

Matthew 11:4-6 “Jesus replied to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news, and blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me.”

There is healing among all these groups, but more importantly… just like it was from the beginning… they are all told the Good News. Jesus came to save people from their sins. The ultimate healing for these groups is not in the physical healing, but in the Good News that Jesus is here to forgive sins.

That list Jesus gives is His identification with the very people who make up that list. The hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the sick, the imprisoned. The people Jesus eats and drinks with. That’s where you’ll find the Gospel. That’s where you’ll find Jesus. That’s where Jesus Himself is fed and clothed. Wherever the Gospel is for people in desperate need of Jesus.

We can push back all we want against the notion that here that the church is identified as both blessed AND welcoming the stranger. Jesus says “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” This is the church we are talking about, not simply individuals in this text. Brothers and sisters helping brothers and sisters, the least of these. This is how the Table becomes the Table for Los Fresnos, not just The Table of Los Fresnos.

It’s always been this way. The Gospel is for this crowd. The Gospel came to the least of these. And where the Gospel was present, there was identification with and provision for the least of these. One cannot compartmentalize the gospel away from or apart from the activities that result wherever the gospel is present. And why is it that Jesus can say that it is done to him? Because it is in the least of these that the gospel has taken root and flourished. Jesus promised wherever two or three are gathered, there he is. And it is among the least of these where you find gatherings around Word and Sacrament.

Hospitality on vocation for the Gospel

What is it that we’re to be doing with our time? The fancy word for what we do with our lives is “vocation”. Vocation is more than simply our job. Vocation is all of life… for me, that’s husband, father, pastor. All of it is vocation. And our vocation, in this passage is so entwined with hospitality and the gospel, that it’s impossible to know at any given moment whether or not I’m serving Jesus himself. In our hospitality, we are hanging with the same people Jesus was hanging around.. sinners, the sick, and we do it in the context of the Good News Of Jesus and His Forgiveness. Identifying with the suffering Jesus by identifying ourselves with those who suffer.

You see, the Gospel is at the heart of hospitality. It’s here, in the invitation, which provides context to everything being said here:

Matthew 25:34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

This invitation is at the heart of all hospitality. Note the words “for you”. This is Christ's hospitality for us. And it's this hospitality we give to the least of these. Come. Those of you who have been blessed by the Good News of Jesus, who loves you, died for you, and now gives you His Kingdom… a kingdom prepared FOR YOU.

It is from this position of being blessed by the Good News that the church welcomes strangers. Why do you think we’re going to spend time in the hot sun this week serving our neighbors? Of course, many of those we serve this week are the least of these. They need our help. They also need the gospel. There is something about moving toward people with the gospel. You think about all the bottled waters we’ve given away. We give away water to people who are thirsty. But that thirst more importantly speaks to thirst for forgiveness and grace. At any given moment, the greatest need for the least of these is exactly what Jesus saw when He proclaimed the Good News to the blind and the sick and the stranger. When we are giving Good News to people who are not like us, don’t spend like us, don’t vote like us, don’t talk like us, and don’t think like us, we’re also in position to see their physical need. When we address physical need and provide hospitality to strangers in the context of the Gospel, we are serving Jesus Himself.

That Cristo Crucifado is showing me that Jesus identifies with the least of these. He identifies with me and my suffering, and I in turn, identify with Jesus and his sufferings by identifying with those who suffer. And as I do so, the forgiveness and reconciliation I have through Jesus becomes forgiveness and reconciliation for others.

Let’s Pray.

The Table

Christ serves the least of these at this meal. This is the real Cristo Crucifado. Jesus identifies with us here. Jesus is here giving the worst of us everything we need: forgiveness, life, and salvation. Jesus identifies with those who suffer as the one who suffered and died. For you and for me.

The Benediction

Numbers 6:24-26 “May the Lord bless you and protect you;

may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”