Serve Impactfully

Matthew 25:35-40 NRSVue

35 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, 36 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.’ 37 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? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’

INTRO

This week, we conclude our Wesleyan Rooted Sermon Series. Over the past four weeks, we have been exploring our faith through a Wesleyan lens and worked to understand what it means to be Wesleyan people. We have examined what it means to follow Jesus through the Wesleyan tradition and explored what makes our tradition unique. In this, we hope to increase our understanding of how God’s grace is at work in our lives and work to restore the image of God in our lives as we grow in our call to love God and our neighbors. We began by exploring our call to be deeply rooted in the love of God as we allow God to work within us so that we might be changed. Three weeks ago, we explored what it means to read faithfully as we examined our Wesleyan understanding of reading and interpreting scripture. Then we examined what it means to love actively. Last week we explored our call to embrace all that God has created, meeting them where they are, and inviting them into God’s beloved community. This week, we put all of this together as we learn what it means to serve impactfully.

I have a question for you this morning: Who here likes to go to the doctor? Don’t be shy. Raise your hand. As I was reading commentary one pastor shared how she hates going to the doctor. She hates the tests. She hates taking time out of her day and waiting in the waiting room. She hates all of it. Yet, this pastor has a history of heart disease in her family. Going to the doctor allows her to get a picture of her health. She can see if her cholesterol level is up and make adjustments to her life. If a suspicious spot is found or a lump is found, it can be removed and tested. By going to the doctor for regular check-ups, she is able to take care of her health long-term. And so are we. That’s why we go to the doctor. Which begs the question, shouldn’t we be doing this with our spiritual health? Shouldn’t we be getting a check up?

This morning, in our text, we are getting a spiritual check-up, of sorts. Our passage for this morning is placed in a broader text that is often considered a condemnation. This morning, as we engage with this text in a new way, I invite us to hear the words fresh and new. Instead of viewing Jesus words as a rebuke or condemnation of some sort; I invite us to embrace this text as a diagnostic tool, as a tool for having good spiritual health.

As we have been on this journey together over the last 4 weeks, a common theme has come up. As Christians, and as Wesleyans we are called to live our lives in ways that are markedly different than the ways of the world. We are invited to live in the upside-down kingdom. So much of the kingdom of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ is about a life of service.

When you go through the process of ordination in the United Methodist Church, one of the things we spend a lot of time talking about is the call to be “servant leaders.” This kind of leadership is not just for the ordained but a calling of the laity as well. Thus, you may have heard the terminology as well. Servant leadership is entrenched in the idea that the “top” leader should always be serving others. Leaders step into the trenches of “dirty work” alongside those who are under their guidance. To many of us, this means that the leader is willing to take out the trash, clean dirty bathrooms, and park further away from the building than others. It’s not bad advice but it's all about internal perspectives. It becomes a performance evaluation. I looked good by doing XYZ, and I look good to those inside the organization.

The health of our soul is not measured by the ways in which we care for each other in this building. The diagnostic tests are not found so much in moralistic code but in our openness to let the Savior move us from the love of self to the love of others. As we heard a few weeks ago, the Pharisees come to Jesus and ask what’s the greatest commandment. Jesus tells them that love is the greatest commandment, Love of God and love of neighbor. And last week, we named that when we are actively loving we work to embrace widely. And when we are embracing widely, we are called to stand up for someone. Sometimes, that comes at a cost. Last week, it cost the father his honor to embrace his son. So too does serving impactfully come at a cost.

Does taking the trash out for the church really cost us that much? Sure it takes time and effort to walk to the dumpster. But is there really a cost to this? Does standing up for the least of these cost something? Absolutely. In our scripture, Jesus says, “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, 36 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.’” Each of these things comes at a cost. As we go for our examination of our spiritual health, the question goes back to why? Why are we doing this?

So often, it is easy to do things for others when we are close to them. Social scientists and ethics professionals refer to this with the term proximity. Proximity doesn’t always mean somebody is physically or geographically close to you. Proximity can be based on a relationship or the length of time that we have known about something. Often family or close friends are a measuring point for proximity. The closer we are to someone or something, the easier it is for us to do something for them. It’s easier for us to say yes to someone when we know them and their story. That’s why the challenge from Jesus is so difficult. That’s why it is a metric of true servant leadership. Jesus doesn’t say when you’ve done this for your best friend or your close relative then you’ve done it unto me. No! Jesus says “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”

If we are honest with ourselves. Sometimes this idea of the “least of these” makes us uncomfortable. How often have we driven down the road and seen someone standing on the side of the road asking for money? We know that we can’t help everybody. We don’t have the finances or the time to help every single person. But how often do we ask ourselves “Is this person needy or are they just going to buy a bottle of wine or a couple of beers?” Just like Jesus doesn’t tell us to serve only our family, Jesus also doesn’t say when you have helped those you know without a shadow of a doubt are poor. Jesus doesn’t say only when you can guarantee they need help or will do the right thing. Jesus tells us to serve all.

Church, we are called to reshape our thinking. We must shift our thinking from “what would Jesus do” to “do we see Jesus in this person?” At annual conference this year, we participated in a workshop called “Who is my neighbor?” One of the presenters shared about an interaction she had with an unhoused person in Richmond. She was out on a run, saw someone asking for money, stopped, and had a conversation with this person. She didn’t have money with her. But she stopped, looked the person in the eyes, and asked how they were doing. She shared she couldn’t help, but wanted to see how the person’s day was going. She humanized the person. In other words, she stopped and saw Jesus in the person.

Here's the thing. We often think that “serving” means we hold a position of power over someone or that we are more “blessed” than the other. There is no dichotomy between the servant and the served. Rather each are beloved child of God who strives to see Christ in the other.

There is so much division and brokenness in the world. Oppression is rampant. People of color, women, persons of different faith traditions, persons living with disabilities, the LGBTQIA community, and our call is to see Christ in those who have had their voices stripped from them and to empower them. But the first step is to stop seeing them as “other” and to begin to recognize that these persons offer us a beautiful perspective of Christ. And then, we must recognize that we are all a part of the family of God. One commentary says it this way “Matthew juxtaposes Jesus’ use of “Father” for God with a rejection of earthly fathers in an effort to strengthen the family of believers; they have a new family origin and belonging. Those named as in need (the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, prisoner) are also members of Jesus’ family. In this new family configuration, ethical action is based not on prior relationship or closeness but on need.”

To this end, we often with our desire to see everything in black and white. My way is right, their way is wrong, and there is no other way it could be. Yet, this simply is not true. I imagine that many of us had strong reactions to one or more of the marginalized groups that we listed. Yet we must ask ourselves, when was the last time we set down with someone who was different from us? When was the last time we engaged in conversation with them? We must also recognize that when we lift up a group or name a concern, it does not mean that nothing else is important, but rather in that moment that person or group has the most pressing need. That’s what being in the family of God is about. Lifting up those whose needs are most pressing.

In other words, serving impactfully, being a servant leader is about being where God has called us to be, caring for those God places in our path, truly making a difference because it is the right thing to do. It is a response to God for all that God has done for us. God has loved us and nurtured us. God has called us to be in the family, and we respond by caring and serving those in God’s family. In one of his sermons, John Wesley discussed this writing, “Surely there are works of mercy, as well as works of piety, which are real means of grace. They are more especially such to those that perform them with a single eye. And those that neglect them, do not receive the grace which otherwise they might. Yea, and they lose, by a continued neglect, the grace which they had received.”

John Wesley believed that serving in this way was a mark of discipleship. If we are deeply rooted, reading and interpreting faithfully, loving actively, and embracing widely then the natural fruit of our lives would be serving impactfully. Works of mercy and piety would flow from our lives showing we are walking in the way of Jesus. If this text is meant to serve as a “check-up” of sorts of our Spiritual Health, then all we need to do is examine ourselves asking, “are we serving impactfully?” “Are we acting as servant leaders in the world?”

The truth is this whole sermon series has been a spiritual check-up. If we are going to be people called United Methodists, if we are going to call ourselves a United Methodist Congregation then we must operate in the world with Wesleyan Spiritual Health. We must be deeply rooted in God’s love and grace. We must open ourselves up to new ways of reading and interpreting the scriptures faithfully. We must actively love others, truly working in the world for the better of others. We must embrace widely, recognizing that all are a part of this crazy family of God.

All of this must push us out into the world where we might act as servant leaders, caring for the least and the last and the lost. When we do this, we know that it is well with our souls. We know that we are faithfully answering the call to be disciples of Jesus Christ in the Wesleyan tradition. We can proudly stand up and say we are United Methodists.

So this morning, after going through this journey together, I ask you this: How is it with your soul?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.