Aldersgate Preaching

Me

Lewis - grew up in this church

What I am up to now

The Catholic Worker

One of the easiest ways to describe the Catholic Worker is to describe what we do there

2 meals 5 days a week

distribute clothing, pharmaphedicals, and pantry items

Based in the riverbend neighborhood, but an overwhelming majority of our guests either live in shelters or on the streets in Des Moines

We rotate through shifts

Seeing Jesus in the breadline

just right where we are at in the area where we share meals

Christ in the breadline by Fritz Eichenburg

It was made during the great depresseion where the streets were lined with bread lines - the poor would wait around all day for quite literally their daily bread

and there were these lines of people many don’t look differently than the others

and right in the middle of this print one of the guests in this line has a halo a top him

Jesus in the breadline

to live as if our guests are Christ

Or more importantly to treat everyone especially those that are hungry and thirsty, those that are most excluded as if they were Christ.

We

And it begs the question, if we were able to succeed in that what would that look like

It begs the question also of how might our world look different if all of the folks in the bread line were Christ as well?

It more importantly begs the question of how would the church have to change to make that possible?

God

In it Jesus begins by gathering all people together

This is Jesus putting it to them pretty plainly

One of the last things that he teaches before getting caught

This is basically a sermon there is plenty of scripture references wove in and through Jesus’s saying

This is all red text

Scripture

Matthew 25:31–46 NRSV

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 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 who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Breaking down the scripture

There are a couple of distracting things in this passage that need some attention before we are able to get a good understanding of what exactly is going on here.

We can get lost with Blessed and Cursed

They are agricultural terms

bless is to produce an abundant harvest and a cursed plant is a plant that produces very little or no harvest at all

In other words

It isn’t just about our beliefs, but it also isn’t just about our actions either

Separating sheep and goats

shepherds would use a shute and flip the gate each way to separate sheep from the goats

Another interesting things happens in relation to timing here as well

Jesus is saying in the end this thing will happen, but it is right now that matter the most.

The Kingdom of God is Here and Now

Throughout the gospel story the kingdom of God we are told is here and now and is at hand. It is not a waiting around for heaven game that we are playing

And it is certainly not about earning our way to heaven

The Christian walk and life is about making this world look a bit more like the kingdom of God. And to do that we have to play by a very different set of rules

The rules that we have to play by are instead of wanting the best for the people that are at the top we ought to structure our lives in ways that want the best for those that are on the bottom

The Good news here is that we don’t have to wait until we die to see the kingdom of heaven....the bad news is that we sure have a lot of work in front of us

It is not the beliefs that separate the goats from the sheep.....but it isn’t their actions either....it is their fruit....it is that their beliefs and their actions align to best serve those that are on the margins.

Our actions and our beliefs are permanently joined

Foundry

Wesley started outside

The winter came and they needed an indoor place

artillery foundry of King Charles

Could hold 1,500 people

larger than any of our sanctuaries

Pharmasuedicals were distributed

a surgeon

A school

An almshouse - a homeless shelter basically

The UMC is not a credal or theological movement - we are largely motivated by living out Matthew 25

But don’t get it backwards church our actions are because of not in order to

We feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give water to the thirsty. It is a natural outpouring of our worship

The temptation can be to do it because of something

We hear only that they loved Jesus and that they were moved to good works

.It’s not because they felt good afterwards

it was because they loved Jesus and that alone pushed them for faithful action.

They were separated by their fruits

The line of Good and evil runs within each of us

And to be honest I don’t know which side I fall on entirely, and maybe I don’t fall on one side or the other completely. You probably don’t either and that’s okay

We don’t hold ourselves up as the example, we just do the work

The kingdom of God starts at the margins

Jesus doesn’t command us to love people that are easy to love, everyone already knows how to do that

The Christian walk and life is much different it is to love those who have been excluded and looked over

Even when the kingdom doesn’t feel fully realized we are invited into it one person at a time

Start somewhere

Begin with your gifts

This comes right after the parable of the talents meaning that perhaps it is meant to be a justified use of/ investment with our gifts

Use Christ’s words as your marching orders

It is at the end of the sermon that the preacher is supposed to give a vision of what the kingdom of God would look like if we got out of this building and went fourth to do the work that is in front of us. But instead of sharing my vision, I want to share your vision as a church. So as I read Aldersgate’s Vision statement, I pray that it would be a grounding and centering vision for us all.

With God’s help, we will create a positive impact with our neighbor’s one person at a time. We will walk one-on-one with seekers of wholeness, of redemption and of peace through Jesus Christ. We will offer unconditional love to all persons, especially to vulnerable children and families. We will seek out the forgotten. We will expand our worship experience and allow God to work through us in creative ways. We will share and celebrate transformative stories.

Benediction

The work of the church is not so much about what happens in here as it is what happens out there. So go fourth from this place to love those on the margins, to reimagine who your neighbor is, to confort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable. Go now Church to live out the vision that you have set fourth for yourself, and go with God’s blessing and followed by God’s peace.