Ending Matthew (Ray's commentary on our Nov 20 readings)

TODAY’S GOSPEL (Matthew 25:31-46)

Ending a church year – ending our reading from Matthew

Sunday, November 20 is the end of the church year. A new church year begins on the First Sunday of Advent, the next Sunday, November 27. So on November 20 we end our year long reading from Matthew’s Gospel, and turn in Advent to begin reading from Mark’s Gospel.

The story of the first Palm Sunday is told in Matthew’s Gospel in chapter 21. This fall we have been reading the stories of what Jesus said and did in Jerusalem immediately after the first Palm Sunday. Near the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, the teachings of Jesus in chapters 5 through 7 are so familiar and well-loved they have a popular holy nick-name, “The Sermon on the Mount.” One might call chapters 21-25 in Matthew the sermon in Jerusalem, or the sermon facing the cross.

The story of the cross begins in the next chapter

For in chapter 25 (from which we read on both November 13 and 20) we are on the threshold of the story of the cross of Jesus. That story begins in chapter 26. Bach opens the St. Matthew Passion with the anointing in Bethany, and then the Last Supper and then the arrest.

Christ the King asks us a question

We end our year long reading from Matthew’s Gospel on a high note, a very grand chord is sounded. It is Judgment Day, and Christ in Glory (which is always the glory of his self-giving love) asks us when did we feed the hungry and clothe the naked and give water to the thirsty and visit the sick and the prisoner, and welcome the stranger?  And he makes the great statement that when we do it one of these, we do it to Jesus himself.  

We feed the hungry at our Neighbors in Need dinner on Tuesday, November 15. Christ comes to dinner. Or making a meal for those at Deborah’s Place.

The kids in the parish through through the Heifer Project gave a camel to a family to give milk as well as transportation in a place where other kinds of animals might not survive.

We clothe the naked, bringing clothes to the church to give to Cathedral Shelter or St. Leonard’s – giving families and individuals Christmas gifts through the Cathedral Shelter. 

We help people out of prison through St. Leonard’s Ministries in our diocese.

We welcome the stranger into St. Chrysostom’s.

We visit the sick at Northwestern Hospital – we send the clergy to bring prayer and the Holy Communion. 

A quotation from Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) often quoted this Gospel. My favorite quotation from Mother Teresa is this:  

In Holy Communion we have Christ under the appearance of bread. In our work we find him under the appearance of flesh and blood. It is the same Christ. ‘I was hungry, I was naked, I was sick, I was homeless.’                                                                                                  Malcolm Muggeridge, Something Beautiful for God, 1971, page 74

In the middle ages, Christians loved to make lists of things – the Seven Deadly Sins, the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. These six things – feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, visiting the prisoner, welcoming the stranger – with the addition of giving a decent burial to the dead became known as the Seven Works of Mercy, or the Seven Works or Corporal (physical) Mercy.

Holiness of life is life lived close to Jesus

Holiness of life is life lived close to Jesus, in Holy Communion and in helping others – in loving servant ministry of others. We live close to him in reading his story, in coming to his table to be fed, in times of quiet prayer and in ways we serve through our volunteer work, our work, our giving. Welcoming others into the church.

OUR FIRST READING (Ezekiel 34: 11-16, 20-24) is the prophet’s great vision of God as the shepherd of the people of God. The prophet hears the voice of God saying God will seek the lost. There is also the vision of giving David as king, who be the people’s shepherd and feed them. At the time of Jesus, all Israel was looking for the coming of the new king sent from God, the “anointed one” (in Hebrew the Messiah, in Greek the Christ) the descendant of David. This for us was and is Jesus, born in Bethlehem, the city of David.

IN THE SECOND READING from the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians (1:15-23) Christ is head of the church.