Sermon: The Least of These

          "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?"  Depending on when you were baptized, you may or may not remember promising to do this, with God's help.  But, you have promised this at every renewal of baptism.  If you didn't promise it yourself, someone promised on your behalf that you would be raised with this Commandment, this New Covenant.  Jeremiah told us, "The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant … I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."  Now, Jeremiah was addressing the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, but when Christ came, He realized that He was here for all people, not just the Jews.

          So in today's Gospel, John doesn't pull any punches as he begins his sermon in the desert.  "You brood of vipers!" he begins.  Well, that's not particularly polite or PC, but it certainly gets our attention.  He wants to know why they're out there to be baptized.  Who warned them to flee from the wrath to come?  And more importantly, have they done anything beyond sit on their backsides, claiming Abraham as their ancestor and expecting salvation and eternal life from the one to come?  Have they done anything beyond paying lip service, attending services and occasionally giving alms?  How many coats do they have?  How many spare rooms are in their household?  How much of what they have is far more than what they need, and is rather an accumulation of what they want?

          Today's Gospel is not a comfortable message.  It's not to make us feel good about ourselves or pat ourselves on the back for what upright, church-attending Christians we are.  It's asking, plain and simple – what have you done for Me lately?  God is actively at work, having guided our ancestors in the past, guiding us today, and guiding our children into the future.  As the reading from Zephaniah states, the Lord has forgiven us our sins, protects us from our enemies, renews His love in us.  That's something that we never have to doubt, and as our New Testament lesson reminds us, we should not only rejoice in that, but pray with both thanksgiving and supplication about everything, knowing that God will provide.

          Prayer is a powerful and awesome thing.  And then we also have to look here, at the words of John when various people ask him, what should we do?  The one who John is preparing us for is coming in judgment.  Have you borne good fruit?  Okay, but are you continuing to bear good fruit, or have you stopped watering and fertilizing that tree, because it's old?  Is the tree ready to become firewood, or are we having pie later?

          Are there no prisons?  No poorhouses?  Doesn't the government have programs to help take care of these people in need?  Have we all become like Scrooge – uncompromising in the face of the numbers of people in need?  Are they truly someone else's problem?

          And then we remember what Christ said in Matthew:  "I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 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.  … 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."

          " Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?"  In the seventeenth century France a humanist scholar by the name of Muretus was an ailing fugitive. When he presented himself to the medical doctors he was dressed in the rags of a pauper. The doctors discussed his case in Latin, thinking he would not be able to understand them. While I could try to repeat the Latin, I would butcher it horribly.  But one said “Let us try an experiment with this worthless creature”. Imagine their shock when this pauper replied, also in Latin, “Will you call worthless one for whom Christ did not disdain to die?”

          John is not just speaking to the people who came out to the desert to him to be baptized.  He's speaking to each of us.  Paraphrasing the immortal George Carlin, just how much stuff do we need?  How much stuff do we keep for sentimental reasons?  And of those sentimental things – when was the last time you looked at them?  Are there things in closets or under beds that you haven't seen in years?  Do you have any plans for them within the next year?  So ask yourself – will it do more for someone else than it will for me, sitting here and collecting dust?

          A lot of these readings this week spoke directly to me.  As you know, I had a beautiful stained glass window that Richard made for our family, with the trinity knot on it.  It's gorgeous, and one of the last things Richard made before he died.  But it's been sitting under a bed for the last 7 years, and despite the fact that I'd love to give a trinity knot to Holy Trinity, we don't actually have the space for another stained glass window, without a whole lot of expense.  But there's a little mobile chapel being built with a round space, about the size of the window.  Do I want to keep the window for myself, sitting under a bed, or do I want people to see and appreciate the talents Richard had and give it away?  Seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it?  But it was actually one of the harder things I've done for a while. 

          How much stuff do we have that could actually be put to better use by someone else?  How much are we saving for a rainy day?  This past week was St. Lucy's feast day.  In speaking with her mother, who was dying of an illness, she said, "...whatever you give away at death for the Lord's sake you give because you cannot take it with you. Give now to the true Savior, while you are healthy, whatever you intended to give away at your death."  And in this, Lucy was speaking of that divine spark, that dignity and noble nature belonging to every human being – "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."