There was a long line of travelers waiting for immigration clearance at a Florida airport. The
immigration officers seemed to be exercising unusual care in inspecting baggage and credentials. After waiting in line for almost two hours, one man finally said in a loud voice, "Entering the United States is harder than entering the Kingdom of Heaven." Whereupon, one of the immigration officers shot back, "My friend, there's a lot more folks tryin'!"
Not so in today's Gospel Lesson in which everyone is trying to get into the Kingdom of Heaven! All are lined up awaiting the King's final judgment. It comes down to this, Jesus says:
Did you see your neighbor through God's eyes, and act accordingly. If you did, you have God's
blessing; you have inherited the Kingdom "prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Mt. 25:34).
But if the judgment is that you did not live in this manner, then, in the language of the parable, you will inherit that which was "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Mt. 25:41).
Students applying for admission to a college psychology course were asked to fill out a questionnaire.
Among the questions asked were, "What is your hobby?" and "What is your ambition?" One student answered, "My hobby is taking apart my Jeep. My ambition is to be able to put it back together."
Ambition! Getting our lives together in order to achieve self-esteem and self-respect and peace of mind; in order to experience a sense of worthwhileness and purposefullness; in order to experience an "I'm O.K." feeling. These are the ambitions of us all. Sure, we want to get it all together, but oh how complicated the process seems to have become in our time. In recent years there has been an explosion of popular books on how to take ourselves apart and put ourselves back together. The "pop psychology" shelves are loaded with how-to-do-it books on "getting it all together." I am not making a blanket condemnation of such books. Clearly, some of them have been very helpful
to some people. But so many books of this kind are being published, each with its own so-called
"fresh" approach to the subject of who-we-are-and-what-we-ought-to-do, that they tend to be sources of confusion rather than clarification. Ironically, when you sort out all this material and sift it all down, most of it seems to end up emphasizing that in order to achieve wholeness of life, we need to care for one another; we need to understand that one cannot "get it all together" in isolation. In today'sGospel, Jesus is saying exactly that!
"Come," Jesus says. "You whom My Father has blessed, take for your heritage the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Jesus is saying, in effect, "You have achieved
wholeness of life; you have become the kind of unique, beautiful person the Father will receive in His Kingdom; you have discovered the simple secret of how to 'get it all together'." Why? Because, says Jesus, "You are a caring person, sensitive to the needs of others -- where you see hunger, you give food ... thirst, you give drink ... nakedness, you give clothing ... illness, you give comfort ... loneliness, you give friendship."
Do you really believe that? Do you really accept Jesus' vision of the coming Kingdom of God? Are
you a Christian visionary? Do you accept Jesus' criteria for judging whether or not you are a whole, "together" person and, therefore, an authentic citizen of the Kingdom? Jesus says that it is the kind deed, the act born of loving concern for another's need, on which the Father pronounces His blessing and for which the Father welcomes us into His Kingdom.
A middle-aged man decided to visit a clinic and undergo a complete health checkup. He told the
interviewing doctor that he had always taken good care of himself. He said, "I always see to it that I have adequate rest. I exercise regularly. I don't smoke. I don't drink. I believe in good nutrition. And I take vitamins C, E and B6 every day." Later, after he had been looked over from head-to-toe by a team of specialists and was waiting for his post-examination interview, he accidentally saw the medical history which had been set down in the first interview. In the column labeled, "Abnormalities," the doctor had written, "Health Nut!"
That is the sort of label Society usually pins on persons who accept, at the deepest level of their beings, Jesus' criteria for the really "together" person. Full-fledged "fools for Christ" (as the Apostle Paul called them) are regarded in their own time as nuts; fanatics; social freaks; crazy visionaries. It is not until later, after they are gone from this earth, that the label "Nut!" is removed and the label "Saint" is applied. Yet, in today's Gospel Lesson, Jesus tells us in simple, direct, uncompromising terms that our life's fulfillment depends absolutely on our acceptance of the standards He has set for us: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the prisoners, clothe the naked, etc. IT'S AS SIMPLE AS THAT!
No stranger King than our King of Kings has ever ruled. In fact, He is so strange that most people do not really believe He does rule. Whoever heard of a King who erased the distance between Himself and the beggar? Who ever heard of a Ruler whose commitment was to serve, and to die, in obedience to the need of the least of His subjects? Christ the King, the King who rules not from a throne but from a Cross. Christ the King, who told His friend Peter to put away his one pitiful little sword, for He would rule by the power of love alone.
There are many who admire Him. What a refreshing change from the brutal realities of every day life! What a marvelous integrity He shows, what magnificent idealism! But this King is not interested in such praise. He does not call us to admire Him in this way. Such admiration only elevates Him to a level safely above our everyday world, so that we can then go on with business as usual, pausing only now and then to acknowledge His beautiful but hopelessly unrealistic example. The only admiration He calls for is the admiration of imitation. To worship Him is to serve Him. All other worship is false. To serve Him is to serve the needs of our human brothers and sisters. All other service is a delusion.
A famous Danish sculptor 1 had a burning ambition to create the greatest statue of Jesus ever made. He began by shaping a clay model of a regal figure with head thrown back and arms upraised in a gesture of triumph. It was his conception of Christ the King: strong ... dominant. "This will be my masterpiece," he said, when the model was complete. But, in the night fog, much sea-spray seeped through a partially opened window of his oceanside studio. The moisture affected the shape of the model so that when the artist returned to the studio in the morning, he was shocked to find that the head had drooped, the facial expression had been transformed from severity to compassion, and thearms had dropped into an attitude of welcome.
The sculptor stared at the figure, agonizing over the time wasted and the need to begin all over again.
But something came over him to change his mood. He began to see that this image of Christ was the truer one. Then he wrote at the base of the newly-shaped figure:
"COME UNTO ME."
