"WELCOME THE SOUL"
Psalm 100
Matthew 25: 31-46
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
“Church sues for right to shelter homeless.” This was a news headline this weekl in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Brookville Borough, a municipality 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, cited and fined First Apostle’s Church for violating the zoning code when the church allowed three homeless men to live in the parsonage. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the church was exercising its right to practice its religion in helping these homeless men.
Most of us, reading that headline, would shake our heads in judgmental disbelief ... from our safe and silent vantage point 3000 miles away from living next door to that parsonage.
Our Gospel lesson today from Matthew 25 makes it clear that in the end times, Christ’s only criterion for judging us lost or blessed ... judging the nations lost or blessed ... will be how we cared for those in need. Either we cared or we did not. Either we helped or we did not. Either we were in relationship or we were not.
The Gospel is clear. Only two choices when relating to strangers, prisoners, those who are hungry, or thirsty, naked, lonely, or homeless: we welcome them into our lives or we do not.
When we act out of compassion and hospitality, we are with Christ. When we do not, we separate ourselves from Christ.
Christ’s coming reveals our lives. Christ’s coming reveals the truth of the nations. Christ’s coming reveals separation and places justice and mercy at the center of God’s new creation.
Matthew 25’s vision of the Last Judgment might well be called the Last Surprise. For both those blessed and those lost, the sheep and the goats, did not realize that what they did or did not do had eternal consequences. Lord, when did we see you? In the least, the last, the lost. When did we see you? The question endures.
Joseph Poz-Molesky is a sophomore at Seattle University. He is also the son of Martin Poz-Perez, custodian and beloved friend of this community. Joe, like many other students, has a blog. But his most recent postings have been from Calcutta, India: “I carried five bodies to the crematorium today. Something most people don’t do on any given Tuesday morning. One of the men was my friend...We had conversations...I had carried him to the showers the day before...I loved his smile...I massaged his head. He would close his eyes and try to smile. He was Beautiful. I would have been proud to have called him “Grandfather.” His last days he seemed to know. How did I not. He is gone now, nothing physical remains and all soul does. I know I will miss him tomorrow as I do now and will the day after tomorrow and whenever I think of Kalighat and Calcutta. Today was just another Tuesday for the world. On Tuesday, October 21st I burned my friend to make him now, no more, and forever eternal.” In caring for a poor, dying friend, Joe knows blessing and loves Christ.
As Marilyn and Greg they serve food weekly to homeless women in a shelter, they care for their sister, Fran, a sister that they have not seen in years, who lives lost on the streets and in shadows. Each time they feed these women, they care for their sister and they love Christ.
Christ is one of the three homeless men. Christ is a poor friend in Calcutta. Christ is a lost sister. And Christ is each one of us ... particularly at our weakest ... especially at our most vulnerable.
Christ reigns, judging all the nations, revealing and embracing the deepest connections between us ... and within our own souls.
Parker Palmer explores these deep connections within and between us in his book titled A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life.* He describes the wholeness we seek as he speaks of the soul:
“The soul is generous: it takes in the needs of the world. The soul is wise: it suffers without shutting down. The soul is hopeful: it engages the world in ways that keep opening our hearts. The soul is creative: it finds its way between the realities that might defeat us and fantasies that are mere escapes. ...Bring down the wall that separates us from our own souls and deprives the world of the soul’s regenerative powers.”
“Thomas Merton called it true self. Buddhists call it original nature or big self. Quakers call it the inner teacher or the inner light. Hasidic Jews call it a spark of the divine. Humanists call it identity and integrity. (John Wesley called it the image of God stamped upon our hearts) ...Soul wants to tell us the truth about ourselves, our world and the relation between the two.”
Jesus’ teaching is not a moral lesson to help us judge ourselves or others. It is not ethical teaching, exhorting us to do more. This teaching reveals the surprising truth at the core of our faith: that Christ is every one of the least of these our brothers and sisters ... even our selves.
John Middleton Murry wrote:
For the good (person) to realize
that it is better to be whole
than to be good
is to enter on a strait and
narrow path compared to which
(their) previous rectitude was
flowery licence.
Wholeness is more challenging than goodness ... but it is the abundant life to which we are called.
We arrive in this world undivided, whole. Babies are who they are – they take in and put out what is needed as one wholly integrated being. But soon, in order to protect themselves, they, we, learn to divide inner and outer lives.
Parker suggestes that we hide our true selves and become separated from our souls when we –
-work at jobs that violate our basic vales,
when we-
-remain in relationships that diminish our spirits,
when we-
-harbor secrets to achieve personal gain at the expense of others,
when we-
-hide our beliefs to avoid conflict, challenge and change,
when we-
-conceal our true identities for fear of being attacked
Always, beneath a divided, wounded life ... the soul calls us to healing.
Always, beneath a divided, distorted political life, the soul calls us to wholeness. Vaclav Havel said that the potential for social and personal transformation throughout all society, is found “in everyone who is living within the lie and who may be struck at any moment...by the force of truth.”
Wherever two or three are gathered....there is the potential to rejoin soul and role, to move toward an undivided life.
Today we give thanks and we give honor to the reign of Christ who calls us to compassionate relationship ... with others, with our world, and with our whole selves.
This Thanksgiving holiday, wherever we are, as host, guest, or alone, let us welcome Christ. Let us welcome the soul ... Amen.
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