Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46
Theologians of all stripes have analyzed, studied, read about, written about, the Christian faith from its inception until now. There are a lot of ways one can dissect the Church, a lot of ways we can look at things. Is the Church an institution of the world or the body of Christ incarnate in its members? Is the Church Methodist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and all other denominations and dogmas, or is it something beyond it? Or this really a both/and thing, not an either/or thing?
These questions have been debated endlessly. For most of us, none of it really matters. But there is a question that does and it may be the most important division and distinction in Christianity. Are we a religion of glory or a religion of the cross?
It seems our inclination is to be a religion of glory. And, of course, God is glorious. God is transcendent. God is joy and blessing and all that. He’s powerful enough to craft this whole universe from nothing. So it fits.
And we like positive things. We like happiness and success. We like contentment and peace. We like health and wellness. Stability and calm. And a god that delivers these things, a god that promises these things, well, that’s a god we can get behind. A god we can believe in.
And therein lies the problem. Yes, that’s an appealing image of God. And turn on any of those TV preachers, odds are good that’s the God they’re talking about. One that blesses and enriches abundantly, that’s all about joy and success and pleasure. Many of us have been taken in by that and that may be the God many of us worship.
But that is not the God of Christianity or at least it’s not supposed to be.
You see, there’s a problem with a religion of glory. It’s nice and it’s convenient to associate God with the positives of life. God is present when there is success and wellness and prosperity. But that also predisposes us to believe that God is absent when there is failure, sickness, and poverty. A religion of glory has no place for the ugly parts of life and neither does its god.
So what happens to us when life goes south? Why did I get cancer? Why did my business fail? Why was my child killed in a car accident? A religion of glory has only one answer for this. God has abandoned you. You weren’t good enough for him.
You didn’t believe enough. You didn’t pray enough. You weren’t devoted enough. If the charlatans in the pulpits don’t say this outright, we tell it to ourselves. It’s all our fault. God must hate us.
But that’s not the God of Christianity. That’s not the God who created this whole universe. That’s not the God who sent his son into this world. That’s not the God revealed in the Holy Scriptures, in the waters of baptism, and in the breaking of bread.
You want to know where to find this God, the real God? Well, he tells us where. He tells us that he’ll be found in the last places we expect. He tells us that he is present among the poor. He is present among the sick, the injured, the dying. He says he is present in the midst of the hungry and thirsty. He is among the imprisoned and the forgotten.
You want to find the real God? Look to the place of suffering, to the place of failure, to the place of pain and poverty. That’s where he says he’ll be found.
I have to wonder what the charlatans say about Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats. I’m sure they’d say it’s a great and wondrous thing to care for others, which it is. But that’s the easy answer and a long way from the real meat of this text. But they, like us so often, don’t want to go where this story takes us.
We don’t want to come to terms with what it means for Jesus to be God incarnate. For him to be born of a human mother, just like we were. That’s messy and ugly and dirty and painful. We want Jesus to walk on air, not stub his toe on a rock. We want Jesus to be above it all, not down in the muck and the mire like we are. We don’t want to think about the Son of God having a stomach ache because he ate a bit of bad meat or having to go to the bathroom or stinking because he’s overdue for a bath. That’s too real for us.
And it’s certainly too real for us to think about Jesus being spat upon, laughed at, abandoned, and ultimately murdered on a cross. But guess what? That is real and that is what happened to him. And all of that reality, from toe stubbing to death, is our reality. You want to know what the incarnation means? It means God is one of us. It means he gets it when our lives fall apart. He understands when things get ugly and painful. He’s been there.
He’s been to the cross just like we have.
Faith is not escapism. It is not fantasy. It is reality. And just as life has its moments of wonder and its moments of pain, faith is there in the midst of all of it. Where is God in our lives? Everywhere, even and especially in the moments of ugliness. Where is God not in our lives? Nowhere. He’s a part of all of it.
Want to grow closer to him? Don’t race off to places of triumph and success. Instead, dive into the ugliness, the messiness, and the pain of the world. He didn’t hide away from the truth of life in this world. Nor should we. Because God is found in the least likely places. Amen.
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