Have you ever been to one of the great Gothic cathedrals? Notre Dame or Chartres or Westminster Abbey? If you have, or even if you’ve seen pictures of them, you know that they are literally sermons in glass and stone. In the great cathedrals, every architectural detail, every window, and every sculpture are designed to point us to God and to remind us of God’s mighty works on our behalf. Though not medieval, the great Washington National Cathedral, the cathedral church of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, is also such a sermon in stone. Episcopal priest Frank Logue tells us that the entire building is designed to point us towards God and to remind us of God’s mighty works.1 As with the medieval cathedrals, the focal point of the national cathedral is the high altar. Behind the high altar the huge reredos depicts Christ in glory surrounded by over one hundred figures. But look closely: closest to the glorified Christ stand who? The great angels? The most exemplary saints? The apostles? The martyrs? None of these. Closest to the glorified Christ, at the very heart of this great cathedral stand six allegorical figures, figures of people who are hungry, thirsty, homeless, naked, sick, and imprisoned. You can’t miss the theme of the sermon: it is they, the poor, the needy, the weak, the victims, whom Christ first embraces in paradise.
Are you surprised? Were you surprised that Jesus depicted the final judgment as a test of how we treated others, especially of how we treated “the least of these?” Jesus warned us, didn’t he? He told us that when he returned to begin his reign over all creation we would face a test. Not on whether we understood and professed every iota of the Nicene Creed. Not on whether we had read and understood the sermons of John Chrysostom or John Donne. Not on whether we had the most beautiful sanctuaries and vestments. He would test us, Jesus told us, on how real our faith was, on how we had treated those who were poor, sick, hungry, oppressed or in prison, on whether we had actively attended to their needs or ignored them. He would remind us that faith isn’t faith until it’s actualized, until it’s made concrete in the ways that we live our lives. Even if we don’t always know exactly who the beneficiary of our good works is, even if we’re not always sure that those whom we help are part of the “deserving poor,” Jesus would say that when we use our faith to benefit others, we show our love for Jesus himself. Didn’t we already know that? Didn’t the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that? And hadn’t the writer of the Letter of James repeated the same message to his hearers when he asked, “What good is it to profess faith without practicing it?” What good is it if you ignore the needs of the naked or the hungry? Hadn’t he also warned us that “without good deeds faith is useless?”
So Jesus’ parable – and the sermon in stone – remind us that whether we like it or not, we will ultimately be accountable to God for how we have lived our lives and how we have used God’s gifts to us. This Sunday, when we recognize and give thanks to God that it is Christ to whom we are accountable rather than to any secular authority, perhaps this is a good time to pause and look at our own lives. How would we do on Jesus’ test? What does your datebook and your checkbook say about you? Are you regular in worship, and does the nourishment you receive in the Eucharist change the rest of your life in any way? Do you pay attention to the needs of only your closest family and friends and ignore the needs of those on the margins of your social circle? Whom do you consider “the least” in your world, and are you concerned about them? Do you look to see Jesus in others, even in “difficult” people, or people you don’t like? Do you look beyond the charitable handout and try to make a difference in the systems of injustice and inequity that trap people in poverty, disease, and disaster? Are you mindful of the needs of our brothers and sisters in other countries?
Jesus’ test isn’t only or even primarily addressed to us as individuals. All the pronouns in the parable are in the second person plural. So Jesus’ questions are also addressed to us corporately, to us here at St. Peter’s as a parish. And the questions are similar. This is a parish with many gifts: physical plant, talented people, resources. How are we using those gifts for the benefit of the community? If we were to lock the doors and all go our separate ways, would anyone miss us? Take a minute and think about it: where are you anxious, restless, to bring the Gospel to the wider community? Where would Jesus want us to go? If money were no object, and we had all the people we needed, what would we as a congregation want to do in the wider community? What tugs at your heart? Do we think we need more money or more people to truly live out our faith? If we have the will to try to befriend the “least of these,” Jesus’ sisters and brothers whom we see around us, might not God provide the resources that we need to do so?
Are you beginning to feel judged and put on the spot? Do you fear the separation of the sheep and the goats depicted in Jesus’ parable? Where’s the good news? My brothers and sisters, here’s the good news. That Jesus holds us accountable for what we do means that our lives have consequences, and it matters to God and to those around us how we live them out. Our lives may be short, our scope of action may be limited, but our lives still have value and meaning. That Jesus also holds us accountable as a parish for how we use God’s gifts means that our life together as a community of faith also has value and meaning. It does – or it should – mean that our being here makes a difference!
Ultimately, we come back to the question we have been wrestling with for the last several weeks, ever since, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus began his last sermon in Jerusalem. And that question is, how do we live in this middle time between Jesus’ death and resurrection and the full inauguration of his reign on earth? The answer is both simple and complicated. We heard Jesus himself give the answer to the question: “You must love the Most High God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. That is the greatest and first commandment. The second is like it: You must love your neighbor as yourself.” Love God, love your neighbor: that is how we live in the middle time.
St. Teresa of Avila told us, “We cannot be sure if we are loving God … but we can know quite well if we are loving our neighbor.” I’d like to tell you about a community – not an individual, not even a parish, but an entire community – who looked to the margins and discovered the neighbors they were called to love. Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness is a one-hour documentary, that was shown on public television, about a town coming together to take action after anti-immigrant violence devastated the community.2 In 2008, a series of attacks on Latino residents of Patchogue, New York culminated in the murder of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadoran immigrant who had lived in the Long Island village for thirteen years. For the next two years, Mayor Paul Pontieri, Joselo Lucero, the murdered man’s brother, and Patchogue residents wrestled with the underlying causes of the violence. Four months after Marcelo Lucero’s murder, the mayor led the Patchogue Board of Trustees in passing a resolution stating that "thoughtful discourse can only occur in an environment free of hatred and vilification," and that anti-immigrant rhetoric not only harms targeted groups but "our entire social fabric." Joselo urged people to come together so that a tragedy like his brother's death would never happen again. The Suffolk County Police Department assigned two Spanish-speaking officers to Patchogue, one of whom serves as a community relations liaison with the immigrant community. The local library became both a safe place for Latino immigrants, who often felt uneasy in other public places, and a gathering place for those who wanted to continue working for reconciliation. Gradually the “Not in our Town” movement began to spread. Now more than fifty such groups exist all over North America, from Alaska to Florida, from California to Prince Edward Island.
The righteous will ask, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” Pray that it may be said of us that when we served his brothers and sisters in need we recognized him in them.
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1. Frank Logue pointed out the connection between the National Cathedral figures and this Gospel lection in his article, “The Power of Disturbing Faith,” accessed on November 17, 2011 at http://www.kingofpeace.org/religioncolumn/052110.htm.
2. See http://www.niot.org/lightinthedarkness
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