Monday, Busy Monday

I've spent part of this morning preparing for our Vestry meeting, which mostly involves gathering up bits of paper with reminders to myself of things we need to cover.

It's been a busy weekend, starting last Friday with a drive up to Charm City to see the newborn baby of a parishioner; the baby is a beautiful boy named Barack. It was a longer drive than anticipated, and I was grateful for the company of a parishioner who kept me laughing all through the traffic jams. I got back in time to go a Christmas gathering of one of our Episcopal Church Women chapters.

On Saturday I participated in the ordination of a friend. Her journey to ministry was a long one, and it was good to see that she is now ready to use her gifts in priestly ministry. I was honored to be one of her presenters. Then PH and I hopped in the car and drove up to Your Nation's Capital to go on a tour of the White House, all magnificently decorated for the season. Two Christmas trees were particularly moving - one honoring Gold Star families (families of military who have died in combat) and another with many military medals hung on it. There was also a station where one could write a postcard to someone in the Armed Forces sending Christmas greetings. A sad reminder that our military folk are still in harm's way. May they be safe this season, and may there be peace soon. The decor was splendid in the WH, with a number of different renditions of Bo, the Obama family dog, and one of the most impressive gingerbread mansions I've ever seen - a rendition of the White House, covered in royal icing so it was truly white. Remarkable. After a good dinner with PH's brother (who works for the WH, thus the tickets to the tour) and sister-in-law, we got home in time to get a reasonable night's sleep.

Sunday was the Children's Pageant/Lessons and Carols/Eucharist mash-up. It was a different script than what we had used in the past, and it had a couple of less than smooth moments, but the children were wonderful and the music was great. Throughout Advent, the Bell Choir has been chiming us in for the processional, followed by the lighting of the Advent Wreath. It creates an exquisitely meditative moment at the start of the service as they play "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." They did it at this service as well, plus doing "Still, Still, Still" in the pageant. The Chancel Choir sang "Virgin Meek and Mild," our resident flutist played "What Child is This" and I sang "Rejoice Greatly" from Handel's Messiah. The congregation got to sing lots of their favorites, including "We Three Kings" with solos from PH and two of his colleagues in the choir.

All in all, a good morning, followed by our annual soup and bread lunch. Later that evening, another ECW chapter had their meeting and Christmas bash...much laughter and great plans for the year to come.

This morning we had the final session of our Monday book group for the year, finishing up Kate Braestrup's "Marriage and Other Acts of Charity." We are still pondering what our next book will be: I've given them a list of fiction and nonfiction options ranging from Graham Greene to Katharine Jefforts Schori. Such a great group of women in this group, and we even discuss the books in between our tangents!

This will be another busy week, with vestry meeting, other meetings, a number of pastoral calls, and a little fun in the midst. I am finishing up knitting one last Christmas present, and am otherwise as ready as I am going to be for the Christmas excitement. We've got a bunch of folks coming over for a party Sunday night, so I'll be doing midnight baking this week.

Color me grateful for so many things!

Sermon for Sunday, December 11, 2011 Early Service Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

This third Sunday of Advent is called “Gaudete Sunday” or “Rejoicing Sunday.” This is indeed a day of rejoicing. Christmas is coming, the day we celebrate the birth of God’s son. We can feel how close it is now…a few weeks ago, it seemed further away, but now it is waiting in the wings. Only two weeks until the glorious day, Christmas Day.

Our children and grandchildren think of that day as a time of presents. They can’t wait for that early morning wake-up and the delightful chaos of unwrapping what Santa has brought them. Our Christmas morning may be a little different. In fact, at each stage of our lives, our sense of what is a gift evolves.

In our teens, we care less about what the gift is than we care about who gives it. Yes, teenagers want stuff. That is a given. But that guitar from Grandma isn’t as exciting to a teen as a strange book from the girlfriend who is his first love. The guitar may be one of the most exquisite, expensive things that the Music Store has to offer, but the aroma of romance that scents that fifteen buck book – that’s magical.

In our twenties, the gift that we seek may be that engagement ring, or that word “Yes!” from the one to whom we will give that ring. It might be news that we have gotten that job we really wanted, the one that will be the next step in a bright career.

In our thirties, the gift may be the expressions on the faces of our little children as they rip open the presents under the tree at 6:30 am on Christmas morning, or it may be your spouse letting you go back to bed while she wrangles the kids after the present opening.

Yes, our sense of gift evolves.

It continues to change as we pass forty and fifty. Perhaps now the gift we seek is calm, or it may be a gathering of family from the various places they are scattered. It may be the sense that life is settling down, and it is a blessed relief after difficult times.

And the years pass, and once again the thing we seek changes.

Suddenly, the best give we can receive is time, time that now seems to be slipping away from us faster and faster.

And the knowledge that we have made it to another Christmas becomes the gift itself. Another Christmas when we can be with those we love. Another Christmas to do something for someone else. Another Christmas to celebrate, and to rejoice. Time is precious. Another Christmas is precious.

Here we stand, on this Sunday when we are to encouraged to rejoice. What shall we rejoice about?

It may be as simple as this: we have survived. We may not have thought of that twenty years ago, but now it is very real.

Neither illness nor a misdirected GRTC bus has brought us to our end. We will celebrate another Christmas, and that’s something to rejoice over.

I don’t mean to be morbid, but if we truly believe that each day is a gift from God, as we get older, we realize just what a powerful gift that is. We nervously joke about it: “better on top of the grass than underneath it,” but in our hearts we are thinking about our own mortality and the gift of life that God bestows on us.

This may be the truest gift of the season. Not those sweaters and ties wrapped and placed under the Christmas tree, but the awareness that our lives, every day of them, are gifts from God. They are precious and sweet, even on those days when we don’t feel 100% or when we worry that we aren’t particularly useful to anybody. Each day is another day to thank God for what we are given.

This is not to say that we should ignore the difficult bits. They are a fact of our lives, just as our less-than-sharp vision and crow’s feet are facts of our lives…although perhaps the gift is that we can no longer see those crow’s feet quite as clearly.

But we rejoice, even with the challenges that the passing of time has brought. We rejoice, in a deeper and sweeter way than we could have a few decades ago, because we know the value of what has been given to us, and we know from whence it came.

So we make a choice to rejoice. As Isaiah prophesied, we wear a garland rather than ashes. We are anointed with the oil of gladness rather than that of mourning. We sing as Isaiah sang:” I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.”

Why do we rejoice? Not because of gifts under the tree, but because of the ultimate gift. There is someone coming, someone who will bring us the greatest of gifts. We don’t need another tie or box of cookies. We don’t need another paperweight. What we need is what Jesus brings: the garments of salvation.

We do not know the time allotted to us. It may be decades. It may be a day. It doesn’t really matter. We still can rejoice, because the gift that is brought to us on Christmas Day is timeless. We can rejoice, because Jesus was born, and because he has redeemed us from our sins. We can rejoice no matter how our joints ache and our hearing dims. We can rejoice in spite of the difficulties and because of the sweetness. We are redeemed.

And that is something that lasts longer than a Christmas morning – it is for eternity.

Amen.

Oh, no...

...shootings at Virginia Tech. Two people dead thus far, and the shooter is still at large. Praying for all the folks involved in any way.

Dear Lord, protect your children at Virginia Tech. Bring the perpetrator of this crime to an understanding that violence is not the answer, and guide him to drop his weapons and turn himself in. Give comfort ot the families of those who have died, and care for the parents and friends who cannot reach their Tech students and are terribly afraid. Help the public safety officials who are onsite - keep them safe and calm in their work.We ask all this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sermon for Advent II, Sunday December 4, 2011 Mark 1:1-8 “Step Into the Water”

Prophets are rarely attractive, gently spoken people. They are usually loud, strange, annoying, odd people. We get a glimpse of that when we hear of John the Baptist’s ranting on the banks of the Jordan. John wore strange clothes – an animal skin, a strap of leather holding it to his body – and his diet was even stranger: locusts and honey. No doubt he smelled bad, living as he did in the wilderness. And his proclamations were wild, and I’ll bet he was pretty wild as well. Ancient Orthodox icons of John show him with dreadlocks and dirty, rough hands.

Why would anyone want to pay attention to a man who looked like that?

One reason might be that the people were hungry for some proclamation. As I shared with you last week, the people of Israel were sorely oppressed. Life was hard and there was no end in sight. They were in dire need of the very thing that Isaiah talks about in this morning’s reading from the Old testament: “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her

that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.”

God’s people, hungry for relief from oppression, looking for something or someone that would give them relief.

So what did God send them? This man John, who looked and spoke and smelled like the person you don’t want to sit next to on the bus. No one would mistake him for a divine messenger if they used the usual methods of evaluating people. But these were unusual times, so an unusual messenger might be just what was needed to get people’s attention.

And get their attention he certainly did. People flocked from all around to hear what he had to say, to be baptized by him in the Jordan.

They were hungry for what he offered them, even if they didn’t completely understand it. If they hadn’t been hurting so badly, so tired, so despairing, they mightn’t have come out to hear him, but perhaps this strange man had something to help them, to give them hope again.

Wasn’t he just like the old prophets had foretold? Wasn’t he “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!”

Perhaps it takes a smelly, odd, screaming man to get the word out: “fix things up here, get ready, prepare the way of the Lord.” Perhaps it takes a people who are so hungry for something to relieve their pain that they will accept the message from a more than a little frightening prophet.

Think about it.

Would we listen to him? Would we allow such a man to escort us into the river, to press our heads down into the brown and swirling waters, pray over us? My guess is probably not. Our needs, as real as they seem, as harsh as they are, have not made us desperate enough to take that risk.

But let’s imagine for the moment that our desire for relief from that which oppresses us gives us the ability to overcome our distaste for this odd man and his strange ways. Let’s imagine what it felt like.

We have come to the riverside to hear this man. We’ve heard of him back in town. People say he’s crazy, or they say he’s a weird follower of God, or they say that his message is powerful and they feel changed when they hear him. We are intrigued, so we go to check it out for ourselves.

We wander out to the riverside, outside of town. There he is. He’s just as strange as our friends have told us. His eyes glow with a strange fire, and his words fill us with that glow. People are walking into the river where he stands, and he pours the water over their heads, praying over them. They are weeping, confessing all their wrongdoings. But when they come up from the water, they seem to have the same glow as he does.

So we step forward. We think of all the times we have felt alone and broken. All the times we have wished for something, anything, more than this hard life of work and taxes and worry and hurt. All the times we wanted some comfort for all that ails us. All the tiems we asked God, “Where are you in the midst of this? Will you help me?”

And now we are standing at the edge of the water. He turns toward us, sensing our hesitation, and extends his hand. It is hard, calloused, but clean from all that time in the river water. We take it, and he sees what we are thinking. He wants to clarify what he is doing here, so we have no confusion in our hearts: “I know what you are looking for. I am not that one. There is another one coming who is so powerful that I am not worthy to tie his sandals. I’m here to prepare you. I will wash you in these waters to wash away your sins, but he will wash your spirit with his spirit, his holy spirit, and you will be forever cleansed.” And as we think about these words, we are suddenly pressed down into the water. We should be afraid, but we are not. The warm water swirls above our head. His hand on our heads is warm, too, and the pressure is not frightening, but…what? Comforting? Cleansing? Yes, and more.

And then the pressure stops, we bob up in the water, and the breeze across the river dries the skin of our faces. We feel like we are glowing, just as he is.

We walk up to the shoreline, a little shaky but happy. Happier than we have felt in a long time. Where does this feeling come from?

Is it from the man?

Is it from the water?

Or is it from his message, his promise that someone even greater is coming?

He no longer seems strange and frightening to us. Odd, perhaps, but not frightening. Suddenly we feel that warmth again, because of the promise he made.

Another one is coming. A powerful one who transforms people through something more than river water. He transforms people through his holy spirit. Will that feel as wonderful as that moment in the river did?

All we know is that we can barely wait for this one whom John spoke of. We can barely wait for the way he will make us feel, for the way that he will change us and the world.

Here, now, in the present day, our needs and wants are not for relief from oppression, as the people in John the Baptist’s time suffered. They may be for relief from sadness or a dreadful illness or loneliness or worry over a child or a parent. They may be for an end to wars and cruelty, an end to poverty or the abuse of children. They may be for release from the habits that enslave us.

Can we imagine walking into that river water and letting go of these things? Can we imagine the hope reborn in our hearts when we are washed clean of the pain that holds us back? Can we await what we will do when the One who is to come arrives?

John the Baptist came to get people ready for that One who is to come. He came to warn and to promise. He came to tell us to prepare ourselves, to make the road straight, to make our hearts straight.

The One who is to come is on his way. Step into the water to prepare yourself. Let go of the pain, let go of the old ways. Make yourself ready, because things are going to be different when He comes!

Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, November 27, 2011 Advent I – Mark 13:24-37 “Occupy Advent”

In recent weeks, we’ve been seeing lots of news about Occupy Wall Street protesters…we’ve even got our very own Occupy Richmond protesters camping out next door to Mayor Jones’ house. While I’m not really sure exactly what these protesters hope to accomplish, or what exactly they’re protesting against (except greedy bankers), I think we have something to learn from them.

When you care about something deeply, you need to respond with the same depth. You need to “occupy it” to reclaim it and make it your own in a better form.

Whatever you think of the protesters in Zuccotti Park and in Richmond, you cannot deny that they have demonstrated their passion by camping out in all kinds of weather and peacefully protesting values that they oppose. They have responded with commitment and have reclaimed values that they think are important.

In the same way, let’s consider how we can reclaim something important to us, make it our own.

What are we reclaiming?

Advent.

You remember Advent, don’t you? That season of preparation for the birth of Jesus?

But Advent has been hijacked by the sellers of toys for kids and toys for adults. It has been replaced by something called “The Christmas Season,” which I always put in quotation marks, because it seems to have little to do with Christ, or Christmas. It has much more to do with making sure retailers make sufficient sales for the year to ensure a profit for them. “The Christmas Season” is about purchasing the hottest new video game, the latest IPad or IPhone, the flashiest piece of jewelry, the niftiest tool from Home Depot or Lowe’s….or gift cards. Hundreds of thousands of gift cards, to be given when we can’t guess what the recipient would want (because he already has one of everything he might need) or we fear what we get will not be pleasing to the recipient. Did you know that in 2009, $87 billion in gift cards were sold[1]. That’s billion, not million.

A whole lot of little bits of plastic that say “Merry Christmas.” Or maybe they just say “this is the way I fulfill my obligation to you, because we give gifts because they are expected, not because we really want to give them.”

That’s “The Christmas Season” for you…a total of $584 billion[2] in sales, including those ubiquitous gift cards. And I doubt that very many people were thinking about the coming of the Christ child when they purchased that $584 billion worth of goods and services.

We have been claimed by “The Christmas Season” industry, not by the coming Christ Child, and it’s time to stop. It’s time to reclaim this time and the true meaning of what it is about.

So instead of “Occupy Wall Street,” or “Occupy Richmond,” I suggest we “Occupy Advent.” Turn our minds and hearts away from the commercialism that has soiled this season, and reclaim this time of preparation for the gift that you cannot buy at the mall: Jesus Christ.

Let’s get our priorities straight, and reclaim that which is truly important.

That’s what Jesus was talking about in today’s Gospel.

Now I know what many of you were thinking when I read that Gospel passage: “What does this have to do with Advent, with baby Jesus, with Bethlehem? This is downright depressing and a little bit scary.”

Yes, it seems incongruous, and it follows on the heels of last week’s reading about Jesus judging us at the end times. Not very Christmas-y, to be sure.

But let’s put ourselves in the places of those who first heard Jesus speak these words. Let’s remember what was going on in their world. Then maybe a sense of the power of the One who is coming will fill us, and we can reclaim that Advent feeling.

In Jesus’ day, Rome controlled everything. Roman soldiers were everywhere. The cruel king of Judea, Herod, was a puppet of Rome. The Romans taxed the people mercilessly. A distant, powerful, alien emperor who had no love or sympathy for the people of Israel simply used them for what he could milk from their labors. And the Jewish religious leaders were hardly more sympathetic, always demanding enforcement of rules that made little sense, always expecting things from the people that they could ill afford to give.

It was not a happy time. To those who listened to Jesus, it was indeed a time of suffering, as it had been since before Jesus’ birth. And what did Jesus offer? A promise that something good was coming…no, not just good, something wonderful. And he warned them to pay attention, to watch for the signs. “Keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

We have been lulled to a state of torpor by endless ads on television or the internet. We have forgotten to look for when the master of the house will return. We are dozing in our complacency that this season is one of purchasing and wrapping, when what we should be doing is watching for the one who is to come.

So let’s Occupy Advent instead of WalMart. Let’s Occupy Advent instead of Short Pump Mall. Let’s reclaim this time when we start to watch for the one who is to come. We, too, live in a time that is full of unhappiness, with war and terrorism and poverty and jobs gone away and addiction and greed. It is not so different than Jesus’ day, is it? So hear this gospel today as a starting point, a reminder that if we wait and watch in humble expectation, we will find what heals us more than any gift card. We will find what will sustain us more than another gadget or toy. We will find the least likely of gifts, a tiny baby in a stable, with the power to love us and give to us eternal life.

Shouldn’t we prepare ourselves for this most precious of gifts? Shouldn’t we reflect on how we have lived our lives this past year? Shouldn’t we pray for guidance and for hope in what is to come? We should…and we can, starting today.

Occupy Advent. Prepare. Watch. Keep awake. He is coming! Amen.

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[1] http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SmartSpending/FindDealsOnline/how-the-gift-card-stole-christmas.aspx

[2] http://retailindustry.about.com/od/statisticsresearch/a/2010-Us-Christmas-Holiday-Shopping-Data-Statistics-Results-And-Numbers.htm

Thanks

I just finished Sunday's sermon, so I am truly feeling thankful!

It has been an unusual Thanksgiving week. Last weekend my son StoneMason and his fiancee came down for the weekend. He is clearly deeply in love with this young woman, and she with him. They are relaxed and gently loving and supportive of each other. They came and participated at activities at church with grace - it is never easy to be under scrutiny by a whole bunch of new people, no matter how welcoming they intend to be, but all was pure delight. We had a mini-Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday afternoon before they were to hop on a plane to the Far North. It was delicious and they ate hearty, as did we.

On Tuesday, PH got on a plane to go visit his family in the Windy City. His father had a surgery that turned out to be more complicated than originally thought, and has had a slow recovery. PH had held off on going up there for a few weeks, partly because other dear family members were there tending to needs, partly because his own schedule was so complicated. But I was glad to see him on his way to do this, because even when the recovery is progressing, we actually want to see it in person, to witness to it, don't we?

That meant that I would spend my Thanksgiving Day by myself. I had offers from several parishioners to go to their houses for the feast, but I begged off. The idea of a day of solitude and reflection was too rare, and too good to pass up.

So what was my Thanksgiving Day?

Morning prayer.
Some cleaning up of the house for the houseguest who will come on Saturday night.
Cooking: a loaf of bread, some curried butternut squash soup.
A friend who was also flying solo for the day came over in the afternoon and we walked for an hour.
An early supper with her of bread, salad and soup.
Phone consultations and recipe advice for two of my children, who were each cooking a Thanksgiving feast of their own, in California and Colorado.

And then the evening: taking out the Santa collection, now something like two hundred expressions of St Nicholas, all shapes and sizes, sublime (the one my MIL brought back form Russia) and ridiculous (the Fleet enema Santa - don't ask), setting up the creche, all except the baby Jesus.

Knitting.
Music.
Peace.

A good way to begin the time of keeping awake and waiting for the One who is to come.

Picture above of yours truly with StoneMason and fiancee at StickWorks, a cool exhibit at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens.

Sermon for Sunday, November 20, 2011 Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24/Matt 25:31-46 “At the Banquet Table or On It”

On Friday, Doug and I went with my son Sam and his fiancée Shauna to Maymont. We wandered around the Children’s Farm, looked at the raptors, watched a black bear scratch an itch by nuzzling up to a tree stump, and enjoyed the peaceful and beautiful Japanese Garden. One of the really fun moments was visiting with the sheep and the goats. Some of the goats had managed to stick their heads, including their horns, through the bars of the fence so they could more easily reach the bits of feed that kids could buy for a quarter. The sheep looked calm, as usual. The goats looked a bit neurotic, giving us sidelong glances and appearing to wonder why we were looking at them with such glee.

They were pastured together, and seemed quite comfortable sharing the hillside. But as the evening would approach, they would be brought up from the hillside and put into the barn at the top of the hill. The sheep would go in one pen, and the goats another.

The people who take care of the animals would do precisely what Jesus describes in today’s gospel. They would separate the sheep from the goats. Now the folks at Maymont would do it because their pens are clearly marked with little outlines – one has the silhouette of sheep, the other the silhouette of goats. But why would the shepherd in Jesus’ story do that?

It took a little searching, but I finally got the answer. Sheep can actually remain out on the hillside all night. They prefer it. They have that warm wooly coat, after all. Goats do not. They need the warmth of a shelter, out of the cold night wind. A smart shepherd gives each of the animals what they need to survive, be it fresh air or warm shelter.

Now, that actually makes more work for the shepherd, because he has to stay with those sheep on the hillside to protect them from predators. But still, that’s what shepherds do. They do what is necessary for each animal.

That’s the of image of the shepherd that we hear in both our old testament reading and our Gospel…a shepherd who tenderly cares for all his animals, animals who are sometimes a bit wayward and uncooperative.

It’s a warm picture, isn’t it? We visualize one of those Victorian-era paintings with a Jesus wearing sparkling white robes, a blue-eyed, sandy-haired Jesus bearing a fluffy little lamb over his shoulder.

There is also another picture of the shepherd that we get in these readings, particularly in the Gospel reading, where Jesus has some decisions to make, some judgments about the flock, at the end of the season. Who has done what the shepherd has told them to do? Who has been a good member of the flock, doing the shepherd’s bidding?

So the shepherd becomes the judge, a very different role, requiring him to be decisive and clear rather than warmly tender.

How do we reconcile these two roles?

That’s where we need to take a closer look at the reality of the shepherding business. At the end of the season, the shepherd must do some sorting of the animals. Some will be kept to make more lambs and goat kids in the next year. Some will be sold at market to provide offerings and food in the winter season. Some will be traded away. And the shepherd takes on the role of judge to decide which of his charges goes in which category. Some get kept, some – how shall I put it delicately? – get disposed of.

Jesus shifts from being the tender shepherd to being the astute and fair judge of the flock. Not so warm and fuzzy, but clear-eyed and fair.

And the remarkable thing about both the Old Testament and Gospel readings of this time of judgment is how similar they are.

In both cases, God’s people are a flock under the loving care of a shepherd. Some of them are good, some not so good. The shepherd tries to train them, protect them, keep them together, but it doesn’t always work quite as the shepherd had hoped, because sheep and goats, they aren’t always as good as we hope for. The members of the flock who have treated the others badly, stolen their food, pushed them away from the good pasturelands…in a word, the ones who have gotten fat at the expense of others…are the ones who will now suffer. Ezekiel makes it clear: “I will feed them, [those fat and greedy ones] with justice.” Jesus makes it clear: “And these will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

The shepherd has transformed into the arbiter, judging the members of the flock.

We know that this is a metaphor describing our relationship with Jesus. We are the sheep and Jesus is the shepherd.

Now this might make us nervous. None of us likes to be judged. We know we are less than perfect, and we worry that Jesus might be disappointed in us and we might be cast out into eternal punishment. I’m willing to accept punishment for my sins, which are many, but I surely hope that I will dodge the bullet of eternal punishment.

The good news is that Jesus gives us very clear instructions on what we are supposed to do to be on the right side of his judgment seat: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirst, visit the sick or those in prison. In short, help those who need help.

And the second bit of good news is that we do some of these things. Lamb’s Basket, both donating food and working at the food pantry. Lay Eucharistic Ministers bringing communion to those who are homebound or in nursing homes. Thanksgiving food baskets for Interfaith Services of Henrico.

The remarkable thing is how unremarkable these things seem to us. We don’t make a big deal about bringing some food to be donated, or to go out to someone’s home to bring them communion. We don’t make a fuss about giving a neighbor a call. It isn’t something dramatic and flashy…it is simple things, done every week, lending a hand, not expecting anything in return.

And that is the good news that we hear today. Even at the time of final judgment, that time when it’s sorting time, sheep on one side, goats on the other, we need not be afraid. We have done the simple things that Jesus has asked of us, without any expectations. And because of that, we are promised eternal life. Not endless punishment, but eternal life.

We may wonder if we are good enough to be judged worthy of eternal life. This gospel is the reminder that we can be. It doesn’t take incredibly dramatic work. It doesn’t take martyrdom or changing the world. It simply takes doing simple things, changing things just a bit at a time. Helping one person, one little bit. “Whatever you have done for the least of these – even one small thing done for the least of these – you have done for me.”

So the next time you drop a box of cereal in the basket for the hungry, or run an errand for someone, or say a prayer for someone, you are helping Jesus, and you are helping Jesus decide whether you are a member of the flock who has earned eternal life.

The shepherd cares for you, but he also must figure out whether you get sent off to become someone’s leg of lamb dinner or whether you get to stay with the flock for the season. Will you be seated at the banquet table or be served on it? You decide, so he can decide. What will you do?

Amen.