What Does the King Want?

 Matt 25:31-46  November 26, 2023  Christ the King

Salvator Mundi
Leonardo daVinci

 

King Midas is a story about a King who loves gold,

He was already rich beyond anyone else, but he wishes

that everything he touched would turn to gold.

He gets his wish, but he finds that this is not a good thing.

Everything he touched did turn to gold: flowers, furniture,

he couldn't sleep because his bed was gold,

he couldn't eat because his food turned to gold.

Then he touched his beloved daughter 

and she turned into solid gold.

He got what he wanted, but he was miserable.

 

Shakespeare’s Richard the Third is the story about a King

who as a prince stopped at nothing to get to be King.

He puts his relatives in jail, has some killed, and tells lies about others.

He finally becomes King, but he is so frightened 

and suspicious because of everything he did that he eventually

kills one of his brothers and his wife.

His kingdom rebels against him and on the night 

before a great battle, the ghosts of everyone Richard has killed come to visit him.

They tell him that he will die.

And the next day, Richard is killed in a battle against his own brother.

His ambition for power was his downfall.

 

King David was the great King of Israel,

the chosen one, the anointed one.

He has everything he wants, he is beloved by his country, 

he has wealth luxury, many wives, many concubines,

but one day he sees a woman, Bathsheba,

bathing on her own roof top.

Even though she is married and he has eight wives of his own,

he decides that he wants her.  

She concedes, because you don’t refuse the king,

and she becomes pregnant with his child.

So David sends her husband into a dangerous battle and he is killed.

God is not pleased with David for this, and David’s relationships

with his children are cursed for the rest of his life.

These are just three stories about Kings

There are many more stories about Kings who have many things,

but choose to use their power for their own ends

to fill their own wants and egos.

And that story rings true even today.

 

The stories of powerful people committing

sexual assault, abuses of power, and corruption,

are stories of powerful and wealthy people

who have everything they want,

but use their positions to intimidate and coerce

and to get more and more.

 

And it seems like many of our current world’s leaders

seem to want absolute loyalty from everyone

and will use intimidation and violence

against their own people to get it.

 

And our own leaders in this country spend their

and power and collateral just trying to make

corporations bigger, and trying to ensure that

banks have more money, and rich people have more money,

and to make themselves more comfortable

all at the expense of the average American, and especially the poor.

 

The story seems to go that those who have the most power

want more of it, And the only thing that satisfies them

is more than what they had the day before.

This is the common story about the kings of this world.

 

Today is Christ the King Sunday,

the day when where we remember that Christ is our king,

our ultimate leader, and the real leader of the world.

And in the illustration we hear today, we see what Christ

uses his considerable power for.

 

So, this is Jesus last parable in Matthew.

It’s the last one he tells before he is arrested and killed.

It’s the final of the apocalyptic parables,

the ones we’ve been hearing, about the end times.

This is what he leaves his disciples with.

 

Jesus says that at the end, when Jesus returns,

he will come in glory, just as you would imagine

the king of the whole world coming:

On a throne with the angels surrounding him,

draped around in glory and splendor.

 

And at that moment, he judges all the nations of the world.

But what does he use his power for?

And what is the basis for his judgment?

It’s not how much money they provided for him,

or how much land they gave him,

or did they worship him or bow down to him on a regular basis,

or did they make him feel good about himself,

or did they honor him give him enough loyalty.

 

No, his question for them is

“How did you treat the least of those among you?”

This is what is important to the king.

This is what is important to Jesus. 

 

Did you give the hungry something to eat?

Did you give the thirsty something to drink?

Did you welcome the stranger? Clothe the naked?

Take care of the sick? Visit the prisoner?

This is the basis for the judgment of the world.

This is what is important to the king.

Not whether you bowed down before him

with the proper reverence and ceremonies,

not that you gave him what he wanted and made

his friends happy and rich.

 

What is most important to the King, is that you used your power to

take care of the  least powerful in your nation.

 

So the parable says at the time of this judgment

“All the nations will be gathered before him, 

and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates

the sheep from the goats”

 

The translators translate that word there as people,

but people is “laos” or “anthropos” but the Greek 

word that’s there is “autos”  which is just the pronoun “them”

which refers back to the “nations”.

 

 “All the nations will be gathered before him,

and he will separate them – the nations – one from another.”

Most people who study this stuff believe that the intent 

of the parable was that the nations would be divided like sheep and goats.

 

This is not a parable about individuals, but about nations.

This is not a parable about our personal piety and mercy.

This is parable about politics and empires.

That one little translation choice makes a big difference.

So how is the nation that we live in doing?

What is important to our leaders?

 

Because in the end, we will not be judged on stock market returns,

or the strength of our military,

the amount of successful fortune 500 companies we have,

or our unemployment rates, or the rate of inflation

which all of which our leaders seem to be most interested in.

 

We will be judged on how we treated

the least powerful in our empire.

So have we fed the hungry?

17 million households in the US suffer from hunger.

And this country continues to cut food stamps

and other benefits for those in poverty.

 

Have we given the thirsty something to drink?

Flint Michigan, Jackson Mississippi, the Rio Grande Valley,

and other primarily black and Latino communities have had

ongoing water problems in the US.

 

Have we welcomed the stranger?

There is still a fear and hatred of immigrants in our country.

And many people with all kinds of immigration statuses

live in fear of violence, exploitation, harassment, and deportation.

 

Are we taking care of the sick?

Almost 67 percent of bankruptcies in this country are due to

medical bills and healthcare for the poor is always being cut.

 

Are we reaching out to the prisoner?

The US represents only 4.4 percent of the world’s population

but we have 20 percent of the world’s prison population.

This is just a short list.

 

How would our nation do when the Son of Man returns?

Has the United States recognize Jesus in the least of these?

The richest most powerful nation in the world?

Would we be with the sheep or with the goats?

 

With 63 percent of Americans still identifying as Christian,

and with 88% of our Senators and Representatives in the US

identifying as Christian, we should be doing better.

Because this is what is important to Jesus.

This is what is important to God.

This is what is important to the king.

 

The King doesn’t care about who is saying “Merry Christmas”

or about keeping prayer in school,

or posting the 10 commandments in court houses,

Or about giving religious privileges to Christians.

It’s not about sexual morality, or policing women’s healthcare,

It’s not about advocating against transgenderism,

or removing marriage rights from same gender couples,

or whatever passes as Christian public policy these days.

What’s most important to the King is how we treat the least of these.

 

Now this might seem like all bad news,

because we’re not doing well in that department as a nation.

It might seem that we’ll all be cast into the eternal fire.

But we remember that this is a parable not an allegory.

This parable is not here to make us feel guilty because

we personally didn’t do enough for one person.

It’s not a prediction, it’s a story to help us

think and imagine, evaluate, and reorient ourselves.

 

This parable is here show us what is the ultimate concern

for our savior and ruler.

And to tell us that empires and nations who don’t care

for the least powerful, will not stand in the end.

 

So it might be bad news to those who love their

wealth and power and have no interest in sharing it.

But I assure you, this is good news for those people

who feel chewed up by the system. And for those unable

to sustain themselves and keep their heads above water.

And this is good news to all of us who ache and hunger for justice.

And who see our brothers and sisters suffer and hurt for them.

It’s good news because the King sees their suffering

and our suffering this suffering is not the end of the story.

 

It might not look so good for us now,

It might look like we’ve failed the test

between the sheep and the goats.

But Christ is King and he wants to see all the nations

care for all their people.

And if that’s what the king wants,

that’s what the king will get.

 

It may look like we’re going in the wrong direction right now,

but God is in the process of creating a world,

a new heaven and a new earth,

where greed and apathy have no place.

Where violence and hatred are only memories.

We don’t know how or when the King will get there,

but we have faith that the King will make this happen.

 

We live in a world that God created

and in the end, the world that God created

will not sustain nations who do not care for the least among them.

We will be changed, God’s way will be our way,

probably not in our lifetime, but soon and very soon.

 

The good news of this parable is that we have a King who cares.

We have a savior who’s concern is for us all.

God doesn’t see people just as tools that the more

powerful can extract labor and resources from

until they’re all used up.

God doesn’t see us as pawns in a play for power,

or some economic game.

 

To Christ the King, we are not

just subjects or peasants or play things.

 

From the most powerful

to the least powerful among us,

we are all the King’s children.