Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them, take our minds and think with them, take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen.

I have heard of a tradition that I wish I could say was my own but it’s not, a tradition of placing an empty chair at the table during the family’s Thanksgiving feast.  The empty chair stands ready to be filled if an unexpected dinner guest shows up at the door or to be gazed upon as a reminder that no matter how many are already present, there is always room for one more.  The empty chair is a powerful symbol of hospitality—of being ready to serve anyone who doesn’t have a home, or a meal, or a place to rest, or a family to love and be loved by.  The empty chair recognizes that, though you and I may have the gift of family and the resources to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast, there are many who don’t.  The empty chair, at is best, is a call to compassionate action—a call to serve those who have no chair at any table.      

The parable of the sheep and the goats which we just heard read is the climax of Jesus’ apocalyptic teaching in Matthew’s gospel.  However, I would suggest even further that the Gospel of Matthew in its entirety has been building to this dramatic parable.  In fact, this parable is the last formal act of teaching—the final lesson in his own words—that Jesus shares with his followers before his passion and resurrection.

Jesus begins, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory,” not if but when.  “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.”  The same Jesus, who earlier in this gospel, Matthew says has nowhere to lay his head, is accused of being an agent of Satan, and who was rejected in his own hometown is now elevated above all earthly powers, seated on a throne, commanding the heavenly host as the King of kings and Lord of lords.  Truly the last has become first. 

There standing before Jesus in his glory are all the nations of the earth.  And just as a shepherd might divide his flock, Jesus divides the sheep from the goats.  Then judgment is pronounced on both.  For the sheep, the news is good.  They are revealed as the true heirs of God’s kingdom, because they provided food, drink, hospitality, clothing, and care for the Son of Man who is Jesus.  For the goats, however, the news is not so good.  They are condemned because they didn’t perform these same acts of compassion. 

Now here’s an important twist.  It’s apparent that the people described as sheep had no idea whatsoever that when they performed an act of compassion for a person in need that, in fact, they performed a service for Jesus.  Likewise the goats did not have a clue that in their indifference toward people in need they neglected the Lord of all creation.  Both groups are stunned and cry out, “When was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison?”  Jesus’ reply is whenever you showed compassion, “to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

This is a dramatic disclosure.  Jesus is here, right now, among us in the world as the “least of these.”  And, at least according to this parable, our experience of salvation is intimately connected to whether or not we show hospitality to Jesus Christ, not adorned like a king, but in the familiar and too often ignored lives of the most vulnerable in our world.      

After all, Jesus, himself, lived and ministered in his own day among those that most of us try to avoid, perhaps, because they smell bad and have horrible hygenie.  Or perhaps they’re often times in jail, or can’t hold jobs (the popular saying is they don’t want to work), and, after all, they’re not very good examples for our children.  Moreover, they’re not very educated, may not have nice manners, may not be taking their medications, and they don’t live in our neighborhoods.

If we want to know and love Jesus, we must love those people society has deemed as unlovable because that’s where Jesus is today.  Jesus is in jail.  He’s in the ER with a bad cold because no other doctor will see him.  He’s hungry and thirsty and smells bad and is oftentimes unemployed, and when he does have a job he is overworked and underpaid.  Jesus doesn’t always have a home and often ends up in a shelter.  He is sometimes depressed because he can’t hold down a job and feels as if he’s failing his own family.  Jesus can’t always help his children with their homework because he can’t read himself or doesn’t speak the language.  

The irony of this parable is that it suggests that our salvation lies exactly with these people who we would much rather ignore—the least of these—because that’s where Jesus is today. 

The word salvation is often understood by Christians in the context of heaven and hell.  If you have salvation you spend eternal life in bliss with God and if you don’t, well, you will suffer eternally in hell with Satan.  In my opinion, that’s an insufficient understanding of the word.  Salvation is derived, at least, in part from the Hebrew word shalom which means peace.  Salvation is the experience of wholeness, of health, of peace, and of meaning.  It’s true that the fullness of salvation will only be known to us beyond the grave and gate of death.  However, we can have a foretaste of salvation in the here and now among the least of these because that’s where we will find Christ.    

Therefore, it is both our obligation and great joy to practice being with and serving people who are suffering.  Moreover, we need to get use to showing this sort of compassion so that selflessly serving others becomes second nature.  We are to serve and give without even thinking about it.  And in doing so, compassion becomes who we are.  As the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, once said, “We are to get used to marching with these hurting folks now because we’re going to be with them for a long time.”  Remember, it is the last, as Jesus’ tells us over and over again, who will be first—who will be the honored—in the kingdom of heaven.  

The task of serving those in need can seem overwhelming, but I don’t think it has to be.  Jesus doesn’t tell us that individually we have to serve hundreds of people, or organize mass community outreach, or radically influence public policy that affects the poor.  Though these are good goals, all we are called to do are small acts of service and ministry.  God will take it from there.  Henri Nouwen, the late Catholic priest and author, writes, “We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a part or our life…all of our life.”  It’s always the little things in life that make all the difference.

Where are our empty chairs?  What are we doing to remind ourselves to be agents of compassion in this world?  I for one am going to place an empty chair at my Thanksgiving table this year.   I need that chair to remind myself that gratitude should be expressed through action.  I need that chair to remind myself that there is always room for one more person at the table.  And I need that chair to remind myself that it’s among the “least of these” that I will find Christ and my salvation.  Perhaps you will consider joining me.  Amen.

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