Summing Up

Texts: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

Today we come to the end of our present Liturgical Year; next Sunday is the First Sunday in Advent, as we start the countdown to Christmas.  So we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King, the exaltation of Christ over all creation.  I often think of this Sunday as "Summing-up Sunday" because it gives us an opportunity to complete the jigsaw of the biblical story.  We can look back over the last year, centred this year round St Matthew's Gospel, and try to look at the big picture that has been put before us week by week in small pieces.  All the major events of the life cycle of Christ are there – his birth, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost; and, of course, his teaching, his instruction particularly to his disciples, those who seek to follow him in their daily lives, has been dealt with in some detail by St Matthew.  So we can usefully use today for summing up our Christian story.

But we need to give ourselves a word of caution here.  We need to remind ourselves that what we are summing up is the story so far.  It hasn't finished yet.  We can sum up only to the present time, while still looking ahead to all that is to come.  So perhaps we can use today for a sort of mid-term report, a check to see how we're doing, do we need to correct our course, or are we still on track?  And if we want to do that, where better to start than with our readings this morning, each of which makes at least one thing very clear.  The story does have an ending: it is not open-ended.  And a second point is this.  The story has a consistent plot.  God is not making it up as he goes along.  To get this clear it may be best to take these readings out of order, and to start with the second reading.

The whole of chapter 1 of the Letter to the Ephesians is one of those glorious passages that show the breadth and depth of St Paul's vision.  In just 23 verses he sets out God's mission statement for the whole of creation, and our role in it both as individuals and as the Church.  God's aim is to bring all things into a final unity and harmony in Christ.  That's the big picture.  And St Paul goes on to say that God has called each one of us to be a part of that, to help bring it about.  So if today we are preparing a sort of mid-term report, the question is, how are we doing?  Can we say that we are getting ever nearer the fulfilment of God's goal of universal unity and harmony, are we standing still, or are we going backwards?

And, of course, we can ask that question at very many levels, from personal to international.  Have I as an individual grown closer to God and to other people over the last twelve months or not?  Is my family more or less united than it was twelve months ago?  What about our parish, our diocese, the Anglican Church in Aoteroa, New Zealand and Polynesia, the worldwide Anglican Communion, the worldwide church in all its denominations, traditions and strands?  Are we going in the right direction, are we moving towards greater unity and harmony or not?

And, of course, we can apply the same criteria outside the Church as inside it.  Is our local community growing towards a greater togetherness, a caring for one another, or are we becoming less united and harmonious?  What of our city, our country, and our country's relationships with the other nations of the world?  Perhaps this is a particularly good time to ask these questions, with the election and installation of a new Government.  Should that be the true test of its policies and programmes in three years' time – are we more united and harmonious as a country, and have we got better relations with other countries?  That perhaps is the basis on which judgment should be given by the electorate in due course.

And judgment is the subject of our other two readings this morning.  Ezekiel gives us the image of God as the Shepherd of Israel; and there can be no doubt of the strong ethical element in this image.  I don't know enough about the behaviour of sheep to know how accurate some of the details in this passage are, but the point is clear.  The sheep will be sorted out according to how they have shared with the other members of the flock.  The fat and the sleek will be culled, because they are the bullies of the flock.   They grab all the best grass for themselves, and chase the weaker sheep away.  Worse still, they are careless towards the environment: they trample down the grass and pollute the waterways.  That charge has a strikingly modern sound to it, although it's usually the dairy industry that stands accused today.

The ethical message to us is strong.  Do we take for ourselves more than we need, and deny enough to the weak and the injured?  Are we careless with our environment?

The traditional interpretation of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats has long been along similar lines.  It is usually preached as a creed of social justice and outreach.  The sheep are the ones who care for the poor, the sick, the naked and prisoners; the goats are the ones who do not.  I must say, as one who has rather a soft spot for goats, I have never been comfortable with this parable, so I was pleased to see that this parable doesn't really say that.  It says we humankind (all the nations of the world) will be sorted out like a shepherd sorting his sheep from his goats; and the commentator I was reading assures me that the only point of the analogy is to stress how easily Christ the Judge will be able to recognise one group from the other.  We will be as different as sheep and goats.  I warmed to this man immediately.

But then he went on to challenge the main understanding of this parable.  He says it is not addressed to Christians as a sort of ethical charter, warning us that we will be culled if we do not act generously towards those in need.  Rather, he says it is directed to the persecuted Christian community at the time, assuring them that the "Gentiles" (the nations of the world, or non-believers) will be judged according to how they have treated the Christians sent to them to preach the gospel.  He points out that there is a strong strand in Jewish teaching that the nations of the world (the Gentiles) will be judged according to how they have treated Israel; so he says this parable simply develops this idea in terms of the Church as "the new Israel".

Well, that's a possibility, I suppose; but one of the great qualities of Scripture is its ability to speak to all people at all times in all circumstances.  It may well have conveyed a message of assurance to the persecuted community of Matthew's day; but the question for us is what the passage is teaching this community of faith today.  And the key to that question may be what we might call the pantomime element in the parable.  Think of how fairy stories, legends and pantomime plots work on the issue of the hidden identity.  The poor beggar turns out in reality to be the handsome prince; and there is something of that in this parable.

In fact, Christ's identity is hidden in two ways at the beginning of the story.  Suddenly we are told about "the King" without realising that he is Christ; then we discover that he is also hidden in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked and the prisoner.  In serving those, people served him; in failing to serve those, they failed to serve him.

And that is a very good place to end this liturgical year – to sum up the story so far; because threaded throughout the year is always the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth.  Who is the one who is to come?  Who is the babe in the manager?  Who is the one with extraordinary powers to calm the sea?  Who do people says he is – and who do we say he is?  Who is the one hanging on the Cross, the one whom a Roman soldier identified as the Son of God?

The story continues, and that central question remains.