The Great Judgment... In Context

PROPERS:          PROPER 29, YEAR A (Last Sunday after the Epiphany)     

TEXT:                MATTHEW 25:31-46                

PREACHED AT ST. ST. JOHN’S, PASCAGOULA, ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2023.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The call of the Great Judgement is not to some distant place; it is a call to our current surroundings.        

 

            The gospel passage today – the Great Judgement – is one of the most frequently quoted and most ignored parables in the gospels.

 

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            Years ago, I sat in the nave of St. Thomas’ Church, Diamondhead, with Bishop Leo Frade, the then-bishop of the Diocese of Honduras.  We were discussing Mississippi’s annual medical mission to the remote village of San Juaquin in the mountains of Honduras.

 

            I asked Bishop Frade how he would describe the importance of that mission.

 

            He thought for a moment.  Then he began with words from the 25^th chapter of Matthew: “As you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.” And then he told the story recounted in our gospel lesson today.

 

            The Honduras Medical Mission, which continues to this day, was born, of course, out of the sense of Christian mission that the late Dr. Bob Donald from here at St. John’s felt.  It’s first effort was launched from this very parish.

 

            Each year, thousands of dirt-poor Hondurans receive life-changing medical, dental, and veterinary care from the successors to that first team that was launched by this congregation.  A symbiotic relationship has developed between those of us who are materially-blessed, and the impoverished villagers of the central Honduran mountains.

 

            Because of the sweat-equity and finances committed to that mission, San Juaquin now has electricity, clean water, ongoing medical care, and other necessities for a developed community.  To go on a mission trip there is a life-changing experience.

 

            A great illustration:  Years ago, when I was rector of Church of the Resurrection in Starkville, we sponsored the mission for two years.  Upon returning from Honduras on our first mission, the team leader came to me before Sunday service, having just returned from Honduras. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, “David, I have seen the Lord.”

 

            He had had a spiritual epiphany. In the least of these he had encountered Jesus.

 

            I don’t know that I ever heard Dr. Bob express it this way, but as we had done it to the least of these, we had done it to the Lord.

 

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            But there was another side to it.

 

            The next year, I was talking with a member of the Starkville congregation, a pediatrician, encouraging him to go on the next mission to Honduras.  His care of children could be very helpful in San Juaquin.

 

            I was stunned when he said, “No.” I asked him why.

 

            His response was telling… and gently confronting. “We have thousands of people – children and adults – fifty miles from here who live in abject poverty and need the same things.” He was speaking of the Mississippi Delta, of course. He went on: “Why doesn’t the Diocese of Mississippi have a mission there?”

 

            He was right, of course. I backed off and thought.

 

            The passage we just read, the Great Judgement, isn’t a geography lesson.  It does not say as you have done it to the least of these in another country, you have done it to me. It says, simply, as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me. Here, In Jackson County, and in the Mississippi Delta. Wherever there are God’s children. Wherever there is need.

 

            This is not to diminish the wonderful work the Diocese of Mississippi and the successors to Dr. Bob Donald have done in Honduras.  The work there has been remarkable.  The results have been amazing.  Lives have been transformed. And it all came to be from this parish, and your sense of mission.  You have done other things since.

 

            We should not beat our breasts over our limits and inability to respond. We grow in an openness to the mandates of Jesus’ teaching.  But we should remain open.

 

            We need to remember that the work is never done.  It is a different take on Jesus’ saying, “The harvest in plentiful, but the laborers are few.”  There are ongoing needs at our doors, and the Great Judgement calls to us.

 

            It is up to us to answer.