Kenneth L. Nelson - "The Star Thrower" (November 21, 1999)
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| - | The third reading is from the Gospel according | 0:07 |
| to St. Matthew, the 25th chapter. | 0:09 | |
| When the Son of Man comes in his glory, | 0:13 | |
| and all the angels with him, | 0:15 | |
| then he will sit on the throne of his glory. | 0:17 | |
| All the nations will be gathered before him, | 0:21 | |
| and he will separate people one from another | 0:23 | |
| as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. | 0:26 | |
| And he will put the sheep at his right hand | 0:30 | |
| and the goats at the left. | 0:32 | |
| Then the king will say to those at his right hand, | 0:34 | |
| "Come, you that are blessed by my Father. | 0:37 | |
| "Inherit the kingdom prepared for you | 0:39 | |
| "from the foundation of the world. | 0:42 | |
| "For I was hungry and you gave me food. | 0:44 | |
| "I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. | 0:47 | |
| "I was a stranger and you welcomed me. | 0:50 | |
| "I was naked and you gave me clothing. | 0:53 | |
| "I was sick and you took care of me. | 0:56 | |
| "I was in prison and you visited me." | 0:58 | |
| Then the righteous will answer him, | 1:02 | |
| "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry | 1:04 | |
| "and gave you food, or thirsty | 1:07 | |
| "and gave you something to drink? | 1:10 | |
| "And when was it that we saw you a stranger | 1:12 | |
| "and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? | 1:14 | |
| "And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison | 1:18 | |
| "and visited you?" | 1:21 | |
| Then the King will answer them, "Truly I tell you, | 1:23 | |
| "just as you did to to one of the least of these | 1:27 | |
| "who are members of my family, you did it to me." | 1:30 | |
| Then he will say to those at his left hand, | 1:34 | |
| "You that are accursed, depart from me | 1:36 | |
| into this eternal fire | 1:40 | |
| "prepared for the Devil and his angels. | 1:41 | |
| "For I was hungry and you gave me no food. | 1:44 | |
| "I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. | 1:47 | |
| "I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, | 1:51 | |
| "naked and you did not give me clothing, | 1:55 | |
| "sick and in prison and you did not visit me." | 1:58 | |
| Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it | 2:02 | |
| "that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked | 2:05 | |
| "or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?" | 2:10 | |
| Then he will answer them, "Truly I tell you, | 2:14 | |
| "just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, | 2:17 | |
| "you did not do it to me." | 2:20 | |
| And these will go away into eternal punishment, | 2:23 | |
| but the righteous into eternal life. | 2:26 | |
| This is the word of the Lord. | 2:28 | |
| - | Thanks be to God. | 2:31 |
| - | Let us pray. | 2:41 |
| Come, Holy Spirit, with all of thy quickening power. | 2:44 | |
| Give us ears to hear and lives that we might obey. | 2:48 | |
| Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening, amen. | 2:53 | |
| Today is the Sunday that the Christian church | 3:01 | |
| calls Christ the King Sunday. | 3:04 | |
| It is the last Sunday before Advent, the church's New Year. | 3:07 | |
| Sunday after Sunday, 52 Sundays a year, | 3:12 | |
| we say aloud together in the words of the Apostles' Creed, | 3:15 | |
| "From thence he will come to judge the quick and the dead." | 3:20 | |
| And again this day in the words of the Nicene Creed, | 3:24 | |
| we shall reaffirm our belief | 3:27 | |
| that his kingdom will have no end. | 3:30 | |
| During the past 51 Sundays, | 3:35 | |
| we received the Christ as the child of Bethlehem. | 3:37 | |
| We saw the glory of God manifested in the growing boy. | 3:41 | |
| We watched the enmity of religious leaders | 3:46 | |
| grow more and more intense | 3:48 | |
| until they nailed him upon a tree. | 3:51 | |
| We exulted in his conquest of death. | 3:54 | |
| We received his Spirit at Pentecost, and for months now, | 3:58 | |
| we've reviewed his miracles and teachings. | 4:03 | |
| Now near the end, we look forward to his coming again. | 4:08 | |
| Now on this Christ the King Sunday, | 4:13 | |
| he is here to settle accounts. | 4:16 | |
| Everything about our worship this day, | 4:20 | |
| everything affirms the glory and the majesty of Christ, | 4:23 | |
| our music, the Scripture lessons, the creeds, the prayer, | 4:27 | |
| all affirm the honor and glory of Christ's name. | 4:31 | |
| Again, in a few moments, the choir will reiterate | 4:37 | |
| that theme as they joyously proclaim, | 4:40 | |
| "The Lord of Hosts, he is the king of glory." | 4:42 | |
| In the end, we will sing with uplifted hearts and spirits, | 4:47 | |
| "Rejoice, the Lord is king. | 4:50 | |
| "Your Lord and king adore. | 4:52 | |
| "Mortals give thanks and sing and triumph evermore." | 4:55 | |
| Lift up your hearts. | 5:01 | |
| Lift up your voice, again, I say rejoice. | 5:03 | |
| Everything, everything points to the power and majesty | 5:09 | |
| of Christ the King, but | 5:13 | |
| what a funny king! | 5:19 | |
| No purple robes, no crown, no legions of soldiers, | 5:21 | |
| no great processions and parades. | 5:27 | |
| No castle, no place to live, period. | 5:31 | |
| Rather, he claims to be poor and hungry, | 5:37 | |
| a stranger and in prison, sick and thirsty. | 5:41 | |
| He claims to have nowhere to lay his head. | 5:45 | |
| And he says to us, his disciples, | 5:49 | |
| "See all these sisters and brothers of mine | 5:52 | |
| "who are homeless like me? | 5:54 | |
| "They are me, I am them. | 5:57 | |
| "To serve me, you must serve them. | 6:01 | |
| "When I come back, I will see what you are doing | 6:05 | |
| "and whom you serve." | 6:09 | |
| the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew | 6:12 | |
| is the last statement of Christ's parables, | 6:15 | |
| three in number. | 6:18 | |
| Each parable reveals that it is the good things | 6:20 | |
| that we fail to do, not merely the bad things | 6:22 | |
| that we finally accomplish, that brings consequences to bear | 6:26 | |
| on our eternal life. | 6:30 | |
| Interestingly, it is not immorality but indifference | 6:32 | |
| that Jesus employs as the great problem. | 6:38 | |
| The foolish virgins were indifferent or negligent | 6:43 | |
| regarding their need for oil in their lamps. | 6:45 | |
| The lazy servant was indifferent and uncaring | 6:48 | |
| about making an investment. | 6:51 | |
| The goats representing the callous | 6:54 | |
| were indifferent about human need, | 6:56 | |
| and all of these, all of these, disturbingly, | 7:01 | |
| were banished to eternal life without God, | 7:05 | |
| not for the presence of some terrible evil | 7:08 | |
| but for the absence of some terrible good. | 7:11 | |
| Then at the end of the whole Gospel, | 7:18 | |
| at the end of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says, | 7:20 | |
| "Lo, I am with you to the end of the age." | 7:23 | |
| But you see the problem, don't you? | 7:29 | |
| We think he's not here | 7:32 | |
| and that he cannot see what we're doing. | 7:35 | |
| But he says he is with us always, | 7:38 | |
| even until the end of the age. | 7:42 | |
| He already sees us. | 7:45 | |
| He knows who we are with and whom we are serving | 7:46 | |
| and we cannot expect to wait until the last minute | 7:51 | |
| before his coming and then scramble to do the work | 7:54 | |
| that we know that he has sent us to do already. | 7:56 | |
| We cannot deceive him into thinking | 8:01 | |
| that we have been doing it all along | 8:03 | |
| because he never left. | 8:07 | |
| "I am these people," he says. | 8:10 | |
| "The poor you will always have with you. | 8:13 | |
| "I am with you 'til the end of the age. | 8:16 | |
| "I am the poor, they are always with you. | 8:19 | |
| "I am always with you. | 8:24 | |
| "I am them, they are me, serve me through them!" | 8:26 | |
| The truth is we can scramble and rearrange the words | 8:31 | |
| in any way that we wish, but it always comes out the same. | 8:35 | |
| It is a description of what life in the kingdom is like, | 8:41 | |
| and we are the people of the kingdom. | 8:47 | |
| The ministry of laypersons is to represent Christ | 8:52 | |
| in his church, to bear witness to him wherever you may be, | 8:54 | |
| and according to the gifts given to you | 8:58 | |
| to carry out Christ's work of reconciliation in the world | 9:01 | |
| and to take your place in the life, worship, | 9:05 | |
| and governance of the church. | 9:08 | |
| That's what Jesus is talking about. | 9:10 | |
| God equips us to do the work that God calls us to do. | 9:13 | |
| God gives us gifts. | 9:18 | |
| Not all of us have the same gifts, | 9:21 | |
| but all of us have gifts important to God. | 9:23 | |
| We are not expected to do any more | 9:27 | |
| than God has equipped us to do, and of course, | 9:29 | |
| we are not expected to do anything less | 9:32 | |
| with those gifts that God allows. | 9:35 | |
| The life of faith is about working in the world, | 9:39 | |
| working for the work of reconciliation, | 9:43 | |
| of peace, of justice. | 9:46 | |
| When Jesus returns, he will expect to see us | 9:50 | |
| carrying out his work, bearing fruit worthy of repentance, | 9:53 | |
| reconciling the world, choosing the way of life | 9:58 | |
| instead of the way of death, yet often, | 10:01 | |
| it seems just too much. | 10:05 | |
| There are too many hungry, too many poor, | 10:08 | |
| too many lonely people for us | 10:11 | |
| to make any difference whatsoever. | 10:13 | |
| There is an interesting story told about a scientist, | 10:18 | |
| about a writer, Loren Eiseley. | 10:22 | |
| Eiseley was in the south of France on the coast | 10:26 | |
| attending a scientific symposium. | 10:27 | |
| He woke up early one morning | 10:31 | |
| and went for a walk on the beach before sunrise. | 10:33 | |
| As he moved through the misty dawn, he focused in | 10:36 | |
| on a faint, faraway figure. | 10:39 | |
| It was a youth, bending and reaching, flinging his arms, | 10:42 | |
| seemingly dancing on the beach before sunrise. | 10:47 | |
| Eiseley thought, "No doubt he is dancing in celebration | 10:51 | |
| "of the new day about to begin." | 10:55 | |
| As he came near, he realized that the youth | 10:58 | |
| was not dancing at all but rather, he was bending over | 11:00 | |
| to sift through the debris left by the night tide, | 11:05 | |
| stopping now and then to pick up a starfish, | 11:09 | |
| and then standing and heaving it back into the sea. | 11:12 | |
| He asked the youth for the purpose of his efforts. | 11:17 | |
| "What are you doing?" he asked. | 11:20 | |
| "The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach, | 11:24 | |
| "and they cannot return to the sea | 11:27 | |
| "by themselves," he replied. | 11:28 | |
| "When the sun rises, they will die, | 11:31 | |
| "and people will come from town to pick them up | 11:33 | |
| "and sell them in the marketplace. | 11:36 | |
| "I throw them back into the sea | 11:39 | |
| "so that they might live another day." | 11:40 | |
| As the youth explained, Eiseley surveyed the vast expanse | 11:44 | |
| of beach stretching both directions beyond his sight. | 11:48 | |
| Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond calculation. | 11:52 | |
| The youth's plan seemed hopeless, futile. | 11:58 | |
| "But there are more starfish on this beach | 12:03 | |
| "than you can ever save before the sun comes up. | 12:05 | |
| "Surely you cannot expect to make a difference." | 12:08 | |
| The youth paused to consider his words. | 12:13 | |
| Then he bent down and picked up a starfish, | 12:17 | |
| and whirled around and threw it as far as was possible. | 12:20 | |
| Turning to the scientist, he said simply, | 12:26 | |
| "I made a difference for that one," | 12:31 | |
| and kept dancing down the beach. | 12:34 | |
| Eiseley went back to his room and to the conference. | 12:39 | |
| All of his life, he had understand the coming and going | 12:43 | |
| of life to be a part of the way of the universe. | 12:46 | |
| Natural selection, he thought. | 12:49 | |
| Until seeing the young man on the beach, | 12:52 | |
| it had never occurred to him how important it is | 12:55 | |
| for one creature to help another and how seemingly, | 12:59 | |
| the natural order of things might be dramatically altered | 13:03 | |
| by the simple actions of one person. | 13:07 | |
| The next morning, Eiseley awoke | 13:14 | |
| and again went down to the sea before dawn, | 13:16 | |
| but this time, he joined the youth in a dance of life, | 13:20 | |
| one starfish at a time. | 13:26 | |
| Never before had he felt so alive, | 13:30 | |
| so connected to our creator God. | 13:33 | |
| Whatever talents each of us has been given, | 13:39 | |
| they are more than sufficient for us to do our part | 13:43 | |
| in the dance of life. | 13:46 | |
| Each simple action of our lives can make a difference | 13:49 | |
| in carrying out Jesus' work of reconciliation in the world. | 13:52 | |
| To we are called by the name of Christ, | 13:58 | |
| love the least among us. | 14:01 | |
| If not, be cautioned, | 14:05 | |
| if so, be blessed. | 14:09 | |
| For it is the choice of caring over indifference | 14:13 | |
| that distinguishes greatness from mediocrity. | 14:17 | |
| We are the people who carry out the mission of the church, | 14:21 | |
| which is the mission of Jesus Christ, | 14:25 | |
| our odd, unique king. | 14:28 | |
| This is called life in the kingdom. | 14:33 | |
| Bending, reaching, flinging our arms | 14:40 | |
| one starfish at a time, | 14:45 | |
| we bring ourselves closer to others, | 14:48 | |
| closer to God, and closer to ourselves. | 14:52 | |
| When Christ the King comes to judge | 14:58 | |
| both the living and the dead, the question will be, | 15:02 | |
| "How have you served the least among us?" | 15:08 | |
| Thanks to be God, Amen. | 15:15 |
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