Sermon: Being and Becoming Proclaimers

Matthew 25:31-46

Oh, parables. . .

This parable about the sheep and goats is one many of us have probably heard before. And we may have heard it many times. Parables, these teachings of Jesus, are all challenging. But there’s something about this one that catches our attention and shakes us in our boots, so to speak. It convicts us in ways that are more challenging than we might have bargained for when we decided to come here tonight.

And perhaps that’s what we need.

You know, maybe when we say “Thanks be to God” at the end of this scripture, we’re doing something deeper than spouting off some empty, liturgical phrase. Maybe we’re thanking God for conviction. Maybe we’re thanking God for who we’ll be as a result. Maybe we’re thanking God for the opportunity to remember who we are, Whose we are, and who we are ultimately called to live toward in this world. Thank you, God for this challenging parable. Thanks be to God.

Who might we be as a result of this parable? And how will we practice it – how will we live it out as a community, a family of faith? How will we practice our faith? – This question is one we’re being intentional about these days. For the first part of our semester, we’re thinking out loud about spiritual practices together. We’re thinking about the ways that spiritual practices might help us truly live – truly live in light of our relationship to God, and truly live in light of our relationship to other people.

So who and how will we be now that we’ve heard this parable on September 14th, 2008?

I had an interesting experience this week. A very interesting experience, an eye opening one to be honest. On Tuesday afternoon, I walked over to the bank on Guadalupe, and something caught my attention. There was a big black and yellow banner which spoke loudly with warning: ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT, JESUS WILL CAST SINNERS INTO THE LAKE OF FIRE. (Those might not be the exact words, but they’re pretty close.) And also loud with warning was a young man – a street preacher. Later, I learned that his name was Jesse. “The Bible says – The Bible says – the Bible says.” This was the refrain, loud and with warning.

So after this banner and these words got my attention, I decided to go across the street and check out what Jesse had to say. There were about fifty people gathered on Tuesday to listen to him. It was interesting to hear his message and watch the students respond.

Nearly everything Jesse said was to serve one purpose: His ultimate goal was to convince the students who gathered on the West Mall that they were bad enough to need a Savior. He went through a litany of actions that he proclaimed to be sinful. The obvious ones were listed – don’t steal, for instance. It seemed that his goal was to get us to agree that stealing was wrong and condemned in the Bible. Then he would convince everyone that they were all thieves and in obvious need of Jesus Christ, the remedy to our wrongdoings.

But some of the sinful actions were not obvious cases of what we might label as “wrongdoing.” Jesse singled out a young woman for what she was wearing. She had claimed to be a Christian, and Jesse said that Christians don’t dress like that. After all she was giving Jesus a "bad name." As a result, Jesse got a ticket on the street for sexual harassment. He also singled out a young man who was carrying a pink backpack. Jesse said that was too "effeminate," a sin he believed to be condemned in 1st Corinthians. (By the way, he made a big leap in translation to get to a word like “effeminate.” A big stretch theologically too.) Jesse said that he himself had not sinned on that particular day, and in fact, he hadn’t sinned that entire week.

As you can imagine, lots of people were offended by Jesse’s message. He stood out there every day this week – Monday through Friday -- and spoke the same message loudly and with warning. And many people got pretty upset about it. But to be fair to Jesse, I really believe that he believed this was the loving thing to do. Many times, he told us that he was out there because he loved us. “Love does not tolerate sin,” he claimed and repeated and repeated.

But perhaps what was most interesting to me was this: Even though his message was offensive and divisive, I watched a host of students – students who were completely diverse --come together have conversations they probably never would have had with each other. I watched one young woman burst into tears and say to Jesse, “I feel like you’re trashing my faith. I feel like you’re completely misrepresenting what I believe in.” People who had no faith affiliation or formal belief system really felt for her. I watched them. I saw her talk with two strangers about it, two people who may have had no faith community at all.

And it was strange and beautiful to watch people who would normally sharply disagree, come together to talk about what really matters to them. Maybe Jesse’s offensive speech helped them speak and listen to one another in ways that were caring. Maybe his proclamation set an example they didn’t want to follow. Monologue somehow turned into dialog. People learned the names of those around them, and they all talked about what was ultimately true to them.

It was something I was energized an honored to be a part of. And on Wednesday, Caleb, Patrick, Seena, and I went back over, and we took some cookies over there, handed them out, and had conversation. If people asked, we told them we were a part of Austin Agape, but most of the time, we just struck up conversation and learned from a bunch of people. It was very moving.

And you know, it would be easy to brush Jesse aside completely, but I have to admit that I learned from him too. Last week, we talked about the spiritual practice of prayer, and I challenged us all – myself included – with this: When we’re praying for people, we’re ultimately pledging ourselves toward them. Often our prayers lead us to encounters – even uncomfortable encounters. I asked this: “What if someone with a completely different theology has something to say to you?” Well, I got what I prayed for. I may disagree with how Jesse uses and interprets the Bible. I may strongly disagree, but I had to ask myself, “What’s my relationship to the Bible these days? Am I challenging myself with it? Am I reading it? Am I taking it seriously?” Jesse had something to say to me too.

And Jesse made me think about proclamation, a spiritual practice we would all do well to consider. He certainly had a message to proclaim. And I may have disagreed with that message, but what am I proclaiming these days? What am I proclaiming with my words and with my actions? And what does it mean to proclaim? How might our community practice the spiritual discipline of proclamation?

Well, for starters we have this parable. We have this difficult, challenging parable. It isn’t necessarily difficult because it challenges our belief system. I think we all would agree that we should feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and visit those who are sick and in prison. But what’s convicting is that we have to say to ourselves: I agree with this, but am I living this? And even more challenging is that Jesus says when we practice these ministries of compassion among the least of these, we’re practicing them to him! And when we don’t practice these ministries among the least of these, we’re not practicing them – to him! This parable certainly proclaims a message to us – a difficult, challenging message.

So here’s one sermon we could preach tonight: We could say, “Well, we don’t want our proclamation to be like Jesse’s, so we won’t proclaim with words. We’ll proclaim with deeds! We’ll do all of these things listed in the parable, easy as pie, and when it comes to words about faith – especially when it comes to words about Jesus -- we’ll keep quiet like good little, blessed-of-the-Father sheep.”

Easy enough? Well maybe not. If we did that, we would just be doing something similar to what we reviled against. We would be splitting up our understanding into “Us and Them” thinking. There’s “Us Christians” and “Them Christians.” “Doer Christians” and “Talker Christians.” “Justice Christians” and “Bible-Thumping Christians.” Well, maybe proclamation is deeper than keeping quiet when other people are loud. Maybe it’s deeper than trying to be the polar opposite of people who proclaim a message we might be uncomfortable with.

Instead, maybe it’s about adding our voice to the dialogue. Maybe it’s bringing our deepest questions and our best insights into conversation. Maybe it’s about listening. Maybe we need to be proclaimed to. Maybe it’s about listening to people we would disagree with. Maybe it’s about listening to the scriptures. After all, don’t they proclaim a message to us and give us a message to proclaim?

So what does this scripture proclaim to us? It proclaims a life of orientation. We are called to live toward those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and in prison. And Jesus certainly lives toward them – so much so that he says they are the “least of these who are members of my family.” Jesus lives toward them so much that when we do the same, we are living and loving the Son of Man ourselves. What if we made them members of our family?

Well, if we did that, we would be entering the spiritual practice of proclamation. Our lives would be a sermon of inclusion. We, Austin Agape, would preach a message to this church, and we would proclaim a message to Austin, Texas.

And a family shouldn’t involve “us and them” language either. It’s not simply that we have a message of hope to proclaim to the hungry, thirsty, naked, and sick by offering our food, drink, clothing, and visitation. We do have that message, and that is a message we ought to proclaim. But the least of these have a message to proclaim too. They have a claim on us. There are experiences we haven’t been able to imagine. There are ways of knowing God’s love that we might too often ignore. If we practice the proclamation of this scripture – if we live toward the least of these – we’re pledging to listen and to add their voice to the conversation. We’re proclaiming God’s love in dialogue to one another. We need the least of these, and sometimes, we might even be the least of these to someone else. We are called to proclaim a life of living toward one another.

And so here’s something interesting. When the sheep of this parable lived this way – lived their orientation toward the least of these -- they weren’t doing it to check off a list of do-good actions. They also weren’t holding up banners of warning and checking off a list of sinful actions to avoid. When the Son of Man told them they had practiced these ministries of compassion toward him, they were surprised. “When did we do any of these things for you?” They had entered a life of this orientation so fully that it wasn’t to gain laurels for themselves. It wasn’t to be saved or to get some kind of fire insurance. It’s just a part of who they were.

And how can we do something similar? We can become proclaimers by practicing. We can put these ministries into practice. If we do, we will proclaim a beautiful message. We may just end up having conversations we would never have otherwise.

Every Sunday night, we come into this worship space, and we experience a sermon together. That’s certainly a form of proclamation. And I say we experience a sermon because it’s an event, and often, it’s the impetus that sets a string of events into motion. The sermon isn’t confined to the words that are said. And it certainly isn’t about the preacher. The sermon includes the scripture and words that the preacher says, but it also includes the thoughts, emotions, and actions that emerge in the community as a result. You are not only part of the sermon. You are the sermon. You are preachers – proclaimers – every time you put this scripture into action.

So how will we do it this week? Will we talk to someone on the street? Will we listen? Will we call someone who’s struggling? Will we have conversation with some of the 90 some-odd people who gather in this room every Tuesday morning at a food pantry? How will we put our faith into practice?

Who and how will we be now that we’ve heard this parable on September 14th, 2008?

- Renée Roederer, Campus Minister