Proper 29A
Almighty and
everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved
Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of
the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under
his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and for ever. Amen.
Proper 29 Collect, The
Book of Common Prayer, p. 236
This last Sunday of the lectionary year focuses on Christ as
King of kings and on God’s restoration of all things through Christ. The Gospel text, Matthew 25:31-46, first identifies Christ with a king sitting on “the throne of his glory”. As
Jesus describes what the king will do, however, we find Christ also identified
with the people in greatest need who are most likely to be ignored, the opposite
of a king seated in glory: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who
are members of my family, you did it to me.”
The meaning of this is plain: When we see people in need and
do what we can to meet their needs, we see and serve Christ. When we fail to
see those in need, or see them and ignore their needs, we fail to see and serve
Christ.
We know that in today’s global community, despite our access
to information from all over the world, those most affected by pollution and
climate change are often ignored and virtually unseen by people in other places.
Because of concern about our own water and land, Nebraskans
now know about the Alberta tar sands. What many of us do not know, however, are
the effects of the pollution from the mining of the tar sands on people living
downstream from it. This magazine
recently published a photo essay about the community of Fort Chipewyan and how
the health and culture of the people there have been affected by tar sands
mining.
UNICEF released a report on Monday called Children and Climate Change: Children’sVulnerabilities to Climate Change and Disaster Impacts in East Asia and the Pacific. The report describes ways in which children, because of their developing
bodies and immune systems and their place in society, are particularly
vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. It describes the direct impacts
from storms and higher temperatures; the increase in diseases such as cholera,
diarrheal disease, dengue, and malaria; and psychological, educational, and
nutritional impacts of climate change. Here also, the situations described are
nearly unknown and/or ignored by people in our part of the world, but the
report stresses that they are very real to the children in that part of the
world.
These are only two examples of situations in which we fail
to see those in need or see them and ignore their needs, thus failing to see
and serve Christ. Our Sunday lessons remind us that Christ is King of kings but
is also identified with the poorest of the poor. To forget either – that Christ
is the ultimate authority or that Christ is found among those people we easily
ignore – leads us to all sorts of moral and theological error and weakens the
church’s ability to serve God’s children.
This Sunday's passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 1:15-23) says that the church is the body of Christ. If the church serves as the body of
Christ, we must be about the work of reconciliation and restoration, which
dovetails with the work of seeing and serving those in need. Working towards the restoration of all things
in creation, including eliminating pollution and curbing global warming, would
do a lot towards making clean water, ample and healthy food, and healing
available to all of God’s children. If we are the authentic church, the body of
Christ, we will be about this work, seeing and serving the poorest of the poor
in the name of the King of kings.
