Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on November 26, 2023, Reign of Christ Sunday. Based on Matthew 25:31-46.
Much of modern political philosophy is based on the idea that we are individuals who enter a social contract. That is, the natural state of humanity is fully independent with full freedom, but we choose to give up some of our freedoms for the sake of living together in harmony. I say, hogwash. Rene Descartes famously said, “Cogito ergo sum,” which means, “I think, therefore I am.” He was asserting his identity separate from any social constructs. An ethics teacher once said that his response to Descartes is, “Who taught you Latin?”
The truth is that we are naturally oriented towards community. We connect naturally to our family, then our clan, then our tribe. Think about it: throughout the Bible, people are identified as being the son or daughter of someone else. We use surnames now that basically keep track of what clan we are in. I naturally desire to take care of my wife, my children, my siblings, and my parents. Even people who have difficult relationships with their family of origin are in some sense defined by those relationships. Beyond our immediate family, we have a natural affinity for our clan—I am a Kimball, so I always perk up when I see a reference to another Kimball. I care more about my cousins than about some random people.
This is entirely natural. Humanity has succeeded in ways that other species haven’t because we are cultural. We learn from one another and prioritize our relationships with our community. We cannot survive without the cultural knowledge we have inherited or without the support we get from other people, both close at hand and far away. In modern society, we have somewhat transcended the natural ties of blood relatives to include chosen family, those friends and neighbors and church members who make our lives more complete.
Let me share a story with you about the limits of independence. When I go elk hunting, I feel like I’m independent because I carry all of my own supplies—my own tent and clothes and food and water. But where did those all come from? I didn’t make my tent, or my sleeping bag, or my rifle, or any of the hundred other things I carry. I bought basically everything I need. I pump my own water from a stream, but I use a filter pump that I purchased and fill a collapsible jug that I purchased.
On my most recent trip, on the last day of hunting, we were walking out with a couple of older guys that Wayne had met on a previous trip. Ron and Tom are both in their seventies. It was dusk, probably after official sunset, dark enough that we were all using our headlamps. Ron had a little bitty flashlight. He tripped and fell and dislocated his shoulder. The pain was excruciating. Now, if I did that in Rolla, it would be terrible, but I might be able to drive myself to the hospital, or at the least, an ambulance would be five minutes away. Up on the mountain, though, we were half a mile as the crow flies, and a longer walk, to where Ron could get in a pickup truck, then an hour-and-a-half drive to a hospital. All told, I think there were nine guys involved in helping Ron get out to where he could get medical help. Two of us stayed with Ron to help him keep awake and keep moving; one guy called 911; two guys went ahead to find some other guys who had a chainsaw and a UTV and could drive partway to meet us.
When an emergency like that happens, everybody pitches in to help. That’s because we all recognize that we are ultimately not truly individuals, not truly independent. We need our community. We helped Ron because someone once helped us, or we know that someday we will need help, or at a minimum, we recognize our shared humanity. We are fundamentally connected to each other.
Jesus taught his disciples that “the least of these,” those who are in need, are his brothers and sisters. We naturally organize society into family, clan, tribe, and nation, concentric circles of mutual obligation. But Jesus said that actually, we are all in his family.
When I first started preaching, Rhonda would ask me what my sermon was going to be about. I think she finally got tired of my answer always being the same: the kingdom of God is at hand! That was Jesus’s primary message, the coming of his kingdom that we celebrate on this last Sunday of our church year. We have spent the past few weeks studying parables about the kingdom of God, and this week, we reach the climax. But what is Christ’s kingdom? Well, a mujerista theologian named Ada María Isasi-Díaz said that a better word to use is “kin-dom,” without the “g.” That is, Christ’s kingdom is not like the ancient kingdoms where a strong man (always a man) lords his power over his subjects. Instead, it is like a family, where all of us are equal and all of us are loved by our holy brother and holy father. The text we read today is Jesus’s last message before the events that led to his crucifixion, so it is the most important message he had to give his disciples. The kingdom of God is instead a kin-dom, a state of being where everyone is kin, everyone is family, everyone cares for each other, everyone lifts up the downtrodden, feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and cares for the prisoner.
This is actually a very simple message. What do you do when you see someone who is hungry? You feed them. Period. It is simple, but extremely difficult. First, there are limited resources. I cannot personally feed everyone who is hungry. Second, Jesus’s calling is counter to our society’s values and our inherent sense of fairness. So, instead of obeying this simple but difficult teaching, we make it complex. We say, well, sure, feed the hungry, but Jesus certainly didn’t mean everyone, did he? What if the hungry person is a criminal? What if the hungry person is from somewhere else far away? What if the hungry person seems like they could work and feed themselves? Surely Jesus didn’t mean for us to sacrifice our limited resources for those people, right? Surely Jesus only meant for us to feed the worthy hungry people. Surely Jesus only meant for us to house the stranger if they are here legally. Surely Jesus only meant for us to care for those imprisoned without cause, not those who are guilty. Right?
I don’t think so. Jesus was pretty clear, actually. He said, “I was hungry, and you gave me food.” He said, “Whatever you do for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you do to me.”
This is a hard teaching. Yes, I know that there is a place for tough love. We probably all know people who have been given second and third and fifth and tenth chances and continue to fall short. Our goal should be that all people become thriving, full members of our community and of God’s family. Sometimes, that means helping people develop some skills, including life management skills, through tough love. But tough love only works if its root is love, not if its root is toughness. It only works if you are in a personal and loving relationship with someone and they know that your actions flow from that love.
There’s a saying, “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” Sure. I agree—we should be in the business of helping people become better versions of themselves. But it’s a whole lot easier to learn how to fish if you’re not starving. You can give a man a fish and then teach him how to fish. Another analogy I heard is a fire. If someone’s house is on fire, you don’t focus on finding out what caused it. You put the fire out. You save the people and belongings and prevent further damage. And then you try to find out what caused the fire so you can prevent another one, and also help the people put their lives back together.
Coming back to our friend Ron with the dislocated shoulder, we could have tried to put his shoulder back in the socket. But here’s the thing: We didn’t know what the actual problem was. He couldn’t feel his forearm and couldn’t move his fingers, so we didn’t know if the issue was his shoulder or his elbow. For all we knew, he had broken his humerus and somehow pinched a nerve. At some point a few years ago, he had had surgery on that shoulder, which complicated the situation. We could have tried to solve the problem right then and there, but we didn’t really know what we were doing.
So instead, we found someone who did know what they were doing, and we accompanied Ron until he got help. We didn’t let him suffer alone. We gave him as much comfort and assistance as we could until we were able to get him to a medical professional, whose first act was to give him a shot of something that would enable him to bear the pain. Survival first, long-term solution later.
Just a few days ago, America celebrated Thanksgiving. This is a day we set aside to remember all the good things in our lives and all that we have to be thankful for. It was first celebrated as a national holiday in 1789, our first harvest season as the United States of America under the Constitution. It was celebrated intermittently until 1863, when, at the height of the bloody Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was convinced to proclaim a national day of thanks. No matter the pain and suffering and discord and evil in our nation, we still acknowledge that we have been richly blessed. Human nature is to focus on the negative, so it is essential to have a day that we focus on the positive and expressing gratitude.
One of my spiritual practices is to identify three things each day for which I am thankful. My rule is that I can’t list the same thing two days in a row, so that I take a broad survey of my life. The natural response to identifying these blessings in my life is that I am moved to give more of myself to my family and community. Perhaps we should expand our personal thanksgiving reflections to congregational thanksgiving.
We have much to be thankful for. I know that I complain about the ridiculous layout of the sanctuary, but it is a beautiful worship space. It has great acoustics and a pipe organ. We have great staff—Jeff and Lorie here in worship with us, plus Katie in the office, Tracy to direct the preschool, and many other staff who enable us to serve the children of our community. We have lots of people who have stepped up to provide leadership in all spheres of our operations. And above all, we have each other to provide mutual support on our walks with God.
Our gratitude for the blessings on this congregation should move us to greater acts of service. We have been welcomed into God’s family, and so we should help others thrive as members of God’s family. We see the image of God in each other, so we should seek God’s image in people throughout the community.
In Jesus’s last message to the crowds before the events that led to his arrest and execution, he told them the basis on which all nations would be judged. He didn’t say that they would be judged on their beliefs or their words. He said that they would be judged on their actions to build his kin-dom by caring for all his siblings. Let us respond to the gifts God has bestowed upon us by caring for our community, not asking what people have earned, but providing what they need to thrive as God’s image-bearers. Amen.
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