This morning’s Gospel lesson is a very difficult one for me. The lesson is a story or a saying concerning the coming of the end - the judgment. Jesus is laying out before his disciples what will happen when he comes for the second time. He tells us the questions that are going to be asked of each of us: "Did you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, did you visit the sick, did you make the stranger welcome?" Basically what he is asking us is, how did we relate with each other? How did we relate with our fellow human beings? Were we kind? Were we compassionate? Did we care? Did we reach out? Those are very normal kinds of statements for a Christian to make, so how can it be that a pastor has trouble with a text that asks those kinds of questions; after all, isn’t that what our faith is all about?

It’s not the concepts that I have trouble with; it’s the daily life and the daily living out of those principles so I can say, "Oh, yes, I follow that." I guess the place that I have the most trouble with that text is during the week when I sit in the office. The economic times being as bad as they are, more and more frequently we have somebody coming into the office during the week asking for money. You can always tell who they are. They don’t dress the way we do. They always come in and act a little sheepish. They look the secretary in the eye, and they say, "Is the pastor in?" She’s very glad to pass each one on. Each one comes in and plays with his cap. Each one sits down and explains that he is traveling from the north to the south where his mother is having brain surgery. Sometimes it’s open-heart surgery, sometimes mother’s leg is going to be cut off or other similar kinds of great tragic events that happen in human life. On the way down something happened to the car, and the person ran out of money. He has to be there some time that afternoon. Could we possibly help him with gas? Or, could we possibly help him with some food, because the family is in the car and they are hungry. A reasonable request - people in need.

When people who ask for money come into the office, it’s our procedure to ask them where they’re coming from and where they’re going. The way people get to where they’re going is rather unique. We have people from New York City driving to Miami, Florida, through Cincinnati. I’m not sure that Cincinnati is the most direct route to Miami if the operation is pending. Or we ask, "How did you ever expect to make it without any money?" The answer is, "While driving through Columbus, my fuel pump broke. I had no tools in the car. I stopped and bought a new one and with my bare hands I was able to change it. It took all my dollars away and I need some help." Some say they were just driving around for a long time and then saw the church tower from the freeway. One person had such good eyes, he saw our tower from I-75 and drove over to this side of town looking for help.

There are a whole bunch of people making a living going from church to church asking for food, asking for gas money, asking for help. The question comes up, as you sit there with the pastor’s discretionary fund, whether you support that kind of behavior. Do you give money? Do you buy gas? Many times these people won’t go to McDonald’s with you because they’re not quite that hungry. Do you say, "No, we can’t help you. You’re on your own." Jesus said, "You fed me when I was hungry, you clothed me when I was naked, you welcomed me when I was a stranger. You did it to the least of these." What do you do with the pastor’s discretionary fund?

I’m not trying to suggest that everybody who stops by the office is a fake or begs for a living. I can remember one Saturday evening about three years ago when we were in the middle of a gas shortage. It was about 10:00 on Saturday night and the phone rang. A panicky voice came across saying she was out of gas; she was in trouble and could we possibly help her. For some reason, this voice had a ring of truth to it and I said, "sure." I drove to the church and found a young lady, a college senior out of Ohio State, who had just visited the med school at University of Cincinnati. No gas stations were open and she couldn’t get home. She was scared stiff spending the night at our house. Joyce and I were comfortable. We remembered the verse, "You fed me when I was hungry, you clothed me when I was naked. I was a stranger and you made me feel welcome." The text says the judgment is coming.

When I think about the judgment, I recall an experience out of my own life. I imagine many of you had the same experience - the experience of being called to the principal’s office. I went to an old school we used to call "the factory" in New York. We didn’t have such modern conveniences as an intercom. We communicated with each other with bells. Whenever the principal wanted to communicate a verbal message, he would always have in front of his office three or four monitors who were allowed out of class for a period to do this wonderful job of running to particular rooms. He would call one of them in and give him a note, and then that person would run to the classroom. After knocking on the door, he would hand the note to the teacher. The teacher would stop class, look at the note, look up and say, "Rudowski, the principal wants you." Then would come the chorus, "WOOOOOOOOOOOO." "Quiet, quiet, quiet," the teacher would respond. You’d look at the teacher, and you’d say, "Should I take my books? I hope this is a short stay. I really don’t need to take them for the whole period, do I?" He’d always say, "You had better take your books." Then you’d gather up your books and everybody waited for you to leave. Every eye was on you. Upon leaving, you would immediately ask the monitor, "What does the principal want?" The monitor would say, "How am I supposed to know? I don’t sit in his office." And you would very nervously talk with the monitor as you went down the stairs. Going through the back of your mind was everything you could possibly have done that would get you in trouble with the principal. It never once dawned on you that it might be something good that was going to happen in that office. You were kind of upset and kind of scared.

This episode reminds me of the new Prudential Life Insurance ad in which two men show up in white suits and a third person walks through a bus, saying, "It’s not my time yet. I thought I had more time." Or he walks through a bowling alley wall and says, "Wow, am I here? What’s going to happen?"

Upon one occasion, making that trip to the principal’s office, I was greatly relieved to have the principal say to me that I had been recommended to run for school president. He checked my record and noted that I didn’t have any discipline cards. Would I be willing to run for that office? I don’t think I heard any other words. The sense of relief that rushed through my body at that moment was magnificent. I felt like the man in the Prudential ad going up the escalator with those two men in the white suits, saying, "Wow, at least we’re going up." The judgment - at least we’re going up.

When Jesus comes and uses these words from chapter 25 of the book of Matthew, he’s talking to a group of people who have to deal with each other and are now faced with the judgment. He’s sayirg to the people, "If you were called to the principal’s office, how would you act? Would you be the scared person coming down, wondering what’s going on? Or, would you be the type of person who, when he is called to the principal’s office, winds up saying, "I must have done something great in art today. Ah, I must be wonderful to get all these rewards. I must be the citizen of the week. I bet I got another A in history, and the principal just wants to ask me some perspective types of questions." We all know those kinds of people. We delight when the principal says to them, "You parked your car in the wrong spot. Get it out of there or we tow it away. If it happens again, you’re suspended." We’re all saying, "good."

When Jesus says the words of the Gospel, he’s talking to people. He’s talking to the people who are afraid, and he’s talking to the people who are absolutely sure about what’s going to happen in judgment. He is speaking to the people who are smug, to Pharisees and other people who are so sure that they are so good that they have nothing to fear. They come and continually tell you to the minute how many times they’ve gone to the hospital to drive somebody there. ("Mrs. Smith’s husband is there. I drove Mrs. Smith five times last week. It’s 20.2 miles times 20 cents a mile. That means I have spent x number of dollars on gasoline. Boy, what a good person I am. Harry’s wife is in the hospital and I took the family four meals. On Monday this was the menu. On Tuesday this was the menu. On Wednesday this was the menu. On Thursday this was the menu.") Some people can give an account right down to the last item and also down to the last penny. They will tell you that you’ll never believe what they did for the Boy Scouts or for the Girl Scouts or whatever else. After they go through the litany of everything they’ve done, you kind of get the feeling it is their need which is being met. Are they really concerned for the person in the hospital? Are they really concerned for the Boy Scouts or the Girl Scouts or all the good things they do? Or, are they saying to themselves, "I’m concerned with me. I’m doing it because I’m not sure I’m worth anything, and if I do all these good things, then you’ll like me; you’ll see I have some value. You’ll see I’m a person of worth. You’ll see that I have something to offer." You get the feeling that some things are being done out of a plea that they will finally be liked and finally be loved. Jesus comes and says, "When I was hungry, you didn’t feed me and when I was naked you didn’t clothe me." What you really did was take care of yourself. You only worked out of insecurity.

Our lesson is also addressed to Jesus’ disciples. I notice a major difference between those two types of people. When Jesus says to his disciples, "You fed me and you clothed me and you made me welcome," they say, "Who, me? What did I do? I didn’t do anything." What they did for other people is worked out of the other’s need. They did what needed to be done. "I didn’t do it for me but for others. The other person was the center of all that was happening. Once it was over and I could let it go, I forgot it, not out of some kind of false humility but because the need was met."

It strikes me the people who can meet the needs of others take very seriously what happened at the baptismal font when God said, "I love you and I claim you for my very own." It strikes me that people who can put other people first take very seriously what happens when we take communion; they feel a belonging to God’s Kingdom and they don’t always have to justify their own place. It strikes me that those people have experienced love at home from husband or wife or parent or friend or other brothers and sisters. They are free to give love. So when Jesus speaks this morning, there is a genuine surprise. You can notice the surprise in the text. "When did we do it?" It’s when you reached out and touched the lonely; it’s when you reached out and made a telephone call to somebody who needed to hear from you; it was when you reached out and were kind to another person. When I was a stranger, you made me welcome. When I was hungry you fed me. When I was naked you clothed me.

For many of us the judgment is a scary thing. It is as scary as being called to the principal’s office. It’s as scary as having those two fellows in white suits showing up and saying it’s now your turn; let’s walk through the bus, through the wall; let’s take the escalator upstairs. Yet those experiences are real. They are common for all of us. I would ask you the next time you see the Prudential ad on television or the next time you hear of a child having to go to the principal’s office, you stop for a moment and think about the words of Jesus as he describes that experience. As those things happen to us, Jesus will come and say to us, "Welcome aboard. It’s good to have you here, for you fed me when I was hungry, you clothed me when I was naked, you gave me drink when I was thirsty, you made me feel welcome when I was a stranger in your midst, and you visited me when I was sick." I suspect most of us will feel very surprised, because we did it because we profess Christ and we met needs where they were found.