Political jargon over the last decade has given us a new understanding of an old term. The term is ‘safety net.’

My first recollection of a safety net was at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus when it was still performing under the big top. Who could forget those daring acrobats balanced on the trapeze or high wire and, under them, a net. When the act was finished they would fall gracefully from their lofty perch into the open arms of the net, a kind of tease, I suppose, a hint of the terror of even the slightest slip or false step. Occasionally there was a daredevil who would work without a net, and the drum would roll, and people would gasp, a few would scream. I never saw a performer injured in a real fall, although I have read that it happens. Today, with the cement and hardwood floors of most coliseums, working without a net is virtually unheard of. It’s just as well - a person with skill doesn’t have to risk life and limb to be entertaining.

But in our newest fashion of speech, a safety net has come to stand for that last resort of protection and assistance provided by government for people who are otherwise helpless and vulnerable. The continuing debate is not over whether or not we should have such a social safety net, but how much is necessary and for whom. The questions have to do with how much or how little responsibility a nation has for those who cannot help themselves, and who they are.

The Scripture given for today, the Festival of Christ the King, addresses a similar matter - the concern of Christ, the Judge of the nations, for the welfare of persons who cannot be self-supporting but who must rely on the compassion and generosity of others. Of course, that concern includes all of us to some extent, because every person is dependent upon others. Nobody is completely self-sufficient. It’s really just a matter of degree.

The prophet Ezekiel, writing almost six hundred years before Christ, was distraught that the leaders, or "shepherds," of Israel had taken advantage of the weak and had devoured the very sheep they were supposed to tend. Thus, the prophet envisions a day when God will personally shepherd the peopie of Israel, a day when there will be a Good Shepherd who will care for and feed the flock with justice and tenderness, not avarice and greed.

Ezekiel’s imagery is vivid. The Good Shepherd will seek the lost and bring back the recalcitrant sheep who keep going astray. The Good Shepherd will bind up the injured and crippled sheep, strengthen the fearful and weak. The Good Shepherd will watch over the fat and strong sheep, so that they do not take advantage of the lean and weak ones. The Good Shepherd will act as judge, and will be especially watchful to see that as the sheep graze in a pasture they do not trample the grass around them and thus spoil it for others. The Shepherd Judge will act to be certain that sheep who drink from a stream do not jump into the water with their feet and thus foul the water for those who must drink it farther down the bank (ecology is not a new concern). Finally, says Ezekiel, the Good Shepherd will control the fat sheep, that is the strong and robust sheep, to see that they do not thrust at the weak with their horns in order to threaten and intimidate them.

All this, says the prophet, God will do through an appointed shepherd whom God will send, a servant like David who will guarantee that in Israel there is a safety net for those who are hanging by their fingernails to the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder.

Six centuries later, in the imagery of the last judgment, Jesus assumes the role of Ezekiel’s Good Shepherd/Judge. The nations of the world are assembled before the enthroned Shepherd/Judge who divides them, sheep from goats, based on the nations’ responses to the lowest or least of persons in their societies.

Jesus’ final concern for the least of his brothers and sisters is not surprising. He had an affinity for the poor, the outcasts, the dregs of society, and they seemed to have gravitated toward him as well. In the imagery of the last judgment, Jesus goes so far as to suggest that he is so identified with human need that the way we respond to the needy of the world is the way we respond to the Lord himself. It would appear that the Lord of the church is saying to those who are the church that we are to be, in some sense, God’s safety net. How much more plain could it be said than in this parable that the church’s love for Christ will be realized or lost by our efforts to feed and clothe and shelter and console? The world is filled with persons who are unprotected, uncared for, hungry, abused, and belittled, and Christ the King is looking for his church to be their support, the embodiment of a God who is Refuge and Strength.

But, as plain as Jesus makes it, we are left to wrestle with the question of how. How do we feed and shelter and console? Our inability to come to any kind of consensus in answering that question has divided the church and has pushed some Christians to try to wash their hands of the whole problem and retreat into a religion of purely "spiritual" focus. Because of the magnitude and complexity of the problems of hunger, poverty, and injustice in our world, still other Christians have concluded that the question is purely individualistic, so that as long as you and I are socially concerned and responsive as individuals we have done all we are called to do and be. This conclusion ignores Ezekiel’s interest in the welfare of the whole flock of Israel, and Jesus’ own vision of the last judgment being of nations and their responses to humanity.

To put it succinctly, the world is in a mess, and there are few signs that we are even gaining ground on the crises of hunger and poverty. In depressed moments a person could justifiably conclude that our world is heading toward a multiple choice end, the choices being: (a) starvation, (b) nuclear holucaust, (c) environmental collapse, or (d) all of the above! Furthermore, the church, called as it is to feed and clothe and shelter, is frequently as much a part of the problem as of the solution

But the answer is not despair! None of the sheep in the parable of the last judgment was excused because she or he gave up hope and quit. Notwithstanding the complexity and magnitude of the problem, there are steps the church can take. The weaving of a safety net is our task even it if must begin with small stitches.

Some joker once suggested that the likelihood was that, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side of the road and left the injured traveler dying in the ditch were probably on their way to their congregation’s World Missions Committee meeting! As cynical as that suggestion may be, it does remind us that we have to reckon with the close-at-hand world we live in and its needs. Let’s call it our small world of direct personal accountability. No matter how big or grand our concern for the whole world, that concern is somehow pitiable if it overlooks the needs of persons in our own backyards, our own cities and neighborhoods and congregations. So, the first step we can take in fashioning God’s safety net is to work on an attitude which is sensitive and responsive to the people who hurt next door and across town.

In this small personal world where the effect of our action is fairly direct, there are fat sheep and lean sheep, and there are sheep who try to horn in on the rights of others, and there are sheep who foul the water which others have to consume and trample the pasture upon which others must feed. We have a responsibility (an important word in Matthew’s understanding of the Gospel) within our personal world of influence to see that the weaker ones among us are not abused or treated unjustly. Christian adults have a responsibility to see that their children know not only The Lord’s Prayer, but also the Lord’s priorities - the concern for the welfare of all humankind. That responsibility is better modeled than taught. When personal comfort and happiness become the consuming motivation of a church, the gospel words of the last judgment will fall on deaf ears or drift away into soothing sentimentalism. What will not go away is our accountability - yours and mine. I am personally accountable for my response to the human beings over which I have some direct influence, and I need to get my own personal house in order. I am painfully reminded of the church which launched a congregation-wide program for world famine relief while two members of its janitorial staff tried to support their families on the minimum wage!

A second step toward becoming the safety net God wants us to be moves us beyond our small worlds of direct influence and into the big world of power and politics. Many folk choose to drop out of the march when this step is called for. It’s a step into the realm toward advocacy for the poor, the outcasts, the persecuted, the sick and homeless. It’s a step into the realm of power politics and populations of people we will never see face to face and whose plight we will never fully understand. The answers to the problems of human need in this larger world is not for us to dole out food and clothes, although we must do that until an answer is constructed, but to be advocates for new political structures and economic systems which will feed and clothe and protect.

Think of the frequency with which the Scriptures remember Jesus as an advocate for people who were vulnerable and at the mercy of the decisions of others. A woman tried and convicted of the capital offense of adultery, children whom the disciples considered a bothersome interruption to the agenda of the day, a woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with perfume and incurred the criticism and belittling of others in the house - for all of these and others like them, Jesus was not only a religious high priest, but also a social advocate and defender. He did it time after time. The Lord of the least and little came to the defense of the defenseless.

And so does his body the church. We are now the advocates, the defenders of the defenseless, the protectors of the vulnerable, the voice of those whom the powers of the world will not hear. Through our influence and power in the institutions of government, church, education and business, we are meant to be the good shepherds who watch over the sheep. Modern-day shepherds ‘tend’ their sheep in ways Ezekiel never dreamed of - becoming knowledgeable, organizing, voting, boycotting when needed, writing public officials and policy makers, and speaking out when it’s risky. The safety net is woven in a multitude of ways.

Finally, there is a third response to this complex world of human need. We can, all of us, pray for it.

Intercessory prayer can be used as a cop-out, a way of easing a guilty conscience without lifting a finger to offer aid or advocacy. But real intercession, not the kind that offers God a shopping list of requests, but the kind that offers God one’s self, is the church’s unique responsibility. When we pray for the fulfillment of the needs of others in our world, that prayer is also a self-offering by which those who pray offer themselves as part of the answer to the prayer.

Our intercessions are not for the purpose of persuading God or providing God with needed information. God is not some cosmic computer whose power switch is off until our prayers turn it on. Our intercessions are offerings of our love, faith, and resources to the end that we might become instruments of God’s answer to the very prayer we make.

Be prepared for that. Among the costliest prayers are genuine intercessions for one’s church or country, or of a spouse for her or his partner, of a parent for a child, a friend for a friend. We may discover that we become the direct bearer of our prayer’s answer. That is always true with prayer which is self-offering.

Drawn from Jesus’ parable of the last judgment, I have this mental image of a scene filled with surprises. Not the least of those surprises will be the presence in heaven of persons nobody expected to be there (even some who did not themselves expect to be there) and maybe the absence of some whom everybody assumed would be first in line. Among those surprises will be our Lord, the Shepherd King, saying, "Come close to me, you who have loved me; for you fed me and clothed me and consoled me; you stood up for me when I was weak. You defended me when I was vulnerable; you spoke up for me when no one would listen; you offered yourself for me in your prayers."

And the faithful will say, "You must be mistaken, Lord. As much as we might wish we had, we simply never did all that. How could we feed or clothe or console you? You are above human need. How could we pray for you when you are our Intercessor before the Father? We never did that for you."

"O but you did," the Shepherd King will say, "for inasmuch as you did for the least and lost and lonely, the little and the limited, you did for me. So come close to me, for you see I still desire the touch of those who care."