There are two types of students. There are those students who jump for joy when they hear the words “take home final.” And there are those students who are not thrilled with joy but filled with dread when they hear the words “take home final.”
At first blush it seems a no-brainer. Who wouldn’t prefer a take home exam? There is no time crunch. There is unlimited access to resources for checking facts and figures. There is the ability to modify, or even completely change, responses after thinking about them for a while.
But the students who dread the take home final know there is a down side to all those benefits. With all that extra time and unlimited information and fluid flexibility, there come greater expectations. With a take home final there is never a firm answer to how much more the instructor expects.
Instead of a quick couple paragraphs, obviously a longer, more extensive, more exhaustive presentation is rightly required. With access to unlimited resources who is to say how many examples are “enough” to prove your point? An exam given in a closed class room for an hour or two puts all students at the same advantages and disadvantages. It’s a level playing field. A “take home final” by definition will be “taken” at a different “home” by each student. A “take home final” forces students to take their exam in their individual real words — whatever those worlds might be like.
Why is it that we are always warned “don’t take your work home with you”? That caution is not about teachers correcting papers on the living room couch or real estate agents updating their listings online while watching Sunday night football. “Don’t take your work home with you” is our attempt to draw a line between who we are in one part of our life versus who we are in another part of our lives. “Don’t’ take your work home with you” tries to disconnect what we do 9-5 from who we are 5-9.
For Jesus’ disciples that is impossible. In today’s gospel text Jesus makes it clear that Christian life comes with a “take home final.” There can be no dividing wall between what we do for a living and whom we live to serve. There is no distinction between our Monday to Friday work and our “Sunday selves.” That is because in today’s text Jesus reveals that he is “at home” with us wherever we go and whomever we encounter. Jesus declares that divine judgment will be based upon how we respond to the Lord, the King, the Son of Man, when he is in our midst.
Ironically on this “Christ the King” Sunday, the lectionary texts are chosen to demonstrate the lordship of Christ. The first lines in today’s gospel reading DO describe the Son of Man coming in “his glory” and sitting on his “throne of glory.” From that lofty perch Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God, is empowered to judge all the nations of the world.
But it is within this glorious moment that Jesus dethrones himself.
It is not how obediently we stand in awe and worship of Christ the King that will determine our accountability before the throne. Instead Christ chooses this very moment when his power and majesty are fully revealed to redefine his presence. Christ the King is not some all-powerful despot. Christ the King is the one person we encounter in our life who is hungry, who is thirsty, who is alone, who is alien, who is naked, who is sick, who is imprisoned. Christ the King is found in all those who are walking embodiments of human frailty and even human failure. In other words, Christ the King is found in each and every one of us.
Our “take home final” is one we take throughout our whole life. And our “take home final” is this: to find Christ the King in “the least ones.” Not the easy ones, but the “least ones.”
Our “take home” exam is based on Jesus’ own mission statement, which he made into his first sermon. Jesus gave us a mission statement as his last words to us: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19ff). Or in Mark’s rendering (16:15), “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
But while Jesus gave his church a mission statement, Jesus had his own mission statement. It was not John 3:16. It was from the prophet Isaiah, and Jesus made his mission statement the subject of his first sermon.
Jesus’ first sermon was not the Sermon on the Mount, but the Sermon in the Home-Town, when he went to the Nazareth synagogue on the Sabbath, and opened up the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 61, and read these words (Luke 4:16-21):
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus spent his life living his Mission Statement. Just read Matthew 4:23‑24:
“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. 24News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon‑possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them.”
Or here is Luke chapter 7:19‑22, where John the Baptist sends two disciples to ask Jesus: "Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?" and Jesus answers them by referring to his mission statement: "Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “Am I fulfilling my mission or not?”
Jesus turned his mission statement into our take-home final.
Like all take home finals, there is no time limit. We have all of our life resources to draw upon. We can edit and re-do our responses throughout our lifetimes. We are to “take home” this final wherever our “home” might be, whatever circumstances we may be living in. But we are always to take this mission, this message, of Christ’s presence in “the least ones” home with us.
In the course of our lives, as we progress through our “take home final” we should see Christ more and more clearly in the lives of those we encounter everywhere, everyday, every way. Christ is King because his presence infiltrates every part of our lives. Christ is no King if his “reign” is only for a few hours on Sunday morning. Jesus reign is not observing formalities. Jesus’ reign is about taking things personally.
Jesus’ disciples aren’t encouraged to “take the big picture.” We are instead commanded to take everything “personally.”
In the “Son of Man” judgment scenario, Jesus takes personally every action we have taken throughout our lives. Every time we drop a coin in someone’s cup. Every bit of clothing we “recycle” to a shelter. Every drop of human kindness we extend to those thirsty for a meaningful life. Every extension of ourselves beyond ourselves, beyond our “comfort zone,” beyond our definition of “safe” and “secure.” That is when we enthrone Christ the King. That is when we welcome, and become a part of, his family.
Jesus takes things personally. Jesus takes us person by person. Jesus does not judge according to the “big picture,” the long view, the undifferentiated median, or massified middle. Jesus insists, with the consequence of judgment, that we take life as we encounter it, that we take people as we experience them, that we meet the needs of others as they are presented to us.
There are great plans and extensive provisions that can be plotted and presented by governments, communities, organizations, and churches. But each and every disciple, all of those who follow Christ, are called to respond day by day, person by person, moment by moment. Our one-on-one, person-to-person experiences are the “take home final” for our lives. Every day, every moment, we are to celebrate Christ’s kingship by acknowledging his presence in the “least ones” whom we encounter everywhere.
Jesus takes it personally. Jesus takes our take-home personally: “Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these, you did it to me.”