Being seen---really seen—is powerful. This past week I was really struck by how seen I felt while staying with my mom in the hospital. The Critical Care Unit was FULL, yet anytime a nurse came into mom’s room it was as if she was the MOST important person in the world and that her case was the most important case. The staff did a great job of seeing my mom, and my sister and me. They never seemed rushed, distracted or bothered. It was incredibly comforting.
Being seen, really seen, is powerful.
They asked: “Lord, when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?
When was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? “
Jesus responds, “Truly I tell you just as you did it to one of the least of these, who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Each time you saw them, you saw me.
Each time you noticed them, you noticed me.
Each time you helped them, you loved me.
Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?
Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.
Hey, I’m right here? Don’t you see me? Don’t you care?
What we do unto others, we do unto God.
In our Baptismal Covenant we promise to seek and serve Christ in all whom we encounter. Seeking and serving Christ requires looking, seeing and noticing.
Do you notice Jesus? He’s right there….right in front of us….He’s the mentally ill man who talks to himself….
He’s the very unpleasant woman on the other end of the customer service phone……
He’s the child you’ve raised who’s turned her back on you.
He’s the spouse who’s left you.
He’s the unreasonable boss, the angry, spiteful neighbor….
He’s the hungry, the naked the lonely and the rejected….
He’s in all of them, He’s in everyone, everywhere, always.
How we treat others is how we treat God.
These past few weeks we’ve heard readings about judgment at the end of time. Today we hear about sheep and goats, about righteous and unrighteous….these readings of harsh judgment seem so incongruous to the teachings of Jesus, and I think it’s easy to brush them off as “not the Jesus we know and love.”
But, on this last Sunday of our church year, on this Christ the King Sunday, we reflect on the life of Jesus on earth, we remember his death and resurrection as we await his coming again---we’re reminded that what we do on this earth does matter, that our job is to do the things that will bring the Kingdom of Heaven to reign here on earth. It’s the number one job we, as beloved children of God, have here an earth.
You see, each and every time we notice another person--really notice them… really look in their eyes, really listen to what they have to say…every time we do THAT we make more room for God, through Christ, in this world.
And each and every time we fail to see Christ in the other, we BLOCK God’s ongoing effort to break through and into our every thing.
The Apocalypse—the end of time---is when the barriers between this world and the next fall, when this world and the next unite through the only King that matters: Jesus Christ. And, each time we notice God in another, each time we really see Jesus, seeking and serving him in all whom we encounter, we bring that time ever closer. You see, this end of time thing, this “coming of the day of the Lord,” this apocalypse,
doesn’t happen in one fell swoop; it happens over time, with each and everyone of us doing our part.
We must make room for The Christ to dwell. We must break away from all that ensnares us. We must free ourselves from all that frightens us, we must loosen the grip of doubt while reaching out and up ready to receive our King, our Lord, our Beloved God.
As priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor puts it: “We are called to look at each other and see Christ. It’s as simple, and as hard, as that.”
This is not easy work, but it’s vital. To do this, to turn our lives over to care of God and to turn our focus onto the community of the world in which we live, requires grace.
The God-given ability to see beyond ourselves, to see beyond our own wants, needs and fears and look at the bigger picture—that ability is a gift from God, it is a gift of God…it is grace. And when we accept that grace and act through that grace, it spreads. From me to you and from you to another and on and on and on.
It’s that chain reaction of grace, that domino effect of noticing God in each other, of seeking and serving Christ in all whom we encounter, that makes room for God in this world.
It’s that chain reaction of grace, fueled by our noticing, really seeing Christ in everyone we encounter, that will bring the kingdom of heaven to reign here on earth. It’s that chain reaction of love for all, no exceptions, that unites the ideal of heaven with the reality of earth.
It’s that chain reaction of grace that brings about the fulfillment of all that Jesus came to accomplish.
It’s the chain reaction of grace which brings us a peace that surpasses all understanding.
By seeing each other as God through Christ sees us, by really seeing each other, we unleash that chain of grace and that, my friends is the whole point.
Jesus Christ as our King may seem like an a odd title for this itinerant preacher who spoke of the sanctity of the poor, the sick, the outcast and the rejected…..But Christ as the King of a world where the Divine is noticed in all, where the Holy is respected by all and where the Love of God is the rule and not the exception—that is a world where Christ, as King, makes sense.
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