Where’s Jesus?

Matthew 25:31-46

November 23, 2008

Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.

The popular children’s book that our kids grew up with is “Where’s Waldo?” On a page with hundreds of things, this little figure of Waldo with his red and white stripe shirt is camouflaged for us to find.

I can remember another popular pastime activity was these posters with thousands and thousands of dots and lines and you are supposed to be able to decipher the hidden embedded message or words. I could never do these! Most of the time I just gave up and pled with those who could see what I couldn’t to tell me.

Being able to find what you are looking for is something we do all the time. Finding our misplaced our eyeglasses or car keys makes us feel complete again. When we finally find what we’ve been searching for, it brings great delight and happiness.

Have you ever had a child asks you, “Where’s Jesus?” You start of by telling him that Jesus was an infant, mild and meek and seems to forever dwell in a manger every time Christmas comes. Sometimes we say that Jesus is in heaven, ruling and reigning from some white throne. Maybe he really does dwell in our hearts as some say. Our Roman Catholic friends have told us for years that we can find Jesus in the bread, which becomes his real body, and in the wine, his real blood. If you were to ask some fundamentalists, they would say that he is enshrined inside the covers of the Bible and if and when we open this book and take all the words literally, you will find Jesus. Sometimes finding Jesus is more like finding where Waldo is; hidden away in some place that we can’t see.

When people were wondering where Jesus was in the very early church, the four gospel writers and those who wrote the epistles that make up the New Testament provided answers to their questions.

One of the purposes of Matthew was to show the Jewish people who Jesus was and where they can find him. Another reason he wrote this Gospel was to teach the young struggling church exactly what it would mean to follow their Lord. They can’t find Jesus unless they know how to follow him.

So Matthew gives us the setting of the last parable he has Jesus speak. Jesus sat down with his disciples on the Mount of Olives. When he gave those last words he must have stared down at the city of Jerusalem. Within a couple of days, the religious leaders will conspire to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. While sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples knew where Jesus was at that moment but in just a couple of days, they will all be fleeing the scene and hiding from the authorities and could care less about where Jesus was.

Where Do We Find Jesus?

So where do we find Jesus? And what does he ask of those of us who would follow him? Do we find him at 9:10/10:20 worship? Do we find him on some cross or held captive in some Bible or nestled in the Lord’s Supper? We find him in all these places and more. But these are not his primary residences. Churches and crosses and Bibles can be ways for understanding who he really is. But none of these is his primary residence.

Listen to what he told his followers at the end of this parable. I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was a stranger, I was naked, sick, and in prison. Then his followers protested by saying, “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?” Jesus’ followers have been with him all this time and they knew that they took good care of Jesus.

Then Jesus answered them, “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.” We can find Jesus in those who are in need.

The problem is seeing. We simply fail to see Jesus when he stands right in front of us in the needs of others. In a way, we not only fail to see Jesus but also fail to see our neighbors as nothing less than the claim of Christ upon their lives. We sometimes complain that God is elusive, difficult to know, silent, and evasive. Perhaps we ought to confess that the problem is on our side—we are those who tend to say, even when face-to-face with God—“Lord, when did we see you?”

Leo Tolstoy’s story, “Where Love Is…” is known by a claymation film named, “Martin the Cobbler.” Martin makes and repairs shoes in a small Russian village. He is lonely and angry with God over the death of his wife and son many years before. Asked to repair a leather-bound Bible, he agrees, though he feels he is not worthy of such a project. That night he has a dream in which the Lord says he will visit his shop the next day.

Martin arises eager and expectant, looking out the basement window at the feet of people passing by. A hungry mother stops in, later a man, and then an elderly woman, and Martin helps them all. Night comes, and a disappointed Martin believes that either the Lord has failed to keep his word, or he just had a foolish dream. However, he dozes off while reading the story in Matthew 25 and realizes that the Lord has indeed stopped by, and that when he helped each one, he was doing it to one “of the least of these.”

In 1988, Mother Teresa made a visit to San Quentin prison to visit someone serving a life sentence for murder. When she was about to leave the prison, she said to one of the guards, “What you do to these men, you do to God.”

For the past few weeks when Sacramento Street has been closed to street parking, I have had to leave my car in the garage above Stockton Street. I spoke with the parking attendant the day after the elections and learned that Toji was a Christian. He said he is praying that nothing happens to Obama and that the world will find peace. I told him I was a pastor of the church down the street and invited him to visit us. No longer is Toji just a parking attendant, just one of the least of these, he is a child of God. Maybe my respect for him is also honoring Jesus.

As we believe that God reigns in the world, any form of service to another in need is service to Jesus, the king himself. This means that one can serve Christ without knowing it. One can serve Christ without knowing his name. Here is the answer to the age-old question in Christianity about the fate of those who have never known about Jesus as the Christ. Any act of righteousness is service to Christ’s reign.

But it is also possible to know about Jesus, believe in Jesus, have a personal relationship with Jesus, even call him, Lord, and not serve him. Some have not known him but served him while others have known him but not served him. The point, of course, is both to know him and serve him, to call him Lord and make him Lord of life.

Finding Jesus in Us

When we know Jesus and serve him by living our lives in relationship with him, we become faithful disciples in both word and deed. Empowered by Jesus, we share the good news of his sacrificial love and life. He becomes present in us to bind up the wounds of the broken, to gather in all who are wandering or lost, to feed the hungry, house the homeless and to visit the sick and those in prison. In our acts of faithful discipleship, Jesus is present now.

You and I are not only clothed in Christ, we bear him to others each time we reach out to touch them in their need so that our touch becomes his touch. We bear Christ’s power and share it in every act of discipleship.

The Friday Night School students find Jesus when you teach them to speak English or translate something they can’t understand or serve them a hot dinner for no other reason but to feed the hungry.

The Chinese students who come to our church on Monday to Thursday nights find Jesus whenever Nancy Guan welcomes them to see our building as a safe and friendly place.

Every time we are able to give a few dollars to those who come for a handout because they are hungry or homeless or lonely or thirsty, they see Jesus on our faces.

Every time our friend Chris comes to church for a hot breakfast and we welcome him and fill his plate with a waffle, and eggs, and bacon and when he gulps down the orange juice and the cold milk, he gets to see Jesus in us.

And it’s not only when people come to our church that they find Jesus. They see Jesus when we go out into our various communities and neighborhoods and perform acts of discipleship. You serve and bear Christ when, during your grocery shopping, you purchase five or ten dollars of food to help make food baskets for those in need. You serve and bear Christ when you put together the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes and donate them to needy children around the world.

You do it when you teach a child about Jesus in Sunday school, or supervise and chaperon young people on retreat or a mission trip. You do it when you invite a friend to join us for worship, or when you introduce yourself to a visitor and offer a prayer for her.

You bear Jesus when at work, you model integrity and stand up for principles of honesty and fairness especially toward those who have no voice to speak. In each of these moments, the power of God is released through you and Jesus himself touches another person.

Perhaps we wonder “where Jesus is” is because we haven’t done a good job bearing the power of Jesus in the world.

Someone once wrote,

            I sought my soul,

            but my soul I could not see.

            I sought my God,

            but my God eluded me.

            I sought my brother,

            and I found all three.

Anne Lamont, a Christian writer who lives in Marin County, in her book, Traveling Mercies, tells about one of the newest members of their church was a man named Ken Nelson who was dying of AIDS. Shortly after he starting coming to church Ken’s partner died of the disease. But Ken kept coming week after week. The people in the church could see he, like his late partner, was slowly dying.

Anne writes that there was a large and jovial black woman in the choir named Ranola who was a devout as you could be. She kept looking at Ken out of the corners of her eyes and was more than a little standoffish. She had been raised in the south by Baptists who had taught her that Ken’s way of life was an abomination. And so it was hard for her to really see Ken as he was. Anne said she thought that Ranola and several other members were afraid they might catch what Ken had. So they stood at a distance. But Ken kept coming and won over most of the members of the church. During prayer time he would share that even in his decline he had felt the grace and redemption of God.

On one particular morning the congregation began singing “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” The whole church stood, except for Ken who was too weak to stand. And the church began to sing: “Why should I feel discouraged? Why do the shadows fall?” And Ranola, from the choir kept watching Ken and then suddenly her face began to contort and tears came to her eyes and she left the choir, moved toward Ken, bent down and picked him up, lifting him like a white rag doll. Anne says Ranola held him next to her, as if he were her child as they sang together: “His eyes is on the sparrow and I know he cares for me.”

We see Jesus in one of the least of these and others see Jesus in us when we act with mercy and grace.

Once in a while we all have a chance to meet Jesus as if it were the first time. Out there where there are no stained glass windows and no hymns and no quiet and only sometimes tears and pain and injustice—if we open our eyes, who knows, we might just meet Jesus face to face.

On this Thanksgiving Sunday, we pray that out of our abundance and blessings, we might share generously what we have because Jesus can be found in those who are hungry and thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison. When we give food to those who are hungry and give a drink to those who are thirsty and welcome in the stranger and give clothing to those who are naked and visit those who are in prison, when we do these things to one of the least of these, we are doing this for Jesus.

Where’s Jesus? He is among us. He is in us. In is here that we meet Jesus face to face.

Let us pray.

Lord, take us by the hand today and show us what you would have us do. Every day we are besieged by the hurting problems of this world. We confess that often we simply tune out the troubles of the world in order to survive. We wonder how you were able to move through the madness of your world without sometimes being crushed by the weight of it all. Most of us have not learned how to do that. So bring us back today to our real purpose and our real task. Sometimes the needs are under our own roof, sometimes down the street—often in far away lands with starving faces we will never see. Show us the least of these. Show us how to reach out even as your Son, Jesus did. Amen.