Do We Regard the Omni of Omnipresence?

Last Sunday after  Pentecost: Christ the King Cycle A  proper 29 November 26, 2023
Ezek. 34:11-16, 20-24     Ps.100   
Eph. 1:15-23      Matt. 25:31-46
 
Lectionary Link

We Christians are good at theological theory, but are often not so good at actual practice of Christ-like behaviors.

In our theology, we say God is omnipresent, God is everywhere.  And in our Christology, we say, like St. Paul, Christ is all and in all.  But in our practice, we tend to be more like the proverbial Charlie Brown when he said, "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand."

We have favorite places where we like to find God and Christ.  Many of those places are safe places, which don't demand much from us, and we treat those places as places with seemingly are so privileged that in our practice they seem to exhaust the presence of God and Christ.

And what would those favorite safe places be?  The Bible, the Sacraments, and all things churchy.

We gladly proclaim, "the Word of the Lord," after reading all manner of Scripture readings.  We gladly find the presence of Christ in bread and wine and the sacramental rites.  And if we keep our participation in Word and Sacrament isolated from expanded meanings of Word and Sacrament, we can safely convince ourselves that we are doing God's will and we can feel justified in and by our religious ritual behaviors.

But we cannot selectively limit how and where we want to know the divine presence, the Christly presence.

The parable of Jesus read for today, is also in the Bible and is regarded to be God's word.  This parable is given to us to incentivize us to look beyond our favorite places for knowing, seeing and reverencing the divine.  And where does the parable of Jesus tell us where to find and serve the great Son of Man?

In the thirsty, the hungry, the ones without adequate clothing, and the strangers.  My, my, is this not some communist plot to redistribute the resources to people who did not really earn them?  Should we not build higher walls so that strangers cannot get to us?  The homeless on our streets: do they not represent an embarrassment?  Are they not people with such failed life practice that they can't take care of themselves?  Strangers, hungry people, thirsty people, homeless people seem to threaten us and in our false sense of American individualism, we often blame them for their failure at individual efforts to get their lives together and take care of themselves and their families.

The parable of Jesus does not tell us why people are thirsty, hungry, unclothed, or strangers; the parable simply tells us that they were in these conditions.  We often want to spend time blaming people for being in the conditions that they are as a reason for us to say they don't deserve food, drink, clothing, housing, and a welcome.

Do we want to be the "goats" in the parable of Jesus who go into eternal punishment?  Sounds rather severe.  The language is very strong language but it is the language to incentivize us not to limit the presence of Christ within our favorite biblical passages or within our liturgies.

Today, the Risen Christ is saying to us, "if you are coming for my presence in the preaching of the word and in the bread and the wine, then you also must go forth and find my real presence in the stranger, the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, and those without adequate clothing."

Let us be rebuked and incentivized today by this parable of Jesus to see Christ as All and in all, especially within the poor, the needy, the strangers and the neglected.  Amen.