Midweek Lent, 2025 + Love Does No Wrong to a Neighbor +
Week 1: All the vulnerable ones, all, are in your care
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Texts: Deuteronomy 24:14-15, 17-22; Matthew 25:31-40
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Remember who you were. That will determine who you are.
That’s how Moses leads us into Jesus’ parable. As God’s people prepare to enter the Promised land after forty years of wandering, Moses tells them never to forget where they came from. To constantly remember being exiles and aliens, fleeing from slavery, being rescued by God.
So when they live in the land and prosper, they will then protect anyone else who are aliens or vulnerable among them. Again and again, including in these words today, they’re told to care for the widows and orphans, the strangers and aliens. For those vulnerable on the fringes, with no room for error.
Because that’s who they were. If they can remember that, they’ll know who they need to be.
Moses’ words now belong to us.
How many of us have ancestors who once struggled this way, unwelcome, or poor, or hungry, or alone?
But it’s not just history. How many of us have struggled, needed help, wanted someone to see us and make a difference? Moses says we can’t be who God desires us to be when we forget we also are people who have needed others’ help in more ways than we can count.
That gives us new insight into Jesus’ story.
Jesus tells a story of people who naturally cared for others in need.
The first group, blessed by the King, didn’t know they were doing anything special or significant. In caring for “the least of these,” they did what was normal for them. When they saw hungry people, they fed them. They welcomed any strangers who showed up. They found clothes and homes for those who lacked. Took care of sick people and prisoners.
This was their nature. Who they were. The second group, whose verses we didn’t read today, also loved their King and wanted to serve. But they didn’t care for those in need. It wasn’t their nature.
That’s the difference. And Moses says the way to have our nature changed to care for all in need is not through guilt. It’s not looking patronizingly at people we should help. It’s simply remembering who we were and who we are. People in need. Moses says that when we see another person in need, we see our own face.
That’s what makes a difference in how we live in these times.
When so many who call themselves Christians seem to delight to exclude everyone on Christ’s “least of these” list, and actively work to harm them, what they reveal is that they don’t see themselves in those people. How could you treat others that way if you knew how often you are in need? How could you be cruel to someone who is just like you?
Our prayer, then, is that the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see ourselves in others. To remember when we were desperate for help, longing for welcome, thirsty for love and grace.
When the Spirit gives us that vision, we are changed. We clothe those who need it because that’s who we are, care for those who are sick because that’s who we are, bring water to the thirsty and food to the hungry and find homes for the homeless because that’s who we are. It’s in our nature now.
Of course there’s another beautiful promise in Jesus’ parable, too.
When our nature is so changed, when we serve all others in need with our lives and voices and hands and wealth and love, we also serve Christ. When we look into the eyes of another we see Christ, too.
And because Christ is those we care for, they will care for us as Christ in return. In God’s plan, when all are transformed in their deepest nature into God’s love, the love returns to itself, back and forth, in and out, love received becoming love given.
This is Christ’s Way. And it is our Way. Who we are. At our heart. In our nature. And entering into the cycle of Christ’s love and healing will bless us and the world in ways only God can know and see now.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
