Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Ephesians 1:15-25; Matthew 25:31-46; Psalm 100
November 22, 2020
Rachel Braun
In the church year, this is the last Sunday of ordinary time. It is the last Sunday before Advent and the last day of the Church year. I think this year especially, because of everything that has been going on; our hearts are ready for this shift into the hopeful expectation and preparation for God’s coming.
In today’s readings, we are reminded that God “will rescue [his sheep] from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness…” and he will “search for the lost,” “bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.” I find great comfort and hope in these promises, and in the imagery of God as a shepherd. I love the Jesus who lifts up the least of these, and reminds us again and again that to love him is to love others, doing so in language and stories that we cannot easily explain away or ignore. I love that we are challenged to reconsider what radical love looks like again and again, and to protest when others try to put a narrow filter on God’s love. I think that is what Jesus did. When others tried to exclude the poor, the unpopular, the children, the foreigners or the women, he made it clear that was not His Way.
What does radical love look like right now, in the midst of this isolation?
I’m not sure. I often feel paralyzed when I contemplate the great needs in the world. Right now that feeling is exacerbated, both by the restrictions we’re facing and by the great many needs we hear about every day in the news. And sometimes this prevents me from doing anything at all. There’s a story by Leo Tolstoy, rewritten and illustrated by Jon Muth, that helps me to focus on what I can do. It’s called “The Three Questions” and it asks: When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?
A little boy sets out to seek the answers to these questions. Along the way he helps an old turtle diggin in his garden and he helps an injured panda mother and her baby who were separated in a storm.
In the end, the boy learns that there is only one important time, and that time is now. The most important one is always the one you are with. And the most important thing is to do good for the one who is standing at your side.