Sermon preached at First Baptist Church of Corbin, KY on 11/22/20, Reign of Christ Sunday (Matthew 25:31-46)
Last weekend, approximately 200 people in Corbin participated in the inaugural Col Sanders half marathon, including our pastor Alex, me and a few others from our church. It was really fun to see our community join together for this event, and our own church served as an aid station (thank you, volunteers).
While we were all lining up at the start of the race, people were asking one another, “What’s your goal for the race?” We understood we each had a goal in mind, even if that goal was to simply finish the race. Very few of us, however, had the goal of winning the race. The overall winner crossed the finish line in 1 hour and 18 minutes, and some people connected to our church finished shortly after that. In case you’re wondering, I was much slower than that.
When you have a big goal such as being the overall winner of a race, you train and race a lot different from someone whose goal is to finish the race. When asked about his winning strategy, French sprinter Christophe Lemaitre said, “When you’re behind the start line-up, you have a one-track mind: you just focus on being the first to cross the finish line.” A long distance runner who blogs under her first name, Heidi, said something similar: “In the pursuit of a first place win, you will need to pull from all of your resources and chase down the gold with blinders that block out anything that might stand in your way and prevent you from cinching the win.” What Christophe and Heidi seem to be saying is that when your goal is to win, you have to focus on only that and nothing else. Everything else becomes a distraction.
Having a one-track mind is defined as a mind that is limited to only one line of thought or action. The phrase was inspired by a train that runs on only one track or direction. People with a one-track mind can accomplish great things like winning a race. Accomplishing a big goal often requires all of our focus. It may also prevent us from doing or noticing anything else. As Heidi said, “you chase down the gold with blinders that block out anything” else.
When I read the story Jesus shared about separating the sheep from the goats, I wonder if the goats in this story had a one-track mind.
There is a famous experiment done in Princeton Seminary in the ‘70s to research helping behavior. In this experiment, researchers had seminary students come individually to a building where they completed a questionnaire and were then asked to prepare a sermon on the Good Samaritan story. The students were told they would preach their sermon to a small group at another building on campus later in the day. To one group of students, once they were finished preparing their sermon, the researchers said, “They are not ready for you yet but you might as well head on over to the other building. If you have to wait there, it won’t be long.” To another group, the researchers said, “You’re late! They’ve been waiting for you. You’d better hurry up and get to the other building now!”
As the students walked to the other building (or maybe ran, depending on their sense of emergency), they were met with something unexpected. In an alleyway they needed to pass through, the researchers had placed a man slumped, with his eyes closed, and visibly in need. As the students entered the alleyway, the man would groan and cough. What the researchers wanted to know was, would the students prepared to preach on the Good Samaritan stop and help this man? Would they even notice the man? What would be the extent of their assistance?
As it turned out, of the students who were told they had plenty of time to get to the other building, 63% stopped and helped the slumped man. However, only 10% of those told they needed to be in a hurry stopped to help him. Was one group naturally more compassionate than the other? That seems unlikely. It is apparent that the difference in action between the two groups depended on how focused they were on their goal to get to the other building.
In their one-track mind to fulfill their obligations to the group waiting for them, some of the students in a hurry didn’t even notice the man. Others noticed but felt compelled to keep going, unable to allow even a few minutes to distract them from their goal. Some students even stepped over the man in need in their hurry to preach on the Good Samaritan!
These students were not innately less compassionate than any other students. Reportedly, some of the students who did not stop to assist the man were very troubled by this and arrived at the building feeling anxious about the man’s need and asked others to help him. They experienced some conflict between seeing a need and wanting to help, while also feeling the need to meet their goal so as not to fail the expectations they placed on themselves.
In Jesus’s story, the sheep and the goats are preparing for the second coming of the Son of Man. Like the two groups of seminary students, the sheep and the goats share many similarities. Not only are the animals similar in nature, but they are also both surprised when the king describes their actions… and he focuses on the wrong things!
You might have heard it said, “major on the majors and minor on the minors.” Or, “don’t sweat the small stuff.” Here are the goats preparing for a major event — the coming of the Son of Man! They feel enormous pressure to be ready, to get to the finish line as winners. So they put all their focus on meeting the king and measuring up when the time comes. There are big things they must accomplish, such as making sure they’ve established the right leadership and perfected the rules and put on the garments to meet the king.
They consider everything else to be distractions, the least of their worries. Sure, offering compassion to an individual person here and there would be nice, but they can’t afford to be distracted when they are focused on more important things! Like runners with a one-track mind, they are laser focused on their goal and with their blinders on, they block out everything else.
When the king comes, the goats are ready to receive their medal. They did it — they crossed the finish line! Now is the time for the accolades and celebration of their hard-earned victory! Except that is not what they get.
The earnest seminary students, in their one-track mind to do the work of God on time, failed to offer the very act of compassion they were likely preaching about. The fattened sheep in Ezekiel’s prophecy with their blinders on to drink of the clear water and feed on the good pasture, failed to see the effects they were leaving behind with their muddy feet. In their earnestness to perfectly prepare to meet the king, the goats in Jesus’ story failed to recognize the various ways the king was already among them.
As the king tells the surprised sheep, caring for the least of these is not only how they served the king but it was also being in the very presence of the king himself.
The goats thought they were readying themselves to encounter the king in all his glory, and forgot that the king we serve chooses to dwell among the lowly, the humble, the needy, and the poor.
How often do we fail to recognize the very presence of God in our midst because we are laser focused on what we think are the important things? What are some things we tell ourselves we don’t have time for because they not important or holy enough? Who are the people in our lives that we neglect, failing to notice or to extend our gift of compassion, inadvertently failing to experience the very presence of God?
Perhaps in our quest for mountain top experiences, holy work, big policy changes, and identification with the right groups and practices, we have missed the living embodiment of God and God’s kingdom.
For many people including myself, this particular year has felt like the least productive year. At times it has felt like a failure to do great things; a distraction from the goal. Yet if it is among the “the least of these” that God chooses to dwell, that should give us pause to take off our blinders and see where God is present with us, this year.
We might find God in the little ordinary things, in the daily acts of compassion, in the slowing down as we take the time to really see someone else and to treat them like our own. “The king will answer them, ‘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.’”
While the year of 2020 is not finished just yet, today we celebrate the last Sunday of the Christian season. Next Sunday we begin to celebrate Advent, a time when we are reminded that our glorious and powerful King chose to come to us as a small vulnerable baby, born in a manger to humble parents, as angels announced the glory of God to lowly shepherds. May we notice and serve our King in the least of these. Amen.