Taking God's Test

Taking God’s Test

Matthew 25:31-40

I ended my sermon with this story last Sunday, but find it so meaningful that I want to explore it in a more extensive format.

A skeptic raises his eyes to the heavens and says, “God, if you’re up there, tell me what I should do.”

A voice from above answers, “Feed the hungry, house the homeless, establish justice…”

The shocked skeptic replies, “I was just testing!”

The voice answers, “So was I!”

It’s easy to be skeptical about God’s existence.  When we look around we see little evidence of God’s presence.  We say this is God’s world, yet the forces of evil, hate, prejudice, and oppression are so rampant that it is easy to believe they are winning the battle, and God is in retreat.  How can we believe in a God who allows such things to exist?  Wouldn’t it be easier to give up, to live out our lives in frustration, die and pass on to whatever (if anything) comes next?

Probably—at least in the short run.  It’s always easier to give up than to fight if all we’re thinking about is the present.  Easier to sit back in our recliner, make “tsk, tsk” sounds at the news (or avoid watching entirely), go about our business and let the world go to ruin.

But God doesn’t operate in the short run.  God’s in it for the long haul.  Peter (2 Peter 3:8-10) reminds us that God’s sense of time is different—longer, much longer—than ours.  If all we think about is the present situation, or even the situation for the length of our lives, we’ll fall far short of the way God thinks.

My friend Joyce reminded our yoga class recently that, despite evidence to the contrary, there is much good in the world.  Unfortunately for our emotional equilibrium evil, prejudice, hate, oppression, all make better news stories than good.  If we have a life view slanted towards bad news it isn’t completely our fault.  What we see and hear in the media incline us to think and feel that way.  We have every reason to be skeptical.

When we are, when events incline us to the skeptic’s point of view, we must remember that God is in charge, that God has a long-term—very long-term—plan for this world, and that God is—always has been, always will be—in charge of history.  We can’t ignore evil, but neither can we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by it.  When we see evidence of hatred, of prejudice, of oppression it is our task to fight back with every weapon we have.  This is what God expects us to do; this is what God commands us to do.

This is why I always come back to Matthew 25.  I can’t escape it.  Jesus makes crystal clear how we are expected to live.  Note that when the day of judgment comes we will not be evaluated by our denominational ties, how much we’ve read the Bible, or how frequently we’ve attended church.  Our final destination will be determined by our service to others—specifically to the least of our brothers and sisters, those who are the victims of evil, of hatred, of oppression.

I find it interesting that some of those invited into God’s kingdom are surprised by their inclusion.  They didn’t know they were serving in God’s name; they just did what they thought was right.  If we read the next part of this passage we see that many who expect to be included won’t make the cut.

It’s clear that God means business—which means that we’d better mean business also.  Will you pass God’s test?