Sermon 11/18/07 (Matthew 25:31-45)

“Gathered ‘Round the Table?”
Matthew 25:31-45
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 18 November, 2007
Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Homelessness Awareness Sunday

 Every year for Thanksgiving my family would drive an hour to my cousins’ farm near Enderlin, North Dakota. When we arrived there would be lots of hugging, plenty of appetizers, and the authoritative voice of Aunt Emmy barking orders. Finally, an hour or two after dinner had been scheduled (this happened every year), we would gather around the table for the sumptuous feast. There was turkey with all the fixings, acorn squash, cranberries, potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, several different kinds of pie. We ate and talked and laughed and ate and talked and laughed some more. Rather than settle down in front of the TV to watch football after the big meal, we would sit around and talk. The children (myself included, when I was young) would play all sorts of imaginative games. We would revel in the warmth of extended family.

In North Dakota snow is a distinct possibility by Thanksgiving, so when we were finally ready to go home we would bundle up in our warm coats, hats, mittens, and boots, and shiver as we waited for the car to warm up.

During college, I was unable to go home to North Dakota for Thanksgiving, and I haven’t spent Thanksgiving there since Ben and I married, but I have always had a place to be and food to eat. There was the year a college roommate and I invited everyone on our college campus who was unable to go home for Thanksgiving. We cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner in our little dormitory kitchen and shared it with two Sri Lankans. There was the year I visited cousins in Connecticut. I spent Thanksgiving at a friend’s house in Philadelphia one year. After Ben and I married, we spent Thanksgiving with my cousins in Northern California. The past two years we have spent Thanksgiving with my cousins in Columbia, Maryland. This year we will visit Ben’s aunt and uncle in New Jersey. The point is, I have always had somewhere to be and food to eat. Even on the rare occasions that I didn’t have many options for Thanksgiving, I did not go hungry, nor was I left out in the cold.

Most of us here today will stuff ourselves this Thanksgiving. We are all looking forward to the meal we will share after worship today, but many of us have plans for Thursday too. We will fill our stomachs, sleep off the turkey, watch the game, talk with relatives, maybe fight with relatives. We may feel lonely. We may feel sad. We may not eat turkey. But we will have shelter and at least something to eat.

We are the lucky ones. There are many people in our community and beyond who struggle to find one meal a day, much less a Thanksgiving feast. There are many who do not have warm coats to ward off the cold, much less a car in which to drive home. Then there are those who are simply without a home.

This week we have the odd but apt juxtaposition of the Thanksgiving holiday and Homelessness Awareness Week. As we prepare to gorge ourselves and subsequently complain about having to loosen our belts, we are called to remember those who are less fortunate.

At Thanksgiving time it is appropriate to lift up songs of praise and gratitude to God, and we are doing that this morning with the words of our first three scripture readings. In my family, we would always go around the table and share at least one thing for which we were thankful, and I like to continue that tradition today. God calls us to such gratitude, as it is God who blesses us with everything we have.

Even as we sing our thanksgiving, however, God calls us to an even greater task. Through the words of Jesus, God calls us to care for those who are in need. “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the realm prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” The people asked, “When was it that we did all these things for you?” and Christ answered, “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.”1

Even as we are called to give thanks for the blessings God has given us, God calls us to be a blessing to those less fortunate. As we moan about our annoying family members, God calls us to remember our greater human family. Some of these family members may look nothing like us. They may act nothing like us. They may have nothing of what we have. But they, like we, are created in the image of God.

In 2006 more than 35.5 million of God’s children went hungry in this country. Those disproportionately reporting hunger were single mothers (30.4 percent); African American households (21.8 percent); Hispanic households (19.5 percent); and households with incomes below the official poverty line (36.3 percent). Of the 35.5 million people who went hungry last year, 12.6 were children.2 Some of these hungry people were homeless. Some had homes. Many had to choose between shelter and food. Whatever the circumstances, they went to bed too many nights with empty stomachs.

In the richest, most powerful country in the world, 35.5 million people went hungry. In an average year, 3.5 million Americans will experience a period of homelessness.3 “For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”4

The purpose of this sermon is not to make you feel guilty. Jesus himself shared a feast with family and friends, and our ancestors in faith have been gathering around the table to share meals and give thanks ever since. The purpose of this sermon is not to make you think, “Too bad those poor people can’t enjoy a piece of this wonderful pumpkin pie!” The purpose of this sermon is not to make you think, “I wonder what they did to deserve being hungry or homeless!” My purpose is not to make you say, along with many of your fellow Americans, “They’re just hungry and/or homeless because they’re lazy.” “All he needs to do to get off the streets is stop drinking. How hard is that?!” The purpose of this sermon is not to cause you to judge your neighbor -- or even to remind you that any one of us could become homeless or hungry at any moment, and that a huge percentage of the poor in this country work full time.

The purpose of this sermon is mainly to make you think. What can you do to help this situation? How can you reach out to those who are starving, those who are without a place to go, much less a family with whom to spend Thanksgiving? What can you do to care for “the least of these”?

God is not simply going to swoop down and pour material blessings upon those living in poverty. God doesn’t work that way. Rather, it is up to us, as God’s children, to be a blessing to our brothers and sisters. It is up to us to feed the hungry, provide drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned. As you gather around the table this Thanksgiving, I invite you to ask yourselves, and one another, how you can carry out Jesus’ greatest commandment: to love your neighbor as yourself.

Now let us pray.


1 Matthew 25:35-40, NRSV translation.
2 “Hunger figures for 2006 no better,” Fargo Forum newspaper, Fargo, North Dakota, 11/15/07. Accessed via http://www.in-forum.com/News/articles/183616 on 11/15/07.
3 Los Angeles Homeless Services Coalition, http://lahsc.org/wordpress/educate/statistics/united-states-homeless-statistics/, accessed on 11/17/07.
4 Matthew 25:42-45, NRSV translation.