Getting The Final Exam Question Early
Psalm 8
Matthew 25:31-46
When I was a student occasionally a professor would give us the final exam questions early. That approach always met with mixed reviews. First, there was relief in the class. Now, at least we knew what would be on the exam. Second, there was anxiety. We knew we would be expected to give a comprehensive response to the questions because we were expected to research the questions in advance of the exam.
In essence, Jesus gave us life's final examination question early. It is recorded in our text from the 25th chapter of Matthew. Life's final exam question is, "When did we see Christ hungry and feed him, thirsty and give him drink, a stranger and welcome him into our lives, naked and give him clothes, sick or in prison and visit him?" That's the question and it is graded on a pass or fail basis. How will you answer it?
The advice that a woman gave her granddaughter on living the good life can be extremely helpful to us. Her advice provides an outline for us to answer life's final exam question. Here is what that wise grandmother suggested:
Wash what is dirty. Water what is dry. Heal what is wounded. Warm what is cold. Guide what goes off the road. And love people who are the least loveable, because they need it the most."
First, wash what is dirty. Is there anybody or anything that would not benefit from a good bath? A law remains on the books in Kentucky requiring every citizen to take a bath at least once a week. I don't know how strictly enforced it is or if it is possible to enforce it. Maybe people in Kentucky are dirtier than people in other states and that is why the law was passed originally. But the advice, "Wash what is dirty," has wide application. It applies to personal hygiene, soiled clothes, distorted minds, bad attitudes, destructive actions, and soured relationships.
Jesus said that the pure in heart are blessed or happy because they will be able to see God. To have pure hearts means we will one thing. We are committed in one direction, toward one goal. We have one master. It is a great way, the appropriate way, the only way we can "clean up our act."
You and I need to wash what is dirty in our lives. We really don't need anyone else to tell us what needs washing. We already know, don't we? If we don't know, isn't it primarily because we don't want to know? We need to wash what is dirty.
Second, water what is dry. Thirst comes in a variety of forms. Those who work the soil know that a minimum amount of water is necessary to nourish vegetation. All of us have seen dry, parched land that cracks and buckles in the midst of a drought as it pushes itself open to get any drop of moisture that might fall on it. One of the major needs in the world is for uncontaminated water, something we take for granted. During the aftermath of most any hurricane many people are startled to learn that one of the needs of people in the areas affected by the hurricane is uncontaminated water.
Did you know there are approximately two billion people in the world who lack safe water and adequate sanitation? To water what is dry has human dimensions and is part of the answer to life's final examination.
The need for water has not received much emphasis or publicity in connection with poverty. One reason may be that those who write about poverty assume there is water everywhere. Although in many poverty stricken areas where this is true, it is only half true because the available water is often contaminated. A second reason we may not hear much about the need for water is the assumption of the need for food when we look into the emaciated faces and the sunken eyes of people who are starving. The visible sign to us is of people who need food, and we do not think about their need for water. There is a third related reason. The need for water doesn't make commanding headlines like the need for food does. But the need is for both water and food. Thirty thousand children and adults die each day from contaminated water. An urgent need of people who are poor is for clean, uncontaminated water. The goal in one country is to provide ten quarts of water per day per person. This sounds so meager. Our involvement in water projects can help us overcome our numbness and enable us to do something about the need for water for people who are poor. How we treat people who are hungry and thirsty reveals how we treat Christ.
When the needs of physical thirst are met, thirst on another level calls for attention. This is the thirst for relationship. Jesus said that those who are thirsty for God, those who thirst to do what is right, those who desire to do what God wants as much as a thirsty person wants water will have their thirst quenched. God will satisfy them completely.Our thirst often takes the form of loneliness. There are times when each of us feels all alone in the world. That is frightening and our lives feel as parched emotionally as they do physically when we desperately need a drink of water.
Jane was running for President of her student government in high school. It was a forgone conclusion by practically everyone that Jane would win. She was not the most attractive person in the school. Although she made good grades, she certainly was not the brightest student. But she did win the election. Afterward, someone ask Jane what was the secret to her popularity. She said she had always tried to befriend others because her grandmother told her once that "everybody is a little bit lonely." She was right, wasn't she? Isn't everybody deep down a little bit lonely? Jane's grandmother had encouraged her to water what was dry.
Although we have more skills and more opportunities for relationships than any previous generation, we may be the loneliest generation ever to live. There is the loneliness of mortality. There is the loneliness of time that passes too slowly, or too swiftly. There is the loneliness of inevitable separation. There is the loneliness of alienation. There is the loneliness of aspiration. There is the loneliness of the squandered need for someone to water what is dry.
Norman Cousins has observed that our explorations into space have intensified our loneliness. "What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the moon but that they set eye on the earth. They perceived larger relationships. They had an increased sense of human uniqueness. . . . To be able to rise from the earth; to be able, from a state in outer space, to see the relationship of the planet Earth to the other planets . . . enlarges the human horizon." One of the results has been an even greater thirst for relationships that are healthy and wholesome. Astronauts who have been able to view the Earth from outer space have a clearer understanding about the unity of the Earth and the need of people to resolve their differences and water what loneliness has dried out.
Third, we need to heal what is wounded. Ernest Hemingway wrote that the world breaks everybody, but some are made strong in the broken places. None of us live for very long before we are people of sorrow, acquainted with grief. A quiver full of injuries has been shot into our lives. Dreams have been dashed. Achievements have been thwarted. Rewards have been delayed. Jobs have been lost. Bodies have been ravaged by disease. Relationships have been wrecked by resentment and rejection. We are the walking wounded. We need a wounded healer to journey with us for awhile.
Only by having someone who can and does empathize with us are we made strong in the broken places. Nothing soothes our wounds like having someone understand us. When other people can put themselves in our places and feel something of what life is like for us, we are strengthened. We can carry on. We cope with our wounds and discover our wounds are being healed. When people are facing surgery, they often search for others who have undergone the same surgery. One of the most supportive relationships in a time like that is to talk with someone who has traveled that road ahead of us and lived to tell about it. There is plenty of evidence to support the idea that the healing process is speeded up when the one who is wounded has a system of people who offer their support.
One of the most effective ways to heal the wounded is to strengthen human relationships. Each of us can improve the ways we relate to family and friends. We also can expand our circle of relationships. We need to keep rotating new people into our field of friendship. One of the wounds that senior adults experience is realizing that many of their peers have died. They need new and younger friends. Many lively senior adults have said that what has kept them active and alert has been young friends. All of us can benefit from cultivating relationships across generations. The richness of these relationships helps heal the wounded.
Fourth, we need to warm what is cold. What good advice especially for us who live in the north! Last winter brought lots of cold mornings until last Thursday. When a blast of Arctic air makes its way into our area, we bundle up and remain outside as briefly as possible. When the icy breeze of apathy and indifference blows into our lives, we need warm friends who love and understand us. Many of us are resourceful people and we know where to go to get the help needed to warm what is cold in our lives. But there are those who do not have such resources. There are people who don't know where to go when life turns cold. If they are unable to get help, they will freeze to death. It is a terrible thing to be frozen emotionally. It is even worse to be frozen physically. All of us have our cold spots and need what is cold to be warmed. All of us also need to warm the cold spots in others. One of the ways to warm what is cold is to microwave our relationships. The way a microwave oven works is that it stirs up the molecules in the food and warms the food from the inside out. That is what we need to do in our relationships, warm them from the inside out. We do this by loving and caring for people. Everyone of us can benefit from the warmth of a genuine hug.
Fifth, we need to guide what goes off the road. All of us are on a journey traveling toward a city whose builder and maker is God. The road is not a straight thoroughfare. Rather, it is a winding path leading up mountains and through valleys. The journey is as important as the destination. And it is important to stay on the road. Our reason for being on the journey is to worship and serve God. In this sense, the purpose of the journey and the destination are the same.
We are fellow pilgrims on a journey through life. As we travel let us reach out to those who have gotten off the road either by their own choices or who have been pushed off by others and left for dead. Let us bind up their wounds and help them on their way as they journey from birth to life. In this way we will contribute to the well being of others.
We will experience the insight of Norman Cousins who wrote, "No man need fear death; he need fear only that he may die without having known his greatest power--the power of his free will to give of his life to others. If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality."
Sixth, we are to love the least loveable, because they need it the most. Isn't this descriptive of us? When we are dirty, thirsty, wounded, cold, or off the road is when we are the least loveable and when we need the most to be loved. What is true for us is true for every other person. The more empathetic and sensitive we become the better we are able to discern others who are in need of love.
All of this, to wash what is dirty, water what is dry, heal what is wounded, warm what is cold, guide what goes off the road, and love the least loveable, is to become a natural, integrated part of who we are and how we live. Because as we do these things we will be writing our answer to life's final exam question.
Jesus said that all people will stand before God and be accountable for the lives they have lived. And the people will fall naturally into one of two groups. It will be as easy to tell who belongs to which group as it is for a shepherd to tell the difference between sheep and goats. Even you and I, who aren't shepherds, can make that distinction.
Jesus said that those who have done right will be invited to the place of honor. They will be as surprised as anyone because they will have naturally cared for the needs of people as they have traveled the journey.
Those who failed to do what is right will be sent away. They will be surprised too, because if they had only known that it was God who was in need, they would have paid more attention. They were oblivious to the needs of others and made no connection between the needs of people and serving God.
Jesus gave us the question for life's final exam. We answer the question with our living. As we journey through life, here is the answer to life's final exam: wash what is dirty, water what is dry, heal what is wounded, warm what is cold, guide what goes off the road, and love the people who are the least loveable, because they need it the most. That's the answer, but it must become your answer and my answer through our living in order for us to get credit for the answer. Well, we had better get started on life’s final examination. Even knowing the answer, it will take us the rest of our lives to answer life’s final examination.
Notes