Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom 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 drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ Matthew 25:34-40 ESV
Spoiler Alert – Stop reading now if you haven’t seen the Internship, and still want to!
The premise of the Internship, is that a competition for a Google internship. It essentially comes down to a team of misfits and a pompous rich kid and his team of stars. The bad guy makes it clear he doesn’t have time for anyone but those he thinks are important.
This becomes most clear in his interactions with a scruffy headphone guy who is painfully shy, and never listens to music but wears the headphones because it lets him keep to himself. One of the two bumbling protagonists goes out of his way to befriend headphone guy, while the pompous villain makes fun of him.
At the final announcement of who won the internship, the pompous guy can’t believe he lost, and interrupts the announcement to say, “lets get someone down here who matters.”
Headphone guy appears, is revealed to be the head of a major department at Google, and he’s been listening to the whole thing. He tells the villain – you haven’t shown very much googliness. We learned earlier in the movie, this googliness is all about community and creativity. But the villain says, “what does that even mean?”
The headphone guy sums it up, “The fact you don’t even know is why you’ll never work here.”
Jesus says this about his kingdom. Compassion is a sign that you get what my kingdom is all about. Its part of kingdomliness. The way you treat those who don’t seem important, is actually very important.
Jesus even puts himself in their shoes – says it’s like you’re serving him when you serve others.
He goes so far as to say that this is how he sorts out those who want to be in his kingdom, with him, and those who want to take a pass. He says its like separating sheep and goats – the ones who want to be in his kingdom will act like it, and those who don’t, won’t. He says this twice, and I only read one version here, which is the positive describing who gets in, but he also tells the story in the negative, describing who stays out. What becomes clear is that we choose God’s kingdom, or separation from him, not just with words but with actions.
We’ll see tomorrow how this applies to our neighbours.
Question: How do these six actions benefit the recipient, the doer, and Jesus?
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In our day and age, it is hard to find rest. We are always connected and that has changed our hearts. We often feel important and needed when we can’t turn off our Blackberries, and can’t stop working. That’s today’s reality.
In a different way, it was hard to find rest in Jesus’ day. It was simply hard work to survive, eat and sleep in shelter. But the Jewish people had one major distinctive, the day of rest God gave at creation, and that they had been instructed to preserve.
But over time, a religious codification of law had been built onto God’s plan for Sabbath rest at creation. We see it in a story of some Pharisees, or religious legalists, and their conflict with Jesus here:
On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” (Luke 6:1-5 ESV)
Here we can see how the Pharisees had made even a day of rest into hard work. The Sabbath, even as it’s observed today, can become a strange mixture of freedom and peaceful rest, and concern and anxiety for legal compliance.
For example, I have a friend who lived in Israel for a short time, who would tell stories of a mad rush to get enough food before sunset on Friday when the Sabbath began. Then she’d take long walks to visit with a friend…all to avoid operating a car. What’s more work – walking or driving?
Or at Toronto’s Mount Sinai hospital there is a Sabbath elevator that stops at every floor on Saturdays, so no buttons need to be pressed. You can see how carefully work has been defined – button pushing is too much, but walking is okay.
The proper way to take Sabbath rest is still debated today – including debates on how strictly Christians should apply the Old Testament laws about Sabbath as a day of worship and rest. There is a clue here in the passage we’re exploring this week, where the Pharisees are confronting Jesus about his disciples eating on what was supposed to be a day of rest. They are plucking grain left for poor travellers like themselves, and rubbing it between their hands to make it edible, which was one of 39 types of work forbidden by the teachers of the law.
Note how Jesus responsds. He doesn’t laugh it off as an old throwback idea. No, he takes it somewhere different, he seems to say rest is vitally important, and that it is what he’s all about. He says he’s the Lord of the Sabbath. We saw in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ intention is not to throw away the law, nor to adopt the Pharisees’ interpretation of it wholesale, but rather to fulfill its original purpose. He reveals the point of the whole law to be…himself!
Question: What was your experience of weekends growing up? Was either day set aside as a day of rest?
Just in time for summer's blend of work and rest, Redeem the Commute is starting a new series of daily challenges to help busy people restore life to the commuting lifestyle. This seven week series will look at the meaning and purpose of work, rest, and ancient practices that have helped followers of Jesus to keep the two in perspective and balance for centuries.
