A Mile in My Shoes: The Path to Eternal Life

Rev. Ron Campbell
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

July 30, 2006

Matthew 25: 31-40

My casual dress goes along with my message today: A Mile in My Shoes: The Path to Eternal Life. The shoes I’m wearing, and these clothes, reflect what I might pull out of my closet when I dress in the morning if I intentionally tried to put on Jesus’ shoes and to walk the day as he might have walked. Here’s a question for you to be pondering during my message which I will ask you again to consider as we conclude: As you choose your shoes from your closet in morning, what would it look like if like if you put on Jesus’ shoes instead of your own?

Let’s turn first to the text in Matthew 25: “I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.”

These are the last words of Jesus’ last discourse in Mathew, a climatic point to which Matthew has carefully built. Following six parables and warnings about living responsibly so as to be ready for the coming of the Son of Man, Mathew closes with this scene, which is not another parable, but a scene of apocalyptic drama. It begins with an other-worldly depiction of the parousia - the coming of the Son of Man with his angels, and the gathering of all the nations (which by the word used here refers not to countries but to all the peoples of the earth), and then concludes with an affirmation of the ultimate importance of ordinary this worldly deeds: “Then the King will say, “When ever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, the least of these, you did it to me.’”

I imagine when the disciples heard this punch line they realized that what Jesus was saying to them was that the path to everlasting life lay along the path that Jesus had walked all of his life, reaching out to those in need with compassion and healing. The path to eternal life in this view of the Apostle Matthew is that we are to walk in Jesus’ shoes in the way of life that he lived as one of us. I made a decision not to deal with the last section of this text, verses 41-46 which follow what we have read today. This is the section where The Son of Man casts those who have not responded to the needs of their fellowmen into the eternal fire of damnation. But I’m not focusing this in my sermon because: 1) That message deserves a sermon on its own; 2) These verses do not appear in the earliest copies of the texts of the Gospel of Matthew and appear to be later editorial additions; and 3) Matthew likely wanted to emphasize the first part of the text, which I am focusing on this morning. If our attention goes to this last part too soon we’ve moved the original thrust away from where Matthew wants us to focus.

However, I’m not letting us off the hook today completely. I must quickly tag something here in these trailer verses which are vitally important and give us the imperative to act as if our little lives really make a big difference! Four things: 1) There will be a judging of each of our lives; 2) The judge will be Christ himself, who has high standards which none of us can even hope to approach; 3) This judge is wearing too hats; one reflecting his righteousness (holiness) and the other his deep compassion; and 4) The criterion for this judging according to Matthew is how we respond to others in need. It’s this divine holiness and compassion that Matthew tells us will be the final measure of our own lives. If Christ appeared among us NOW, we would be simultaneously overwhelmed with his judgment (holiness) and his accepting love (forgiveness). Both of these qualities of God emanate from the nature of who he is. In the presence of this Holy God we would be experience unworthiness and awe and absolute acceptance at the same moment.

Now let’s turn to the central message of the text which is: The path to everlasting life is the path that Jesus had walked every day of his earthly life, reaching out to those in need with compassion and healing. For us to walk in Jesus’ shoes means that we take on his way of seeing the world and experiencing life and respond to the needs of those who suffer as he did. This means that each day we need to put on his shoes and walk in the way he walked into the places he even now is already present.

There’s a process which can guide us in walking in Jesus’ shoes.  It has three steps. 

The 1st Step is walking each day as a Pilgrim, not as a Tourist. Let’s talk about walking in the shoes of Jesus as a way of life that is a pilgrimage, a journey of our souls seeking to serve God. This means being attentive to what is around us and within us, looking for the light of God to give us his vision of the moment. Being attentive means suspending our own concerns, expectations, and pre-judgments, having an open mind and seeking for a deeper understanding of others that intentionally frames the situation in the light of God’s love and mercy. It’s looking at life through the eyes of Jesus.

Here’s an example of this from Rabbi Lawrence from Israel: A Spiritual Travel Guide:  A Companion for the Modern Jewish Pilgrim. It’s a story about a Roman arch and an old man. “Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David’s Tower. I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. ‘You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there’s an arch from the Roman period, just right of his head?’ ‘But he’s moving; he’s moving!’ I said to myself, ‘redemption will come only if their guide tells them, ‘You see that arch from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it left and down a bit, there is a man who’s bought fruit and vegetables for his family!’”

A tourist sees an historical arch. A pilgrim sees a man in his need. A tourist seeks his own pleasure, has his own agenda, and looks out for his own interest and desires. A tourist is a spectator not participating in the struggles and triumphs, the pain and the courage, and the hope of the world. But a pilgrim seek to join life in its deeper movements of struggle for meaning and significance, its notices humans and their needs as she walk through her day. Walking as a pilgrim and not as a tourist is the first step on the path that leads to life eternal.

The 2nd step is experiencing the presence and compassion of Christ as we go to serve others as he did.  Our text gives us our clue:  It’s as we enter the suffering and hope of others that we meet the risen Christ and we experience his compassion for us and for others. Experiencing the presence and compassion of Christ means that we join Jesus in the suffering of others. If we’re to meet Jesus face to face then we must be willing to reach out to those with which he identifies with the most, those whom he called “the least of these.” There’s an important thing to notice about how Jesus told this part of the story. Jesus yoked concern for those in need with the affirmation that in meeting the needs of others we have actually done it to him! The text presents Christ as mystically joined with creation, especially people in their ordinary human needs. Matthew emphases the real presence of Christ in ordinary human life. It’s in joining this real Christ in the pain of others that we find the secret to this life and to the next.

A few years ago Seton Hospital posted their Mission Statement on the walls of every hall: “We serve each person as if they were Christ himself.” This was not just a statement of the high personal regard             Seton held for its patients. No, they really meant it!  In each patient they really were meeting and serving Christ himself.

The 1st step in walking in Jesus’ shoes is walking each day as a pilgrim, not as a tourist. The 2nd step is it’s as we enter the suffering and hope of others we meet the risen Christ and we experience His presence and His compassion for us and for others. And the 3rd step is as we serve others and meet Christ in others we are transformed by the grace of God in Christ.

At TUMC we understand mission work as a spiritual disciple; a means of growing in God’s grace and a way of cooperating with God as God transforms us more and more into the mind of Christ. Think of mission work as a coin with two sides. One side represents the service we provide those we go to help. This includes meeting their real material/physical life needs and also their deeper emotional, relational, and spiritual needs. But there’s also another side which we think is even more important. It’s what we receive by going to serve. Each of us has something unique to offer as we go to serve but also each of us receives far more than we give in our service.

My message today was inspired by a South African Pastor, Trevor Hudson, a white pastor of a white United Methodist church in South Africa. In the 1980’s during the apartheid years, Trevor took over 100 members of his congregation on 8 day Pilgrimages of Pain and Hope in villages all over South Africa. My sermon title and message are informed by his book about these pilgrimages, A Mile in My Shoes.

Trevor’s wife is a biology teacher. Each year she brought a frog home to dissect as practice for teaching the students about frogs. Trevor asked her one day, “Isn’t there a better way to get to know a frog? Why not get in the pond, and swim around with the frog?  Then, I think, we might be able to really understand the frog.”  Trevor applied this notion to our need to get into someone’s environment to be able to understand their lives, their pains and their joys.

Here’s the Model he developed as phases of the pilgrimage movement toward transformation of the soul. His model essentially correlates to the three steps which I am outlining as walking in the shoes of Jesus.

Preparation (That’s Step 1: Putting on the Shoes of Christ and Walking as a Pilgrim)        

Experience (That’s Step 2: Experiencing the Compassion of Christ as we go to serve others as he did.)

Reflection (Journal & Sharing) Sometimes we don’t learn from our experience because we don’t take the time or effort to sit and reflect. Other times we reflect on our experiences but we draw the wrong lesson. We need to take the time to reflect and to learn the right lessons. The best way to learn from our experiences is to share from our hearts with others who share the same experiences.

Transformation: On these Pilgrimages of Pain and Hope in South Africa everyone was changed as they reflected upon what they’d experienced and how they had met Christ in the lives of those whom they encountered. All of this resulted in what Trevor Hudson sees as the central goal of pilgrimage and mission: the transformation of lives which leads to the transformation of the world! The Pilgrims listened to stories, heard and understood the real life needs and the deeper needs of people, experienced life with them in their context and learned from them, reflected and shared with each other, and were transformed as they met Christ in those they went to serve.

What happened in South Africa as more and more people went on these pilgrimages is that people started to ask how they could translate their experience to their daily lives. Trevor’s answer can be found in his book A Mile in My Shoes. Each day can be a Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope. His newest tool for making each day a pilgrimage, walking each day in Jesus’ shoes, is the new five week series in our Companions in Christ Spiritual Formation curriculum. The title of this course is The Way of Transforming Discipleship. Perhaps you might be interested in forming a small group to work through this together. 

The Methodist Church the last the last several years has held central that our mission is to make disciples for Jesus Christ. Recently we’ve added a qualifying phrase that we’re to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We hear echoes of John Wesley in this new phrase. Wesley often prayed: “God change me, that I might change the church, that the church might change the world. Like the Pilgrimages of Pain and Hope in South Africa early Methodism understood that the most important change is the change that first begins in us!

Here’s what I hope you will take with you as you leave this worship service: 1) That you appreciate that your little life does make a big difference for God and that when you act toward others to sooth even just a little of their pain you’re also soothing the pain of God himself; 2) That you realize that as you step into the pain of others you’re meeting Christ himself, and in that meeting you are changed, even if just a little bit, and that you recognize that this is the process by which God is shaping and molding you not only this life but the life that comes next; and 3) That your prayer to God each day will be: “Lord change me that I might change the world for you!”

Now as we close let’s reflect on how we each might respond to Christ’s call to meet him in the serving of others in need. Visualize yourself going to your closet in the morning and about to select the shoes you will wear for the day. Here’s the question for you to ponder as you choose your shoes: What would it look like if like if I put on Jesus’ shoes instead of my own today, and if I were really committed to walking in Jesus’ shoes? 
 
And remember the words of our Lord as he gave us a clue to where we might find him if we look, for he is already walking ahead of us, “When ever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, to the least of these, that was me - you did it to me.”

Let us pray:  This week God give us little reminders to take off our shoes and put on yours for a while that we might experience your presence in the suffering, the courage and the hope of others, and as we do, may we be changed by your holy grace more into the image of your son, Jesus Christ.  Amen