David Orendorff, Matthew 25:31-46

This is the passage mom wants read at her memorial. It encapsulates the meaning and purposes of her faith.

In Matthew’s gospel this is Jesus’ final parable and comes just before his last meal with his students. It is Matthew’s summary of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It is that for which Jesus and every disciple of Jesus is willing to die.

In reading this parable again I was struck by a few things. First, this parable carries both promise and threat. I don’t particularly like nor do I respond well to threats. I sort of get stiff necked. But notice that the judgment is not upon any one individual, but upon the whole εθνοσ the whole nation or community for its compassionate action or its lack of compassionate action. The judgment is not of a person but of a community. And it is not for any creed or allegiance, but for the actions taken on behalf of the suffering.

Secondly, I noticed something new to me. There is no shepherd in the parable. It is the sheep who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome strangers, and visit the sick and the imprisoned. It is the sheep caring for sheep.

To put the sheep in charge is a strange and risky thing to do. When a corporate executive moves he (or a committee) find a successor. When I move from here it is expected that someone will replace me. What if the corporate exec simply put the whole office in charge and was not replaced. And what if when I moved you, as a whole group, replaced me.

Yet this is exactly what Jesus does. What Jesus expects is not that a new shepherd is selected to take over for him in his care of the sheep, but that the sheep now take care of each other and the greater world. At his death Jesus puts not Peter in charge (as some would have it), but the whole flock is in charge. Jesus hands the care of those he loves, hands the kingdom of heaven to the sheep in spite of his knowledge that those closest to him will soon betray him to the wolves. Jesus has once again managed to turn everything upside down.

Just to see how upside this is I have a little test. When you tell someone you attend Bear Creek and they ask, “Who is your pastor?” who do you tell them? Or when you are in the hospital and you want a visit from a pastor, of whom are you thinking? When you want a pastor to lead something, who do you have in mind? When you are at a community meeting and you look to see if Bear Creek is represented, for whom are you looking? When it is time to pray who do you think should do it? Who is the “real pastor,” the real shepherd of Bear Creek? If you answered Dave O to most of these, then Jesus challenges your thinking. Jesus says you, the congregation of Bear Creek, are the real pastor.

I know the test isn’t fair. But the limitation of Bear Creek’s pastor to being me is something with which we as a community struggle. I have had hospital visitors tell me that their presence was appreciated, but would a real pastor please visit. When a real pastor was not at a meeting that someone thought important, I have been told that Bear Creek was not represented no matter how many Bear Creek folks were there. Somehow, for some people, I am the only real pastor and the rest of you are occasionally pretend pastors.

If someone is hungry, then they are sent to the church office and we are to find a way to feed them. If someone is thirsty then they should call me and ask for help. If someone is a stranger then somehow they are not truly welcomed unless I have welcomed them. If they are ill or in prison then a real pastor should visit.

And as you know this is a misconception not only at Bear Creek. The myth of the real pastor is alive among most Christians and even more so among non-Christians. In fact, non-church folks may be more strongly under the influence of this illusion than church folk.

Somehow we must make such thinking stop. It is unbiblical, unreasonable and the death of the kingdom of heaven. We, all of us together, are the flock Jesus calls to be pastors and to care for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned.

It is simply unreasonable for only one of us to be the real pastor. The need for care is great and none of us can do all of it. Even if I only cared about the sheep in the Bear Creek pen, I could not be pastor to all the sheep. There are 250 members at Bear Creek, 100 youth and children, and 150 hundred devoted friends. That is 500 people. We are larger than some small towns. The most anyone person can carefully offer quality pastoral care is to 10 or so. I can cover 20 people if I work very hard, but the broader the coverage the thinner it gets. Who will give pastoral care to the other 490?

You know this and many of you have stepped up to be pastors. Ellyn Martin and Ellen McKee are real pastors. Weekly they receive a list of those not present in worship for the three previous weeks and make phone calls to make sure you are well. There are no requests, no recruitment, just a call to say someone cares.

Daily I pray with the Prayer Chain folks for many of you. I hear from you and about you, and I know that there are those who need a pastor. Thank God, I am not the only pastor at Bear Creek. People get most of their pastoral care from one of more of you. Some good shepherds have probably already come to your mind. Mona Charlton has more pastor in her little finger than I have in my whole body. If Mona calls you then you have been called by a real pastor.

When Jeannie Morris and her volunteers feed a family in need then they have been fed by real pastors. When Debbie Brown takes extra time to listen to a choir member’s life and pray with them then they have been heard by a real pastor. When Ellen Boyer leads her covenant group in spiritual growth, then they have been lead by a real pastor. When Holly Ward visits one of her study group because they are ill, that member has been visited by a real pastor. As Sonya Garrett and Connie Gagnon week after week supervise the coffee fellowship with Marian, organize special events like the upcoming Advent festival, and take time to create a women’s retreat, then a real pastors have served us. If you are on the worship team and had surgery, and Sara Lambert, Bill Hoppe or Ann Rupley, your team leader or one of the other team members called on you, then you have been called on by a real pastor. Am I getting through?

Since the beginnings of the church the real pastoral needs have been met not by any one disciple, but by the community of disciples together. The church when it is being the church is a community of sheep pastors. In Baptism we proclaim that every child of God is a member of the royal priesthood. Never is ordination a requirement for pastoral care. In fact if only the ordained clergy are pastors then the church is dead.

And it is not just for ourselves that we are asked to be pastors. You know how the children of our world are suffering and need real pastors. In the parable Jesus doesn’t say whether the hungry and naked, stranger and ill are Jewish, Christian, Roman, Methodist or a non-believer all together. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that they are hungry. And just as Bear Creek will not thrive as a place to know the kingdom of heaven without all of us being real pastors to each other, the world cannot know the kingdom of heaven unless we are real pastors to the world.

So when Chris Aakre leads us in feeding tent city, Mimi Johnson works at Country Doc, Andrea and Kevin Caldwell serve Matthew House, Bob Elvidge carries meals to shut ins, Brooke Self works for the rights of gay folks, Tracy Daugherty rides her bike for AIDS research, Ruthann Litchford provides programs that serve the parenting, health, and emergency needs of our neighbors, Tom Litchford works with Medic One and human rights in international manufacturing, Jim Morris takes on the challenge of quality education in King County, and Debra McKnight and Sara Smith lead a scout troop then the greater world has been served by real pastors.

I know that this list of real pastors is only partial. I apologize if I do not mention you but there are too many of you to mention. There are real pastors teaching Sunday School, serving on committees, engaged in PTA, doing their jobd in a Christ-like way and still I have only barely touched what the real pastors of Bear Creek are doing to serve us here and in serving all God’s children with the kingdom of heaven.

To be the best real pastors we might we cooperate with the Holy Spirit. Through our cooperation we are perfected by divine love to act in servant love. By our cooperation we grow in grace and together better feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the imprisoned. Together we can be real pastors with and for each other. Together we can change the world toward the full reign of God’s love and inherit the kingdom of heaven prepared for us. Isn’t that what we really want for ourselves, our children and the world?

To be the best real pastors we might be Bear Creek offers ways to assist us in cooperating with the Holy Spirit’s guiding and healing power by regular worship, study and service. I urge you to take advantage of these offerings. We work hard to provide a quality regular worship. We provide and strongly encourage you to participate in a small group for study. We continually offer to you missional opportunities to. Of course, only you can decide how best to do each of the three legs of discipleship. But at Bear Creek we trying to help.

We are asked by Jesus, before he dies, to be sheep pastors for each other and for the world. We are not perfect at it but that doesn’t really matter. As sheep, warts and all, we serve each other not by our godlike skills, but by our imperfect reliance on God’s grace. We are made and called by God to be the ones who will give our lives to acts of kindness. We are asked by Jesus to be the εθνοσ, the nation, the community, the family, that “inherits the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world” in this life by feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned.

So I ask, “Where is the flock that cares for “the least of these?” Who are the real pastors of Bear Creek? As you are able, will the real pastors of Bear Creek please stand up?”

I thank God for you.

Shalom and Amen.