At the crest of the old year, we look back upon our missed opportunities and failures, at the many graces we have experienced in these last 365 days, and we celebrate “the second chance” we now are being given – in the new year ahead!
We should be grateful. We should be thankful. Our hearts should be contrite.
What will we do with the time that we are being given?
This reminds me of the Dickens’ classic – A Christmas Carol.
It has become so much a part of our Western understanding of the meaning of our annual Christmas celebration.
At the heart of the story as you well know – is what happens to Ebenezer Scrooge.
The three ghosts visit him on Christmas Eve, challenging him to think of what he has done and what lies in store for him.
With his final apparition, Scrooge realizes what his life has been like and pleads for another opportunity.
He repents of his past failures, having heard the judgment against him, and is given “a second chance.”
There is something powerful and moving about this story because each of us knows at the end of the year that there is much for which we ourselves need to repent…and so much that could be different if we were to change our attitudes and our reactions, as well as our actions..
The Gospel text for this evening asks us to focus on this “very thing.”
Jesus tells a parable which points out that in the end, we will be judged not on what we have acquired in this life…(attractive as that is to all of us)…but on…what we have shared with others.
There will be a reckoning and those who hoarded will be separated from those who gave of themselves, just as a shepherd divides the goats from the sheep.
Every world religion has a similar story to tell and to share, as a reminder to the world’s affluent “that care should be taken” for those who are “less fortunate.”
The cadences develop gradually, as we are reminded of the needs of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned.
Even if we have never seen many of these people face to face, we know of their plight and the statistics are staggering. We know they exist. We know where they can be found! We realize so many need help!
This year has been a tough year all around the world – with tragedies occurring everywhere.
Perhaps the tragedies are not worse in our time than they have been in previous generations… but we are definitely confronted with them more visually because of the cinema, the television and the printed media.
Who are these people?
Why do they come to haunt us on New Year’s Eve at the end of another year of God’s grace?
What do they want from us?
The parable tells us that these people who have suffered and are suffering are “Jesus,” and what we do to them, we do to him.
The parable says that what we do to the thousands of children who die from starvation each day in our world, we do to Jesus.
What a horrible reality!
Those who we turn our backs on…
Those who we walk away from…
Those who we do not see on purpose…
Those who we say NO to…
They are Jesus. And that is how we are to look upon them.
You see the Bible does not mince words…
It is not afraid of telling it like it is.
The scriptures are not concerned with treading lightly on your sense abilities.
New Year’s Eve is “traditionally a time” for personal reflection, much in the spirit of Yom Kippur in Judaism and Ramadan in Islam.
There are many personal challenges we can face as we, like Scrooge, ask about alternatives, new opportunities, and a second chance.
We have before us a whole new year pregnant with possibility and filled with possibility and hope.
And you had better believe we will be confronted in 2017 with the needs of those who are less fortunate.
The question is “how will we respond?”
And will we see “in the face of “others” – the face of Jesus?