Coffee at Ten

Coffee at Ten--February 1, 2019

"Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that 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 something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked at gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me'." [Matthew 25:34-40]

It's less about rewards, and all about promise. It is the promise of Jesus telling us where to find him.

If you and I are going to meet for coffee, and I tell you, "I'll be at the coffee shop at 10 and will get a table, so I'll be there waiting whenever you get there," that is something of a promise.  Not terribly high stakes, but a promise nonetheless.  So suppose you decide to believe me, and you could use some mid-morning caffeine, so you show up at the coffee shop and find me, exactly as advertised, sitting at a table looking for you arrival.  If, at that point, you and I sit down to have coffee and conversation, and maybe I even spring for a couple of biscotti, would you call that a "reward" for coming?  Or is that simply the keeping of a promise--as in, "I said I would be there, and I am, so now we can sit and talk and sip our coffees together"?

It's obvious, right?  You show up there, not thinking, "If I come, I bet Steve will give me a reward for coming out to meet him!"  but rather, "This is where he told me he would be; if I want to share a table and some conversation, this is the place to find him."  You are not there to collect a prize but to meet me exactly where I told you I would be.  And you wouldn't think that this meeting for coffee was about you patronizing me and condescendingly sitting across from me out of pity; you would be there as much for your own enjoyment as for mine--that's how coffee works.

So let's get all of that straight if we are going to hear these words of Jesus rightly, and as we turn our attention in this new month to seeing Christ here... with the Other.  Because the temptation is to hear this story from Jesus as a deal with rewards (and punishments) doled out for good behavior (or the lack thereof).  We want to hear these words of Jesus and treat them like the ticket counter at Chuck-E-Cheese, where prizes and goodies are available in exchange for the tickets you have earned by doing well enough at Skee-Ball and Whack-a-Mole.  Some part of us thinks that Jesus offers glory in the afterlife as a prize for those who have won enough heaven-points by feeding hungry people or making visits to the prison.  Some part of our Respectable Religion teaches us that every night spent out on a mission trip to help "those people" will one day be redeemable for celestial prizes at the heavenly ticket counter.  That is, we come to hear Jesus' words as a system of rewards to be earned rather than a promise of where Jesus tells us he will be findable.  

And that makes all the difference.  Because if this is just about "how many poor people I have to ladle soup for in order to get to heaven," then this whole scene is not about love--not for Jesus, nor for the people in line with the soup--but all about me and my own self-preservation.  And I will just treat the people who come down the line at the soup kitchen as means to an end... and in the process, I will miss out on the encounter with Christ who is there in the space between me and the other.

But if I take Jesus' words as a promise--as Jesus' way of telling me where he'll be sitting in the coffee shop, so to speak--then it changes the whole encounter.  Instead of seeing other people as simply receptacles for my pity and objects for my virtuous good-deed-doing, I will see that Christ has promised to be present among these unexpected faces--in the "least," to use Jesus' word--and that if I want to meet up with Jesus, I will find him present, just as promised, in the lives of those who are most vulnerable.  It's not about earning prizes; it's about believing Jesus when he tells us where to find him.  And when recognize him there, he invites us to sit down, gets us a cup of coffee and wrangles up some biscotti at the table he has prepared for us.  There--now we can talk, and sip, and enjoy one another's company.  That was the whole point all along.

Maybe it is worth asking this question today: When we church-folk go "out" on service projects, mission trips, and outreach events, what do we think we are doing?  What is the purpose?  Because it is all too easy for us to see those activities in self-serving terms--as ways to do public relations for the church, as an attempt to get more members for our "club," as a way of racking up individual "heaven points" for the divine ticket counter, or as ways of patting ourselves on the back for doing a good deed as we identify people to pity and feel bad for.  But that not only misses the point--it misses Jesus.  Jesus has promised us that we will find him in the encounter of the shared meal, the welcome of foreigners and strangers, the time spent at the bedside of the patient, and the drink shared at the coffeehouse table.  If our reason for going "out" into the world is simply to feed our own egos' need for doing something noble, or recruiting would-be members for our religious clubs, or building up our own celestial bank accounts, we will miss Jesus every time.  But if we dare to trust Jesus himself, we'll look for Christ in all these faces where Jesus himself said he would be... and those we meet will find Christ looking back at them with our faces as well.

Can we dare to see today, not as a chance to earn some more tickets so we can earn a reward from the heavenly prize counter later, but as an opportunity to meet Jesus exactly where he promised to save a table for us?

Dear Jesus, help us to recognize you where you are... and to believe your promise of where to look.