This final Sunday of the Church’s year, dedicated to Christ’s Kingship, provides us with a last chance to look back across the rich tapestry of the liturgical year, whilst also allowing us a look forward, in hope, to the new year, and to the day when The Kingdom is fully established, and when Christ will reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords over all created order!

It also provides us with an opportunity to examine what kingship and The Kingdom means, in Christian terms, and to begin to understand our own part in it!

Perhaps it would be good to remember, here, the words of St Anselm, an 11^th Century Archbishop of Canterbury, who said, ‘I was created to see God, but I have not yet attained to that for which I was made’!

Understanding Christ’s Kingship involves taking on board, that Jesus was far from what we expect of a king – no palace, no fine clothes, no staff or servants, and no riches!

And, I’m sure, that was why he was so often at odds with the religious authorities.  The kingdom of justice, mercy and peace that he preached about, was not a kingdom that people recognized in human terms, which is why they crucified him! 

Perhaps our understanding, and their misunderstanding of Jesus Kingship is best summed up in the middle verses of John Barnard’s hymn:

Word incarnate, truth revealing,

Son of Man on earth!

Pow’r and majesty concealing

By your humble birth.

Suff’ring servant, scorned, ill-treated,

Victim crucified!

Death is through the cross defeated,

Sinners justified.

We often concentrate on how the mis-match of expectation about Jesus mission and kingdom caused problems for the scribes and the Pharisees and those who couldn’t tolerate his teaching, but what we less often talk about what it must it have been like for Jesus himself – about how his knowledge of what the people were expecting from a Messiah, was so at variance with his own understanding, and his own mission of salvation!

So, to try to help the people understand, and perhaps as a human being, to help him to retain his sanity, he made up and told stories – stories about the things that people related to – sheep and shepherds, widows and lost coins, farmers who didn’t have big enough barns to store their crops in, Kings and Kingdoms, sheep and goats – oh yes – the sheep and the goats!

Let's have a look at what this morning’s Gospel passage has to tell us.

Firstly, in the context of this passage, we can tell a human ‘sheep’ by their willingness to help others without thinking about what's in it for them.  They will give food to the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, invite in a stranger, give clothing to the naked, take care of the sick, and visit the prisoner in prison. 

Not only will they not think about what's in it for them, they won't even realise that they are doing these things!  They will respond to Jesus' by asking, "when did we do these things?" 

And then, we can tell a human ‘goat’ by the exact opposite characteristics!  In the parable, Jesus says exactly the same things about them, but in the negative.  They did not give food to the hungry, or drink to the thirsty and so on . . . .  and they respond to Jesus' by asking, "when did we not do these things?" 

In the Church of Christ, there are sheep and there are goats.   Even at St Nicolas, Cranleigh, there are sheep and there are goats!  And it’s often hard for us to recognize who are the sheep, or who are the goats – perhaps we don’t even know what we are ourselves?  Because it’s easy to live a life thinking that we are doing good things for God, just as it’s easy to think that we’re not doing enough when actually we are!

Perhaps it’s worth thinking of that famous line from the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ where Jesus says " . . . . in everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you . . . ."

This in itself is a hard thing to do, but in the passage it’s made even harder, as Jesus says: " . . . . I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me."

• So the hungry one whom we feed is Christ himself!
• The thirsty one to whom we give a drink is Christ himself!
• The stranger we invite into our home is Christ himself!
• The naked one we clothe is Christ himself!
• The sick one for whom we care is Christ himself!
• And the prisoner we visit is Christ himself!

And perhaps that says it all!