May 31, 2026
• Rev. Dr. Rob Fuquay
St. Luke’s UMC
May 31, 2026
YIGBY—Yes in God’s Backyard
“Yes to the Least”
Matthew 25: 31-46
We conclude today our series YIGBY—Yes, in God’s Backyard. And what could be a better way to finish than talking about Final Judgment! That’s going to be the ultimate finish one day, at least according to Jesus. He concluded his teachings in Matthew with a story that imagines what the Final Judgment will be like.
Now before we look at this story, I want to acknowledge that we Methodists tend to get squeamish when it comes to Judgment. We’d rather talk about love and grace and kindness as if those are diametrically opposed to judgment. But what if Judgment is an act of grace?
Consider the relationship between parent and child. What would happen to a child who never heard a word of correction or consequence? If every time that child did something that could be hurtful either to themselves or others and were simply told, “Oh that’s okay, it’s alright,” what kind of person might that child become?
Judgment can actually be a form of kindness and mercy, provided that kindness and mercy are a part of it. Otherwise, consequence by itself can become abuse. Judgment can become shame.
So Judgment and grace are co-dependent. They need each other.
In his reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis notes how frequently the psalmists write about judgment as a cause for rejoicing. “Judge me, O Lord my God, according to thy righteousness” (35:24). Lewis says, “The reason for this soon becomes very plain. The ancient Jews, like ourselves, think of God’s judgement in terms of an earthly court of justice. The difference is that the Christian pictures the case to be tried as a criminal case with (yourself) in the dock; (But) the Jew pictures it as a civil case with (yourself) as the plaintiff. The one hopes for acquittal, or rather for pardon; the other hopes for a resounding triumph with heavy damages. Hence he prays ‘judge my quarrel’, or ‘avenge my cause’ (35:23).
Judgment, at least biblically speaking, is a cause for hope, But for more reasons than just the wrongs of the world being righted, and the perseverance of the righteous paying off. Judgment as a present experience is like that parent-child relationship. It is about helping us become the best kind of persons we can.
So with that, let’s consider what Jesus said about Final Judgment.
All the nations of people, says Jesus, will come before the king and be sorted into two groups like a shepherd separates sheep from goats. This would have been a familiar analogy. Sheep and goats sometimes grazed together, but at the end of the day they would be separated. Then, as now, goats were not the desired group to be in. Just like athletic competitions, unless you are using goat as an acronym, Great Of All Time, you didn’t want to be the goat in a game. Or, as the children’s camp song goes, “I don’t want to be a goat, nope!”
Sheep on the other hand are innocent. Now, they are not very bright creatures, but this story doesn’t seem to be about intelligence but character. So we should sing, “I wanna be a sheep, baa, baa.” That’s why the sheep in the story are called “the righteous,” they are gathered at the right hand of the king.
The king will say to them, “Come, you who 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.”
The righteous, remember, are like sheep, they’re innocent. They say, “When did we ever see you in any of these conditions?” And here is where Jesus drops the important line, perhaps one of the better known quotes of Jesus, “As you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.”
There are people who know nothing of the Bible but they know that line. There is something about that sentence that resonates with us. Something that says, “Yes! That’s the way things ought to be. That’s the way religion should work.”
But it doesn’t always. In fact, religion too often gets in the way of that ideal. Hence, the goats. They are the ones who never helped the least of these and consequently didn’t help the king. So he says to them, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” I believe Jesus here is talking about H-E-double hockey sticks!
And this is where the story gets uncomfortable. This is the side of the King we are uncertain about. The King who sends people to such a place. And that’s clearly the notion in this story. But heaven and hell are not just about reward and punishment. They are the destinations we freely choose to move toward in this life. Could the Judgment in this story be not so much a King who sends people to such places, but rather a realization of the realities we unconsciously choose.
So if there is something we would call a heaven, that means there is something very different. There is an un-heaven. There is a place where you won’t find God’s will being done there. And if we’re never warned, then where will we end up? What kind of people will we become?
With that as a guiding question, consider a few points Jesus makes in this story:
First, this story says, We Must Be People Who Care About People. Period. We must care about others. All others. Everyone. This is not a story about how to get into heaven. It’s a story about to get heaven into us.
Both sides are equally shocked to learn that the King was to be found among the poor and suffering. One group cared about these people, the other did not. And the righteous care not because it’s going to get them a reward. They care because they care!
That’s what this series has been about, caring about the needs of our neighbors in God’s backyard. Caring about child and maternal health, caring about mental health needs, caring about Freedom School and the support for children.
Those represent two of the four areas of focus that define our Outreach Strategy. The other two are Hunger and Housing. Both of these continue to be big needs in our city.
Right now studies show that there are between 5400 and 6300 unhoused individuals in Indiana. And homelessness has increased in rural areas by 16% in recent years. Marion County alone has over 1800 unhoused individuals.
As well, we’ve all been affected by higher cost of groceries lately, but this has been an especially hard time for lower income people and folks at or below the poverty threshold. Right now in Indianapolis, 1 in 4 children face hunger and food insecurity, and over 64,000 people lack access to nutritious food options.
An article in the news this week reported that since October there has been a significant increase in households of lower incomes with children who have had to use their savings to buy food or who have had to cut out meals altogether.
The last time I served at the Food Pantry, I loaded food boxes into cars as people drove up. One car driven by a man with a woman in the passenger seat and several small children in the back, raised their trunk. I put the boxes in, closed it and they started driving away. Then the car stopped. The man got out, ran back to hug me, tight, and he said, “Gracias. Gracias.”
When we get close enough to see people not as objects of need, but as people, it moves us to action. And that is another observation in Jesus’ parable. Not only must we care, but We Must Care to the Point of Action. The righteous ones in Jesus’ story didn’t just feel empathy for the hungry. They actually gave them something to eat. They didn’t just have sympathy for the prisoner. They visited him!” They acted.
The late bishop Gerald Kennedy made the observation that this notion of faith-in-action gets to the heart of what it means to be holy. He observed that in early human history holiness was associated the sacred and sometimes even the taboo. He wrote, “(Holiness) did not have any necessary relationship with ethics, nor was it regarded as being associated with goodness. The genius of the Old Testament Prophets is nowhere more apparent than in their shifting of holiness from ceremonial to conduct. Jesus, of course, carried this process to an ultimate conclusion.” (The Parables, p31)
Jesus gives us a picture of holy living in this story, but holiness that is not so much when we are avoiding certain actions but carrying out actions that look like Jesus.
Again, this is what I celebrate about St. Luke’s. We try not to just talk the talk, but walk the walk. We provide a diaper pantry because we care about infant health. We host and volunteer for Freedom School because we care about the education and development of all youth in our city.
We also live out our care for those who are hungry by providing for a weekly lunch meal program at Fletcher Place ministry in Fountain Square…
We also began and continue to make donations and serve at Crooked Creek Food Pantry…
When it comes to housing, last year we joined with other faith communities to raise money for the Streets to Home initiative. So far over $7.8 million has been raised. 135 previously unhoused residents now have safe housing. So far there is a 94% success rate with people staying housed.
I encourage you to go to our website that tells more about this program:
https://stlukesumc.com/streetstohome
Be sure to look at the video of Tom Vandevendor (screen shot of video interview) talking about why this is so important, and be sure to read the powerful story about Maria, a single mother, who describes what it was like to be evicted with children and how easily that happens.
Again, when we get close to people, when we learn their stories, it not only builds empathy, it compels action.
Many years ago I visited Windsor Village UMC in Houston, our largest predominantly African-American United Methodist Church in the country. They built a whole neighborhood to help people who would not be able otherwise to own a home. It is a business model much like Habitat-for-Humanity. Its called Corinthian Pointe and it has over 450 single-family homes with up to 1500 residents. That’s a whole town! And it was built by a church!
I believe that could happen at St. Luke’s. I believe we could do something similar for unhoused people in Indianapolis. I believe it.
One last thought on Jesus’ story: The ultimate Judgment of our lives and our world… will not be who called God by the right name, who knew the right information, who lived the most spotless lives. It will be based on our compassion for the least of these.
This one messes with a lot of Christians.
Jesus tells us that when we care about the needs of others, when we get close to people in need, this is how we get close to God.
I often hear Christians who go through dry periods in their faith say, “I just don’t feel close to God. How can I experience more of God’s presence?” Well, according to Jesus, when we care for people in need, that’s how we get close to him. In other words, helping others helps us.
John Wesley, long before he became the founder of Methodism, was struggling with this sense that something was missing in his faith. One winter evening he was met by a porter. Wesley noticed the man's coat was incredibly thin and suggested he should get a better one. The porter replied that it was his only coat, but he thanked God for it. Wesley asked what he had eaten that day. The man said he had only water to drink, but "I thank God for that".
Realizing how late it was getting, Wesley encouraged the man to leave soon to avoid being locked out. When Wesley asked, "Then what would you thank God for?" The porter replied that he would thank God for dry stones to sleep on.
Wesley said, "You thank God when you have nothing to wear, nothing to eat, and no bed to lie on. What else do you thank God for?" The man simply smiled and answered, "I thank God that he has given me life, a heart to love him, and a desire to serve him".
Before he left Wesley gave him a coat from his closet, some money for food, and words of appreciation for his witness. Wesley wrote in his journal, “I shall never forget that porter. He convinced me there is something in religion to which I am a stranger.” https://thepreachersword.com/2020/09/23/a-passage-to-ponder-psalm-149/
When we care enough to get to know people, truly meet them, then Jesus meets us.