Matthew 25:41-43 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was ahungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

When I wrote about the Samaritans and Jesus’s love for them on Friday I though it was a one-off piece. It’s taken on greater weight over the weekend.
The passage of scripture from which my text today comes, Matthew 25:31-46, is known as the “Judgment of the Nations”. A full study takes careful analysis but there is a central truth that cannot be avoided. There are those who believe they are righteous, and they are going to be shocked.
How, you might wonder, does this tie back to the thoughts about outcasts that have occupied my mind for the last two days?
The church is not loved today. Why should that be? I’ve been looking at a piece of Barna research (https://www.barna.org/barna-update/faith-spirituality/611-christians-more-like-jesus-or-pharisees#.U-f1emK9KK0). The message is simple, and ugly. Most American Christians are more like Pharisees than like Christ. The evidence is that we lack Jesus’s love for others. I’m hoping this makes you wriggle uncomfortably in your seat. When I came across it, it felt like something I knew — but wished I didn’t.
Our Sunday School teacher said it beautifully today: “God wants us to love Him, and to love those that He loves.” And God loves everyone.
If ever the church says — by word, or deed, or even by the image is presents — “You are not welcome here” it is creating outcasts, creating Samaritans. It’s making judgments that some people are “better” and some are “worse”. And that’s just not true. There’s no place in the Bible that suggests Jesus sees people that way. All have sinned, all are outcast, all need redemption.
So listen to me! Pretty smug hey? Only there are many times when I look at people and recognize attitudes in myself that suggest I might be feeling superior. I suppose I’d be looking down on that street person, or addict, or whoever it is … Except that we’re really standing on level ground. Over the years I’ve got better at recognizing the hypocrisy in myself, and trying to see the back story in the person I’m with, but I know I have a long way to go.
We are all outcasts. We are all Samaritans. If we take the love of God, it can only be because we are willing to pass it on.