Mission Yearbook: ‘How to Live Out Matthew 25 in a World Short of Compassion’ is discussed at church by Denver mayor

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To launch a four-week faith formation series based on Matthew 25, Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church in Denver turned to one of its members to speak from his heart on his experience not fighting, but leading, City Hall.

Before worship one Sunday, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a former school principal and state senator who was a senior education adviser to President Barack Obama, delivered a thoughtful session that can be viewed here. 

The question for today, the mayor said, is “how does a person of faith show up in a moment of such profound conflict?” Using his father’s Bible, Johnston read from the Judgment of the Nations, including Matthew 25:35–40 and, a bit later, verses 41–46.

Among the dilemmas that confront people of faith today is “how do you face the question of the choice between fighting and forgiveness,” he said. “When things you value the most are challenged, when do you choose to fight?”

A few weeks ago, Johnston was with his daughter in Washington, D.C., to scout college choices for her brother. After visiting the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “what I saw stunned me,” he said. A Latino man delivering hot food from a restaurant had been stopped by three masked agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who were demanding to see the man’s immigration papers. Johnston’s daughter said they had to stop their ride back to the hotel and help the man, but by the time they got out of the car and walked the block where he’d been, the man was gone, and his delivery bicycle was being loaded into a police vehicle.

“My daughter looked at me as if to say, how is this possible?” Johnston said. “How is it possible in the nation’s capital, a mile away from the Holocaust Museum?”

While Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 25 is to care for those who are hungry, naked, without a home or in prison, Johnston wondered aloud what the consequences for people are who don’t do as they’re told. “If you watch those stories on TV and feel moved to fight,” he said, “that is very human and I would say a very Christian instinct.”

Johnston asked his large audience: How do we show up in these moments and what do we do?

He told the story of “a loud critic of mine,” whom Johnston decided to visit at the man’s farm outside Denver. The two talked for an hour aboard the man’s combine, harvesting wheat. For the first 20 minutes or so, the man told Johnston about the mayor’s stances that angered him, including reproductive choice, guns and immigration.

“Then I asked about his family, his values and his faith,” Johnston said. He told the man what neighborhood he lived in, a section of Denver the man knew well. As a boy, the man’s father would pack him in a pickup truck and take him to the neighborhood, the home to most of the city’s homeless shelters. The man’s father would invite a few men to get in the truck and come work the harvest on the farm, where they’d be fed and provided a bed and clothing.

“In that moment, I thought, wow!” Johnston said. “There are many beliefs we have convinced ourselves we’re on the opposite side of.” This man was “deeply committed” to living out Matthew 25, Johnston noted. “It doesn’t mean we agreed to let go of the things we disagreed on,” he said, “but it means we agree to recommit to the things that we know bind us to the call that we are to love the Lord and to love our neighbor.”

After tracing the stories of Judas’ and Peter’s betrayals, Johnston said the way to atone “is by actually proving that you will be the one to pick up 10 people in your truck downtown and go and serve them. … It requires forgiveness, but that forgiveness is not about coming back to ‘my feelings are whole and I feel good again,’ but that we have reunited around a purpose that’s bigger than us. To me, that’s the ultimate question, and I think that is the ultimate challenge we face right now.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Services (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Lora Limeberry, Accountant, Financial Reporting, Administrative Services Group
Elizabeth Little, Church Consultant - Charlotte, NC, Engagement & Church Relations, The Board of Pensions                      

Let us pray:

God of all peoples and places, you have called us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices, and so this day we renew that commitment, for your glory. We long to see the kingdom of God expanded to include all peoples. Amen.