Rosa is a spectacularly beautiful seventeen year old Lithuanian girl whose home for the past year has been at the city orphanage in Jelgava, Latvia. That’s where we met her two weeks ago on our mission trip there. She has long, dark hair and her beautiful blue eyes look professionally made up even without a stitch of makeup, her face accented with a gentle and genuine smile that never ended.

For reasons we were not told, she has no memory of her father and her mother, who lives only about 30 miles away, is not capable of caring for her. She has four siblings who have already been adopted by other families. At her age, getting adopted is virtually impossible. So, she makes her home in the orphanage. In about a year, she will be "graduated" from the orphanage, given a very small amount of money and, with no skills, just the equivalent of a high school education and virtually no family support, she will be turned out on the streets to fend for herself. I am worried and frightened for her.

Nearly everyone who went on the mission trip, some twenty of us, found ourselves in a conversation with Rosa that week, sometimes more than once. She was very inquisitive, very bright and, despite the language barrier, communicated very eloquently more personal things about herself and her faith and her dreams than many people I have known for years who speak English.

In the first of about three conversations I had with Rosa, she first told me that I didn’t look like a preacher in what she called my “sports clothes.” I was wearing jogging shorts, a tee shirt and tennis shoes, a visual I’m sure you find irresistible. I was not wearing those clothes because I fancied myself a sportsman. It was hot! The week we were there was the hottest week on record in Latvia since 1968!

It was so humid it felt more like Beaumont in August than an Eastern European country with the same latitude as southern Alaska. The winters in Latvia are brutally cold and unbearably long so virtually no one uses air-conditioning, not the hotel or the orphanage and hardly any public buildings. By the second day we were there we had given up any pretense of looking good. We were just looking for ways to get comfortable. That’s why I didn’t look much like a preacher, whatever that’s supposed to look like.

After those niceties, Rosa asked me two questions that have been gripping me like a vise since then. "How did you find us?" and "Why are you here?" The conversation with Rosa that took place as I tried to answer her questions provided me with one of the most spiritually renewing experiences I’ve had in a long time. Please allow me to get back to that in just a moment.

First, let’s listen to what Jesus was saying in this very familiar parable of the sheep and the goats. Matthew has set this parable in the context of several others in which Jesus is trying to help us earthlings understand the nature of God’s eternal kingdom. It’s not a kingdom we can experience through any of our human senses. Or, is it?

Jesus uses such earthly examples to describe God’s eternal kingdom, that he almost seems to be saying that the Kingdom of God is not so much "up there," as we tend to think of it as being, or even "out there," as in somewhere the other side of this universe, but somewhere much closer than we might have ever thought, like, if we wanted to, we could reach out and touch it. And, maybe we can.

In order to understand that, let’s look first at what Jesus seemed to indicate were some basics of existence to which every human being should have access. They include food, water, clothing and community. Jesus then goes on to say that people who are a part of his eternal kingdom will constantly find themselves busy, not trying to accumulate non-essential excess for themselves, but trying to make those basic essentials accessible to anyone they encounter in the day to day affairs of life who does not have them.

Where people are hungry, we should find food for them. Where people do not have water, we should make it available. It’s hard to believe, as Tony Campolo pointed out to us recently, that some 35,000 people, mostly children, perish every single day on this planet because they have no access to basic nutrition. That’s ten times the number who perished on 9/11, perishing every single day.

Clothing. We don’t spend much time around naked people, so it’s hard to believe that, of the six billion plus people who inhabit this planet, most have no idea what it means to buy clothing for its label.

Clothing for them is a matter survival, of protection from the elements. Little girls who wore the same dress every day we were in Latvia and little boys who wore the same shirts and pants, no matter how dirty or sweaty, reminded me of how obscene our overstuffed closets at home would certainly seem to them.

Community. Nothing, not sickness, not prison or someone being the newest kid on the block, someone who doesn’t fit, should stand in the way of community. Kingdom people look for creative ways to tear down fences that keep people separated and make even the strangest person feel at home. Nancy and I have been shocked at what a difference a storm fence makes compared to a wood fence. In our home here in Dallas we have a storm fence, in Rockwall we had a six-foot wood fence. With a fence we can both see over and through, we have experienced more community with our neighbors in one month than we did in nine years in Rockwall. We didn’t know what we were missing and what a difference it makes to be a real part of a community.

Jesus makes no distinction here for clergy and non-clergy. There was no such thing as professional clergy when Jesus spoke these words. They applied to all Christians. No one was more welcome or less welcome to participate in this kingdom work or more responsible or less responsible than anyone else for participating. There is no such thing in the New Testament as contracting out the fulfillment of your spiritual responsibilities to others.

That’s one reason this text is so gripping. Once we see someone in need, we become responsible for helping to meet that need. How we handle that responsibility is our truest confession of faith, regardless of what we said when we were baptized.

"‘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 and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’" In words that sound like "faith is what you do, not what you say," as his half-brother James would later write in his epistle, Jesus responded to their question, "‘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.’" The kingdom of God is about relationships. Not relationships on "the other side of the Jordan" or in the "sweet by and by," but relationships with each other right here and now. If your eternity were to be measured out based on the quality of your earthly relationships now, what kind of eternity would you have?

Darlene Evetts was telling me about something that happened when her son, Greg, was in first grade. She let him walk home from school in those days. She noticed that he kept being later and later getting home until she finally asked him about it. Greg said that there was this second grade bully who kept making it harder for him and his friend to get home and that’s why they were late. Darlene told Greg she would call the principal, or the teacher or the boy’s mother, if Greg wanted. Greg said, "That’s OK mom, we’ll take care of it." After a while, Greg started getting home on time. Darlene asked what came of the bully. Greg said, "Oh, we just asked him to walk with us."

Doesn’t it make you wonder what would happen if someone in Tel Aviv were to call someone in Beirut today and ask, "Would you like to walk with us?"

Jesus went on to say that, when we reach out to touch the lonely, the oppressed, the hungry and the thirsty, the naked and imprisoned, and ask them to walk with us, we are touching the Kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God is not some mysterious place far and removed, it has come to us in the life of the most needy person within our reach.

The orphans are not naked, or hungry. But, there are no human words to describe their craving for community, for family. The last day we were there, I was walking through the room where the two and three year olds were just sitting their diapered bottoms down for lunch. One of them ran over to me, reached up to me and pursed her lips, asking for a kiss. I made the mistake of leaning down to kiss her and soon and found myself swarmed by little orphans, all of whom wanted a kiss. When we kiss the face of a lonely person, we are kissing the face of Jesus. Inasmuch as you do it to one of these, Jesus said, you do it to me.

In other words, there is no difference. Ignore the needy and you have ignored Jesus. Care for the broken and you have tended the wounds of Christ himself.

These words of judgment Jesus speaks are some of the harshest he ever speaks. But, he says that there will not grand entrance into an eternal kingdom on the other side of this life if we are not consumed with kingdom work in this life, here and now, in the lives of those around us most disconnected from what Jesus said should be accessible to all.

A year ago February, we buried Kitty Elam. When I went to visit her son, Mike, to prepare for the funeral, he gave me something to read in his mom’s service that he thought spoke of her character. I shared it with you exactly one year ago. Just in case you’ve forgotten or you weren’t here that day, listen to these words. They are something Mother Teresa said, that embodies not only how Mike thought of his mom, but what Jesus said expressed the character of people who are a part of his kingdom.

"At the end of our lives we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made or how many great things we have done. We will be judged by, ‘I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless and you took me in.’ Hungry, not only for bread, but hungry for love. Naked, not only for clothing, but naked for human dignity and respect. Homeless, not only for want of a row of bricks, but homeless because of rejection. This is Christ in distressing disguise."

You can’t truly say you value a life in heaven if you don’t value those living in an earthly hell now. Which brings me back to the conversation with Rosa.

We showed them a globe, pointing out how far it is from Dallas to Jelgava. "How did you find us here?" That one was easy. The second one was not as easy. "Why did you come?"

We had brought several huge forty-five pounds bags stuffed with clothing, medicine and even some toys. But, why did we do even that? I thought carefully and then I said, "Because we believe that when we love others we are loving God. And, when I love you, I’m loving Jesus. When we love you, we are loving Jesus."

The people who often look, smell and act the least like Jesus are, in fact, more like Jesus than we can possibly know. And, how we treat them is the truest evidence of whether we’ve ever met Jesus or not.

We’re going to have a conversation with Jesus some day. All of us are. You ever wonder how that conversation will go? You don’t have to wonder. You’re having those conversations every day, with the all the "Christs" in distressing disguise who you encounter, at work, at school, at home, wherever.

When I first met Rosa, she called me, "Papa." Even being dressed in my sports clothes didn’t disguise my age! Maybe they actually made it worse! Who knows? I did feel better though, when, after she called me "Papa," she turned to Phil Berry and exclaimed, "Grandpapa!" I hugged Rosa just like I did all the kids. Later, she told the interpreter that, when I hugged her, she finally knew what it was like to have a daddy hug her. It’s truly amazing how many people in this world are craving someone to hug them, or to invite them to walk with them, or give them a merciful kiss.

As I stood there having a conversation with Rosa, with her asking me, "How did you find us and why are you here?," I got the strangest feeling that I wasn’t just talking with Rosa.

Do you know what I mean?