One
day God gets fed up with the human race and summons Donald Trump, Vladimir
Putin, and Bill Gates. They are told God
will judge the world in three days and destroy everything. God informs them they are to return to their
jobs and tell everyone what is about to happen.
Trump goes to the White House and says, “I have good news and I have bad
news. The good news is there is a
God. The bad news is God is going to
destroy the world in three days.” Putin
returns to the Kremlin and says, “I have bad news and I have more bad news. The bad news is there is a God. The worse news is God is going to destroy the
world in three days.” Bill Gates returns
to Microsoft’s headquarters and says, “I have good news and I have more good
news. The good news is God thinks I am
one of the three most important people in the world. The other good news is you don’t have to worry
about fixing all the bugs in our new operating system.”
For
the third Sunday in a row our gospel reading is a parable taken from the 25th
chapter of Matthew. Like the parables of
the Ten Maidens and the Talents, today’s focuses on a final judgment. Jesus tells these stories in Jerusalem just
days before he will be arrested, tried, and crucified. Either the disciples are getting smarter or
Jesus is getting better at his story-telling, because, unlike so many of his
early parables, these three require no explanation.
Today’s
parable is as straightforward as it can be.
Jesus is going to judge people on one basis and one basis alone. He will not count how many times you came to
church. He will not quiz you for creedal
orthodoxy. He will not check to see if
you are born again. All Jesus will do is
recall the times you gave him something to eat, something to drink, and
something to wear. He will recall when
you welcomed him into your home, when you comforted him in sickness, and when
you visited him in prison. You don’t
even have to know it is Jesus you did these things for. Anytime you do it for anyone you do it to Jesus.
Notice
who is being judged. It is not the
church or Jesus’ followers. Jesus says
“all the nations” will be gathered before the Son of Man and separated into two
groups… those who did something for him and those who did not. “All the nations.” Any time we read a verse like John 14:6, “No
one can come to the Father except through me”, the conversation always gets
around to other religions and people of different faiths. Will they be saved and will they be punished
for not believing in Jesus? Well,
according to this parable the sole criteria used to judge every person
regardless of faith or race or nationality is this: what did you do to help
other people, especially the most needy and vulnerable people in your
society? Were you generous, caring, and selfless
or were you critical, hardened, and indifferent?
One of
the things I wonder about this parable is Jesus’ grading scale. If one time you give one cup of water to a
thirsty person is this enough to get you into the sheep pen? Or, conversely, if one time you fail to give
a cup of water, will this get you rounded up with the goats? Or, what if you do the right thing, but do it
for the wrong reason? Are you a sheep if
you give food to the hungry but have open (or even concealed) disdain for
them? Are you a goat if you do the wrong
thing for the right reason? “Jesus, I
didn’t give you that $10 that one time because I thought you were going to use
it to buy liquor.”
I
don’t know what the grading scale will be, but here is what I experience. There are times I do the right thing because
it is the right thing to do. I do it
because I need to do it in order to feel good about me. And then there are times I do the right thing
because I recognize the humanity of the person I am helping. I see the person as a person and I recognize
the person’s need and I see I have an opportunity rather than an obligation to
help. When I recognize the humanity of
the other person and respond to it, I sense more acutely the Kingdom of God in
my presence.
The
opposite is also true in my experience.
When I fail to recognize the humanity of another person, the world seems
darker and more hellish. C.S. Lewis
thought hell is a place where one’s humanity is diminished. N.T. Wright, the English bishop and
theologian, envisions hell as the end of a process where one consistently
choses to dehumanize what once was human.
The great challenge in life is to see in other
people what God sees in them. Our
challenge is to love the other person as we believe God loves them. The theologian Gustavo Gutierrez writes, “God is committed to the
poor, not because the poor are good—but because God is good.” Today’s
parable reminds us a good God created us to be good to one another.
Ultimately, I believe those
judged to be sheep receive their reward not because they reached an arbitrary
percentage of helping others, but because during their life they cultivated a
disposition to recognize the humanity of other people and to base their
interactions on this. This inclination
nurtured in this life continues on to the next.
The goats are those who cultivate the opposite and consistently fail to
recognize the humanity of others. This
inclination continues into the life to come and they receive judgment not as
punishment but, based on their life’s story, as a recognition heaven and all
its ways is not a place they would enjoy.
On this final Sunday of the church year, we proclaim
the Kingship of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We affirm one day every knee will bow to him
and all tongues praise his holy Name. I
tend to side with those who believe in a crowded heaven and an empty hell. Many theologians hold to the theory of an
empty hell because they believe in the end all people will respond to the call
of a loving God who desires none should be lost. We begin to open our hearts to God’s voice here
and now and one way we do this is to recognize the humanity of every person we
encounter and to respond to their most basic needs.
