Matthew 25:31-46
Proper 29 / Year A
For the third Sunday in a row our gospel
reading is a parable taken from the 25th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. 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, this one requires
no explanation. It 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, to drink, or to wear. He will recall when you welcomed him into
your home, comforted him in sickness, or 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 for him.
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 neediest and most 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 disdain for
them? Are you a goat if you do the wrong
thing for the right reason? “Jesus, I
didn’t give you $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. It is an inclination
which 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.
