Matthew 25:31-46
Lately, I’ve been having a lot of conversations about the end of the world. The pandemic, the once-in-a-generation cataclysms that are happening multiple times a year, the horrors of war and genocide all have us anxious, and grieving, and exhausted. A friend who lives and works in Jerusalem recently said to me “I keep looking around at the world and asking if anyone is driving this thing, if anyone is in charge at all.” Our church calendar seems to be right there with us, as we move from a series of parables about God’s judgment to the season of Advent, which is full of end-times imagery and apocalyptic prophecies. Although it may be tempting to seek out distractions and numbing comforts that allow us to temporarily forget the pain and suffering in our world, as Christians we are brought back to reality again and again by our scriptures. We come to church to be comforted yes, but that does not always mean we come to feel better. Comfort in affliction does not mean the affliction is erased. God does not promise us that the world will not end, God promises that we will not be left alone or left behind when it does. When the world feels like its ending, God’s people gather to remind one another how our story ends.
Today is a sort of hinge point, the end of a church year and the beginning of a new season in our common life. This Sunday, which we call Christ the King, brings us to the last parable of Jesus before he is betrayed and sold out to the authorities. The separation of the sheep from the goats, sometimes called the Judgment of the Nations, is the end of a sermon. This sermon was the last straw for those who felt threatened by his preaching, and after hearing it they conspired to kill him. Jesus’s life is about to end, and his disciples’ world is about to shatter. In his final public sermon, Jesus gives us these words. They may be hard to hear, we may wish the evangelist had left them out of the final draft, but still these words come to us from Jesus and we must listen for the good news in them.
We are given an image of Jesus returning to sit enthroned in glory, with all the nations gathered before him to await judgment. The enthroned Christ separates people into two categories, the sheep and the goats, the righteous and the unrighteous. The righteous are blessed and inherit the kingdom. The unrighteous are sent away to eternal fire and punishment. The devil even makes an appearance, if only in a passing namedrop. This is an image of the end of the world, an apocalypse. But it is not meant to leave us trembling with fear and anxiety, or else frantically trying to prepare ourselves for that day. It is meant to give us hope, and a course of action, as Jesus anticipates his own arrest and execution. These are our marching orders, should we choose to accept them. This is what Jesus wants us to do when the world seems like its ending, when it seems like no one is in the driver’s seat and everything is falling apart.
It can be easy to fixate on the sheep and the goats. We want to be the sheep. We are terrified we might be the goats. When we are feeling righteous, we are sure that our enemies are the goats, and we pray in our secret hearts that that fire is extra hot under those we judge to be most deserving of eternal punishment. When we are feeling hopeless and full of despair, we fear there are no sheep to be found anywhere at all.
We might be tempted to imagine the Son of Man would judge as we do, because we know what we’re like when we’re in the judgment seat. We judge one another for our voting record, for the signs in our yard and the bumper stickers on our cars. We judge one another for the clothes we wear and the way we speak and whether we call it stuffing or dressing and whether cranberry sauce should come out of a can. We choose sides in every conflict, and whether we understand what the sides are often comes as an afterthought. We condemn prisoners to death and decide who deserves dignity and charity and who is just looking for a handout. We judge one another’s parenting, and how our neighbors keep house. We judge ourselves for how our bodies change and our minds wander, how we look in the family photo and whether we deserve the kindnesses we receive. We are constantly separating sheep from goats in our mind as if we are all the shepherd and all the world is our personal pasture. We know what we are like, so we assume Jesus will judge us at least as harshly as we judge one another and ourselves most of all. But remember who is on the throne. Jesus is on the throne, in the judgment seat, behind the wheel. God is the one telling the story.
So what is the good news? I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. Just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. Just like that. He makes it sound so simple. Feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, take care of the sick, visit the imprisoned. A to-do list for the end of the world. A map right back to Jesus, a way to find God in the midst of suffering.
The world is ending. It ends every day, in individual and collective apocalypses. People die, relationships and friendships end, careers end, children leave home, addictions take hold, illnesses alter life as we know it, people with power make choices that cause pain and suffering. We have lived through the apocalypse before, and we probably will again and again. God never promised the world as we know it wouldn’t end. In fact, God promised that it would, and that we would rejoice when it does, because resurrection always comes next. So when the world is ending, we feed the hungry. We clothe the naked and welcome the stranger and visit those who are incarcerated and imprisoned and held hostage. When our own world is ending, we accept the help, we let others feed us and clothe us and visit us even if it means we admit we are weakened, even if it makes us the burden we fear most to become. Because what are we here for, if not to bear one another’s burdens? Jesus tells us that when we do this, when we bear one another’s burdens and alleviate suffering where we can, we are as close to him as we can possibly be in this life. This is the kind of king we serve, the God who gave up glory for a crown of thorns and lived and died among the lost and the lonely and the persecuted. I think we can trust Christ’s judgment. I doubt it will look anything like ours.
Mother A Writes 