Psalm 95.1-7a
Ephesians 1.15-23
Matthew 25.31-46
I mentioned last week that we are coming to the end of things. Today is the last Sunday of the Church’s year. The twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Matthew’s Gospel are full of Jesus’ stories of warning, his parables about readiness, his reminder to his followers to stay awake and be prepared. Each of the parables or discourses in these two chapters ends with the same admonition: “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming….Therefore you…must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Matthew 24:42, 44) “Keep awake…for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13) But, what will happen when he comes? That is the tale for today. That the author of Matthew’s culmination of all the parables of those two chapters. Now, all the synoptic gospels – Mark, Matthew and Luke – have in them some description of the end time, and all of them are fairly similar. For example, the Gospel of Mark (as representative) says: “But in those days…the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory.” (Mark 13:24-27) The writer of Matthew, using Mark as a source, relates this “little apocalypse”, as it has been called, in a very similar way. Yet, Matthew’s author goes further then simply a fantastic description of the end; and it is only in the Gospel of Matthew that we have today’s all too familiar story. It is a story which, notwithstanding its uniqueness among the Gospel stories, has impressed itself deeply on the western consciousness, both spiritually and culturally. Any metaphorical reference to sheep and goats can be traced back directly to this story. Yet, more importantly for us today, it is the only story we have which offers us any description of the last judgement.
It is no accident that this story appears in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew’s overriding theme is that of Jesus, not as starting something new apart from Judaism, but rather casts him as one who interprets the Law and traditions of Judaism authoritatively and authentically. Perhaps one of the most important verses in Matthew (which appears only in Matthew) is the one in which Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.” (Matthew 5:17) Therefore, in the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus argues with his opponents, he consistently argues from the Scriptures, from the Law and the Prophets. In the face of his opponents’ challenges and their interpretation of the Torah, Jesus makes his own. It can hardly be contested that much of institutionalised Judaism had become mired and fossilised in legalism and the Temple cult. It had lost the dynamic vision of the prophets with their concern that “justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5.24) It had also compromised on the overriding theme of compassion and hospitality which marks the Torah, the Jewish law.
For Matthew, Jesus is the one who, as a child of Israel, reminds the children of Israel of their authentic traditions and who speaks with an authoritative voice. When Jesus is accused of breaking table ethics and eating with sinners and tax collectors, he rebukes his accusers by referencing the prophets, more specifically, Hosea 6.6: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ ” (Matthew 9.13) When Jesus’ disciples are criticised by the Jewish teachers for on the Sabbath plucking heads of grain to eat (since this was considered to be work), Jesus defends them by again referencing Scripture, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests?” (Matthew 12.3-4) On being questioned whether it was lawful to cure on the Sabbath (cf Matthew 9.10), Jesus responds “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out?” (Matthew 9.11) Now, the Pharisees in their interpretation of the Law permitted the rescue of an animal on the Sabbath. Jesus goes on to say, “How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.” (Matthew 12.12) For Jesus, the law is fulfilled in right and righteous actions, manifested particularly in deeds of solidarity and compassion.
In light of all this, one commentator says that this story of the judgement “is a fitting climax to the patterns of thought which can be traced all through [the] gospel [of Matthew]” The writer of the Gospel of Matthew wants to convey that for Jesus, and therefore his followers, loyalty to the Law must surpass that of merely an observance of minutiae and detail, and that that same covenant-loyalty must be manifest in deeds: “Thus you will know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:20) In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is keen to stress that it is in acts of compassion and solidarity that the Law is most authentically fulfilled. It is only the Gospel of Matthew in which we find “the Golden Rule”: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Matthew 7:12a) And then Jesus adds, “for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 1:12b) Here, the entire Torah is interpreted into one commandment of righteous action. While of course Matthew, along with all the synoptics, has the passage about loving God and loving one’s neighbour as one’s self, the injunction to do to others as you would have them to do you appears only in Matthew. It is therefore this emphasis on righteous deeds which informs the picture of the last judgement with which we are presented today.
Well, I have spoken a lot about the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, how the writer’s depiction of the last judgement carries through themes in the work. I have spoken of the religious and social conditions under which Jesus carried out his ministry. I have even made some distinctions between Matthew and the other synoptic writers. But, does any of this have anything to say to us here and now? Well, I think that it does. Because, you see, we are not so very different from those who opposed Jesus. We too, both as individuals as communities, tend to keep all the rules, but break the promise. And perhaps the message we need to hear today is: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is and this alone is the gospel.” (cf Matthew 7.12a) The message which Matthew conveys in the depiction of the last judgement is a message that we still have not learned. We have not really taken in the reality of the questions asked on that awesome day “when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, [and] he will sit [himself] on the throne of his glory.” (Matthew 25.31) From the story which Matthew records we will none of us be asked how many times we went to Church. Neither will we be asked why or why not we decided to remarry after a divorce, or even why we lived with a partner before or instead of marrying. There will be no questions on the theology of ordination, whether of women or of men. No questions will be made of our sexuality. We will not be asked to which denomination or religion we adhered. We will not be asked whether we had any faith at all. Deanery, diocesan and even general conventions and all their legislations will fade in importance. No questions at all about the complex web of rules and regulations which we have created, guard so tenaciously and take oh so seriously. Instead, there we will be confronted with the real questions: “Did you feed the hungry? Did you show compassion to the destitute? Did you welcome the stranger? Did you stand in active solidarity with the oppressed? Did you visit the sick? Did you in everything do to others as you would have had them do to you?” This and this alone will be the criteria by which our fidelity to Jesus and to his Gospel will be judged. It is important to ask ourselves how we measure up.
Jesus did not preach anything new. God’s demand for righteous actions in compassion are more than evident throughout the Law and the Prophets. Jesus preached against the very human inclination to make religious rules and regulations more important than the divine injunctions of love, kindness, relationship. And we Christians too have been far too guilty of that. So we too need to listen afresh to the voice of God. In the Book of the prophet Micah, the prophet himself asks of God how he shall be righteous before the Lord: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6.6-7) And the response he received was this: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6.8) All of it, all of it, it really is as simple as that: do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
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