Abstract
As the liturgical year winds down from its Advent promise of ‘Emmanuel, God is with us’, (Matt 1:23) through the unfolding narrative of Jesus as the embodiment of God’s reign on earth, Matthew draws us to the end of history when the Son of Man, the king of the universe will now finally be ‘with us’. He will sit in judgment over those who have lived or ignored the good news that he proclaimed. Like a shepherd he will divide people into sheep (the righteous) who will enjoy eternal glory while the accursed with go away to eternal punishment.
Shepherds are used of kings and rulers in the ancient near East, with rich biblical associations for God as a caring shepherd as in the first reading today (also Ps 23; Isa 40:11; John 10:11; Heb 13:20) but somewhat strangely omitting Ezek 34:1–10 a reproach of false shepherds (Israel’s leaders) who failed to do those things which the just will do in the Gospel, ‘You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them’ (v. 4).
With a proliferation of titles for Jesus the grand scenario of judgment unfolds when the Son of Man comes in all his glory with the nations (Gentiles) gathered before him and will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The king announces to those on his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’, and proclaims why they are welcomed. They showed to the king a catalog of works of justice and mercy: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and visiting the imprisoned. The central drama of the narrative emerges when the righteous questions when they performed such acts and Jesus responds in words that now have echoed through the ages, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of my brothers [or sisters] you did it to me’ (25:40).
With the rhetorical power of repetition the King turns to those on his left and announces, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’, and indicts them for not showing him the acts of mercy and justice performed by the righteous. The also ask when they failed show this to the king; in similar solemn language he responds, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ The curtain closes quickly on this dramatic trial ‘And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’
Over a century ago Adolf Harnack, the leading historian of the Christian church in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, commented on the portrayal of the last judgment in Mt 25:31–46, ‘These words of Jesus have shone so brilliantly for many generations in his Church and exerted so powerful an influence that one may further describe the Christian preaching as the preaching of love and charity.’ It is one of those ‘classic’ texts which has inspired and challenged generations of Christians. It has recently been called a ‘summary of the gospel’ and is one of the most widely cited biblical passages across confessional and even religious boundaries.
Three lines of interpretation have identified the ‘the least’, and those who will care or not care for them and be welcomed or condemned by the shepherd king. The classic interpretation is that at the final judgment the standard by which Christians are measured is the works of compassion that they have or have not done toward their poor and needy Christian brothers and sisters. In the 20th century this morphed to a universalistic perspective where all people will be judged and the criterion of judgement will be works of charity and mercy show to the poor and the suffering of the world, the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters.
Many recent commentators are not at ease with the universalistic interpretations and prefer a ‘discipleship interpretation’. That the least are Christian missionaries rejected by the Gentiles, emerges from text itself. This narrative concludes a long discourse to disciples telling them how they are to live during Jesus’ absence (24:22–25:31), involving fidelity, watchfulness, and proper use of God’s gifts. When Jesus departs after the resurrection he commissions his disciples as missionaries to the ends of the earth, baptizing in name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and spreading his teaching, but always with the consciousness that he would be ‘with them’ until the end of the age (Matt 28:16–20). The ‘Sheep and the Goats’ takes place at the end of the age where we learn that Jesus was always ‘with them’ among the least of his brothers and sisters. These least are called ‘brothers’, a term which Matthew reserves for disciples of Jesus. In this reading of the parable the gentile nations will be judged on how they received Christian disciples, the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters who embody the presence of the absent Jesus.
The passage forms the end of a great arc to Jesus’ first discourse to his disciples, the Beatitudes (Matt 5:1–2) where those who are declared blest are the marginalized of the world, the poor, the mourners, the non-violent, those who seek and suffer for justice, those reviled and persecuted, yet still to be the light of the world (Matt 5:1–12). Marginalized during the life of Jesus, at the end of history the least of Jesus’ brothers and sister are disciples, who bear the same kinds of apostolic suffering that Paul speaks of: hunger, thirst, living as a stranger, nakedness, sickness, imprisonment (1 Cor. 4:8–13; 2 Cor. 11:23–29). Paul sees these as signs that ‘the transcendent power belongs to me’ (Christ), or ‘power is made perfect in weakness’. Apostolic sufferings hide the power and presence of Christ.
Matthew is not simply concerned about punishment of resistant Gentiles. Those Gentiles who ministered to Christ hidden in the missionaries are called just. The horizon of this narrative is apocalyptic. In apocalyptic thought, scenes of judgment disclose the transcendent values which should have been operative prior to the end of history. Creation narratives tell us what the world should be like; whereas visions of the end time, tell us what the world should have been, prior to the end of history. Apocalyptic is a view of history and human life from God's perspective. The parable reveals that justice is constituted by acts of loving kindness and mercy to those in need; the world will be made ‘right’ or ‘just’ when the way the least are treated becomes the norm of action. What is done positively for these least is not to be limited to them.
Does all this make a difference to the church today? Though ‘the nations’ (Gentiles) will be rewarded or condemned on the basis of good works done to Christians a homilist can easily make the transition from Gentiles to Christians: if good works to Christians are so important for non-Christians to perform how much more are they to be expected from Christians. If Gentiles are rewarded for good news done to strangers and needy people so also Christians and Jews will be rewarded for such actions (Daniel Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, 360)
The sufferings born by the least of the brothers and sisters of the Son of Man summon the Church today to be an authentic and faithful witness of the Gospel. The Church cannot preach acts of loving kindness to the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned and the naked unless it too is a Church in mission which bears these same sufferings.