Abstract
Matthew 25:13–46 forms the climax of what is typically described as Matthew’s eschatological discourse. Following Jesus’ prophecy of the temple’s utter destruction (24:1–2) and the disciples’ question regarding its timing (24:3), Jesus launches into a non-stop, ninety-four-verse monologue on issues related to his parousia. Beginning in 24:45, however, there is a significant shift in focus away from the “when” of Jesus’ coming and toward our proper preparedness for his coming. For Matthew such preparedness for the future involves our praxes in the present. In this way, Matthew juxtaposes Jesus’ future (and final) judgment with our present servanthood.
Throughout Matthew the theme of integrative congruity has been highlighted. The most succinct presentation of this is found in 7:24–27. The prudent person is the one who hears and does the words of Jesus. The stupid person is the one who hears the words of Jesus but does not do them. God’s will and God’s ways have been manifested through Jesus’ person and ministry (especially his teaching ministry) for the express purpose of shaping our minds, hearts, actions, and relationships. Thus we are empowered and commanded to integrate his words and actions into all aspects of our lives so that we live in full congruity with God’s will and ways.
The related judgment stories in 25:14–30 and 25:31–46 present the ultimate outcomes when one’s life does or does not reflect such integrative congruity. These stories are brimming with promise and warning: logic, pathos, irony, and encouragement. The first functions as an allegorical parable that features the three slaves of a man going on a journey. As each slave is entrusted with an appropriate portion of the man’s belongings, so we, as Jesus’ disciples, are entrusted with the will and ways of God as manifest in and through Jesus. There are three important (though often overlooked) aspects of this entrustment. First, a “talent” does not refer to our abilities. Rather, a talent is a unit of currency roughly equivalent to six thousand days’ wages. This incredible sum represents the weighty treasure of God’s will that has been entrusted to us. Second, the man entrusts different amounts to the three slaves in accordance with their abilities to manage the amount given to them. Something is expected from everyone, but more is expected from some than from others. Third, the man never tells his slaves what to do with the amount entrusted to them. Instead, he assumes they already know what is expected of a good and faithful slave. Likewise Jesus expects us to know how to live out our lives as his disciples, because he has already revealed what to do in his person and ministry.
This last point particularly helps us to understand the actions of each slave and the final judgment that is in congruity with their actions (or inactions). The first two slaves invested and increased what they were entrusted, while the third slave did nothing. The good and faithful disciples of Jesus are those who integrate and enact God’s will in all aspects of their lives. Disciples who do not integrate God’s will and ways into their lives are regarded as evil and lazy. Final judgment will involve a very positive accounting for the former but condemnation against the latter.
The challenge in proclaiming this text involves avoiding the dead-end of “works righteousness” while highlighting the interrelationship between empowerment, enactment, and accountability. Just as all three slaves are entrusted and empowered with the master’s weighty belongings, Jesus has entrusted and empowered his disciples with the weighty treasure of God’s will and God’s ways. As the first two slaves recognized the essential congruity between their master’s empowerment and their own actions, so must we recognize that Jesus has empowered us to enact God’s will through our daily discipleship. Ultimately, the problem of the third slave involves his failure to recognize the congruity of entrustment, empowerment, and enactment. Because he views his master as a hard man who reaps the labors of others, he totally fails to recognize how the master has empowered him, and so he fearfully does nothing productive for the master. Final judgment is not understood in terms of reward and punishment but as future accountability for our discipleship responsibilities in the present.
The culminating scene of eschatological judgment in 25:31–46 (often wrongly depicted as the “Parable of the Sheep and Goats”) expands the previous judgment scenario in four ways. First, Jesus is no longer imagined as a man of great means who has three slaves. Here he is the coming triumphant ruler/judge whose court includes all the angels of heaven. Second, those being judged are not a handful of slaves (or disciples) but all the nations, thus amplifying the cosmic, divine authority invested in Jesus (recalling 11:27 and anticipating 28:18). Third, the reasons for positive and negative judgment are not assumed but are spelled out in extended detail. Fourth (and perhaps most noteworthy), in the time between his resurrection and parousia, Jesus is not an absent master who is away on a journey; he is very much present in our midst.
The key to this judgment scene is emphasized in the two chiasms explaining the basis for judgment of each group. The basis for positive judgment in 25:40 of those people on the right involves: A As often as you did B to these, the least of my brothers (and sisters) B′ to me A′ you did.
Correspondingly, the basis for the negative judgment in 25:45 of those people on the left involves: A As often as you did not do B to these, the least of my brothers (and sisters) B′ to me A′ you did not do.
In the B/B′ components, we discover that the same Jesus who will come to exercise royal judgment over all humanity has already been in our midst in the persons of those most in need. The difference between the two groups being judged is disclosed in the A/A′ components: those on the right successfully integrated Jesus’ own ministry to persons most in need into their own actions, while those on the left failed to integrate Jesus’ ministry. Final judgment, positive or negative, is in congruity with each group’s response (or failure to respond) to the model of Jesus’ ministry and teaching. When it comes to Jesus’ parousia, too often our focus is on when it will occur. Likewise, regarding final judgment, too often we focus on our individual fate or what will be the fate of non-Christians. This text depicts the future in order to help us to focus on the present, because in reality, eschatology serves ethics. Just as the “Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come” in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol presents to Ebenezer Scrooge a vision of what might happen if he does not change his ways, the Gospel’s goal is not to disclose an unchangeable future but to impact how one lives in the present. Do we understand and recognize Jesus’ own self-identification with those most in need in our presence? Do we fully integrate Jesus’ own ministry to/for the “least of these” into our daily doing? Do we take seriously that our actions or inactions in the present have significant eschatological implications?
When Matthew 25:31–46 is interpreted in conjunction with the so-called Great Commission in Matthew 28:16–20, we come to understand that a central thrust of discipleship involves Jesus empowering us to “do Jesus to Jesus with Jesus.” Through the commission to go and baptize, Jesus is not simply commissioning us to make disciples but to empower people to live faithful discipleship. What does discipleship entail? The life-long learning ministry of keeping (i.e., doing) all that Jesus commanded throughout Matthew’s Gospel. Is Jesus with the “least” who are desperately in need of Jesus’ ministry, or is Jesus with us as we enact his ministry? The combined answer of both of these texts is a resounding “Yes!” Jesus is with the least, and so as we serve the least we serve Jesus. We carry out this ministry not because Jesus has left the scene, but precisely because Jesus is with us to the close of the age.
Thus Matthew 25:14–46 weaves together Jesus’ own ministry, our ministry in the present, and our future judgment under the auspices of integrative congruity. Expectation of reward in the future is not the foundation and motivation for ministry. Instead, the foundation and motivation for ministry involves integrating God’s will and ways as manifested through Jesus into our actions in the present, so that they are in congruity with Jesus’ actions in the past, present, and future.