Matthew 25:31-46

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ³³ and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. ³⁴ Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵ for 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, ³⁶ 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.’ ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸ And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹ And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ ⁴⁰ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,^[a] you did it to me.’ ⁴¹ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴² for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ ⁴⁵ Then he will answer them, ‘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.’ ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

One of the issues that has long plagued the church, and I dare say other religious institutions, is the way many people manage to leave their faith here in the sanctuary, when they leave the worship service. Sunday Christians, as they say. Some of the most evil, murderous villains in history have been in church every Sunday singing the praises of the Prince of Peace, and then commissioning the death squads on Monday morning. Hitler was one such Christian. Now I know, or hope at least, that none of us here are blatant initiators of evil on anything like that scale, but the question is still valid: is there a relationship between what we say in church and how we treat people outside it?

The thing that is so confronting about this biblical description of the final judgment is that it is so simple, and yet so difficult, and that it really demolishes any boundaries we have between what we do in church and what we do in the street. It tells us that how we treat the hungry, the needy, the imprisoned, the dirty, the smelly, the confused and the tormented is actually read by God as a measure of our devotion to Jesus. “What you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you are doing to me.”

Now if you read this as a law that must be obeyed to the letter in every situation, not only will you exhaust and impoverish yourself very quickly, but you will also find yourself tormented by guilt and fear. It is simply not possible to visit every sick person and every prisoner, or to feed all the hungry and welcome every stranger. None of us have the resources or the time and energy to respond to every need we ever hear about. This is even truer in today’s world than it was in Jesus day because it is now possible for us to be aware of hungry, the sick and the prisoners on the other side of the world, and to pick up the phone and a credit card and make a response. But if you do that every time an image of a hungry person is beamed into your living room, someone will soon be cutting up your credit cards. So if it is simply not possible, how on earth are we supposed to respond to the message of this description of the final judgment?

This is a bit of an aside, but I feel like it needs to be said, and it may help address some of the guilt questions. It’s worth noting that at the beginning of this, Jesus says it is the nations who are gathered for judgment. It is probably the case that it is more realistic and legitimate to read this as a judgment of the nations than as a judgment of individuals. When we ask how a nation cares for its sick and how a nation cares for its prisoners, and even how a nation cares for the hungry on the other side of the world, we are asking questions which needs to be asked and which can be answered. Nations do have the means to respond to whole people groups in a way that individuals do not. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that that means it is just governments who are being judged. A nation is still the sum of its people and at least in “democratic” countries like ours, the government is to a large extent a reflection of the people and their values and opinions. It would be a mistake to conclude that because it is about the nations that therefore it’s not about us, because no one else will think it is about them either. It will just be something else attributed to “the system”, to nameless, faceless nobodies somewhere else.

The nation won’t change unless its people change, and if we want the people to change, then we’d better be prepared for the change to begin with us. So we might be freed somewhat from the fear of the big judgment, but we are still going to have to ask how we personally should respond to the teaching of these words of Jesus. So how do we do this, particularly as we embark on a new year?

This parable emphasizes the connection between seeing a need and acting on it. It is reminiscent of the parable of the Good Samaritan, which says all three observers of the man in the ditch “saw him.” The first two “saw him” and then, in response to that sighting, they “passed by on the other side.” The response of the third person is threefold. He “saw him,” he was “moved with pity,” and then he took concrete action to express his compassion and assist the injured man.

The sequence of seeing, having compassion, and acting is quite a common one in the gospels. In Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus “saw” the woman weeping at the death of her only son, he “had compassion for her,” and brought her son to life. When the father “saw” the prodigal son “still far off . . . he was filled with compassion” and ran and embraced him. Matthew and Mark repeatedly tell us that Jesus himself, when he “saw” the crowds, had compassion on them and healed, fed, and taught them.

Here in the parable of the Last Judgment, what makes some blessed is the fact that, though they didn’t realize it, in seeing the poor and helping them, they saw and helped Jesus. By contrast, what makes others cursed is that they never really did see Jesus suffering and in need, because they never really saw the poor. The king addresses each of two groups as either blessed or cursed and announces the consequences—enter into the kingdom or depart from him. He states his criterion for making these assignments, a need that they either met or did not meet: “I was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, or in prison and you fed, gave me drink, welcomed me clothes me, visited me, came to see me.”

SLIDE Do you know what an icon is? An icon is an image of someone or something, and the idea is that when you sit and gaze and contemplate the icon, eventually you will see through it to the real thing. So when one gazes at an icon of Christ, one eventually glimpses Christ. Icons, particularly in Catholic and Orthodox traditions, are treated with supreme respect and reverence because of their association with the one they represent. And even as Protestants, this isn’t a wholly foreign concept to us. If I walked into your house and took a photo of your grandmother, threw it on the ground and stomped on it, you would be hurt and insulted – because the image represents the person, so if I defiled the image I’d be defiling the memories of that person. It is in this same way that we revere holy icons.

Here’s the take home message today: friends, every single person, especially persons considered the least, is like an icon of Jesus Christ, in that Christ is present and made tangible in them. That’s a huge statement to make, so let’s unpack it a bit. We believe that every single person is created in the imago Dei, the image and likeness of God. So every person is literally a reflection of God. Now Jesus is God in human form, the second person of the Trinity, the Word made flesh, Emmanuel: God with us. So every person is created like an icon of Jesus Christ, something like a reflection of the Son of God. And our bible reading for today goes a step further; it emphasises that it is those who society regards as the least who are most especially icons of Jesus Christ. It is in the very things that cause them to be regarded as the least – their sickness, their poverty, their brokenness, their destitution, their anti-social habits – that most reveal Jesus to us. The presence of Jesus is hidden in the sick, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the imprisoned. They are not just the “brothers” of Jesus; Jesus is identified in them. Why? Because Jesus became all those things in his great act of redemption: he was tortured, starved, dehydrated, stripped, and imprisoned himself.

We say and sing all the time that Jesus identified himself with the sin and brokenness of the world on the cross, and took upon himself all our infirmities and wounds. But this is a much more difficult and unavoidable next step – to see in the brokenness and wretchedness of others, the image of the suffering Christ.

Everyone is an icon of Christ. Everyone must be treated as Christ should be treated. We will be judged by the extent to which we see, have compassion, and act in response to Jesus’ sufferings in the world. This parable is not about figuring out if we are sheep or goats, or worse, if the person next to us is a sheep or goat. Like I said last year in the sermon on Passionate Worship about the rich man and the tax collector, the moment we say “thank God we are not like that rich man”, we fall into the exact same sin the rich man commits – thinking ourselves higher or more holy than anyone else. No, this parable is about evaluating our own actions, and taking steps right now to better them.

What does this actually mean? Well, next time you find yourself haunted by an image of someone in need, whether it be a beggar in the CBD, or a malnourished child on a World Vision TV ad, or footage from the atrocities in Syria, take that image with you to prayer. Make that image an icon for you, and spend some time asking Jesus to show you how he exists in that person, how that person reveals more of who Jesus is. In fact, let’s do that now. As I sing, some images will be shown on the screens. Look at each as icons of Christ, and pray about how that might make you treat them. This may too be a time for a New Year’s resolution or two to be made prayerfully and in the presence of God.