Fair Warning

Today is the Feast of Christ the King. This doesn't really resonate well with Americans, since our nation was born out of protest against a king. And I could go into a long recapitulation about how kingship is viewed in Israel and why this imagery is important and compelling -- even today, in this country -- but ... I won't.

Instead, I'd like to focus on today's Gospel, Matthew 25:31-46. In Matthew's account, this is Jesus' last public sermon. It's kind of like his punchline, I think. It's what he's been driving at during the past three years (well, that and the Cross and Resurrection, which I don't mean to diminish to any degree).

Today's Gospel is the famous instruction to feed the hungry, give drink to those who thirst, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and visit the imprisoned. There are many, many things that strike me about this passage, but I will focus on three.

1) This is the basis of judgment for a people who weren't previously warned. Jesus conjures up this image of divine judgment to separate the sheep from the goats and THIS is the basis for judgment: how we care for our neighbor. It has nothing to do with going to the Temple to make a sacrifice and pay homage to the Lord. It has nothing to do with ritual or purity. The Final Judgment is about LOVE and how we LOVE one another. And this is the case for people who weren't even given fair warning (although that's not entirely true, considering the warnings of prophets like Amos and Micah). Can you imagine what this judgment will be like for us, who have been given fair warning? In other words, Jesus is trying to say, as loudly and clearly as possible: PAY ATTENTION. THIS IS IMPORTANT!

2) The sheep and goats are separated by Christ the King and they don't know if they are a sheep or a goat. This should have served to wake up Israel, God's "chosen possession." Here, Jesus drives at another crucial point: your salvation is not won by your birth into a specific nation or religion. Your heritage does not guarantee you eternal life. How you live, how you care for and love others is what determines if you are a sheep or a goat. Although this was surely directed at Israel at the time, I think it speaks volumes to cradle Catholics today. We can take many things for granted. We can be content knowing that we have been baptized, that we show up for church, and that we're good people in general. Jesus is telling us this isn't enough. We can't be content with our comfortable little lives. We can't compartmentalize our faith into something we only deal with for one hour on a Sunday. We have to go to the margins, to the people who have been alienated and made vulnerable by society and not only love them, but meet their needs: give them food, clothing, heath care, and education. We live in a "great Christian nation" but there are millions of Americans who haven't been given the care they need. In other words, two thousand years later, we still haven't heeded this Gospel.

[cue dramatic music -- this is a major indictment of this "Christian" nation]

3. Karl Rahner writes about the unity of love of neighbor and the love of God. That is exactly what this Gospel is about. In this passage, the people ask, "When did I see you, Lord?" because they are caught up in a vertical understanding of their relationship with God. Jesus is challenging them to see their relationship with God as both vertical AND horizontal. Again, this is nothing new. The prophets of the Old Testament constantly railed about the lack of "shalom" (right relationship) between the people and Yahweh and between the people themselves. Love of God and love of neighbor is a BOTH/AND not an either/or. That's why, when Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, he responds, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul AND love your neighbor as yourself" (Mt. 22:36-40).

In A Theology of Liberation, Gustavo Gutierrez argues that what is missing most in the world today is a theology of neighbor. The statistics about individualism in our country and the 1.5 billion people living in extreme poverty certainly indicate there is truth to this claim. We have lost a concept for being neighbors to and for one another. We have turned a blind eye to those in need because we don't want to feel obliged or commanded to help someone else -- they should help themselves, after all! We are a nation which prizes personal responsibility, which means that people have to take care of themselves. But that is NOT what Jesus is talking about in this Gospel. He isn't saying that the hungry need to feed themselves, the naked need to find their own clothes, and the sick have to get their own medicine. Jesus is telling us that we must provide for those who can't provide for themselves.

And whether or not we like kings in this country, we have to know that, in the end, the final judgment will rest on whether or not we do precisely this.

And we won't be able to say no one gave us fair warning.