Our Lord gifts to us today a prophetic view of what will happen to each of us, believer or non-believer, on that last day, when He returns “in glory” to judge all of humanity, from Adam to the very last person born before His feet touch this earth again. For the record, that constitutes a group of about 107 billion people, if you’re counting. And the Lord IS counting!
Saint Nikolai Velimirovich wrote, “The salvation of the soul is the only meaning of labor of man on earth.” God gives to us the breath of life, and then sets us loose here so that we might seek Him “will all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.” (Mat 22:37) Jesus uses words carefully, and in these words He shows us that the expectation is that we will live a life expressing love for God with our spiritual sense (the soul), with our physical being (the heart), and with our intellect (the mind), joined in unity to seek Him. We are to seek Him not as some avocation, for again His words have meaning. We are to use ALL our heart, ALL our soul, ALL our mind in the quest to “work out our own salvation,” as St. Paul puts it (Phil 2:12).
What are these weighty words attempting to explain clearly to us?
First, from today’s Gospel reading we need to see that at the Last Judgment, there are no “shades of grey.” There are no categories of “very good,” “mostly good,” “partly bad,” “mostly bad,” and “evil.” There are only two – sheep (those who will spend eternity in the presence of God) and goats (those who will spend eternity separated from God and His love).
Within these two groups, the Lord expresses only ONE discriminating behavior between them. Did you help those in need, or did you help only yourself?
And these discriminating factors are not of themselves so onerous! Jesus doesn’t say, “I was hungry and you gave Me a filled pantry.” It’s less demanding than this. “I was hungry and you gave Me food.” It could be a morsel of bread, if that’s what we have, and He would honor the act. He does not say, “I was thirsty and you dug Me a well.” It’s less demanding than this. “I was thirsty and you gave me drink.” It could be a ladle of water, if that’s what we have, and again He would honor the act. He does not say, “I was a stranger and you bought me a house.” He would honor giving shelter in any place we might find space for one in need. He does not say, “I was naked and you bought me a three-piece suit.” If you have a sweat-suit to give, do it and He will honor the act! He did not say, “I was sick and you healed me.” All He seeks is for us to VISIT one who is ill, to bring comfort with the resource of the LOVE that is His within us. He does not say, “I was in prison and you paid my bail.” Again His instruction is to visit, to show love and compassion.
Do these simple things, and He will declare you to be a sheep!
Our Adult Study group has been reading from a book titled “The Spiritual Life” by St. Theophan the Recluse. It is comprised of a series of letters exchanged between him and one of his spiritual children, apparently a priest’s wife. And he also has a very simple means of explaining what our Lord expects of us. He teaches this, “Is someone seeking help? Help him! Has someone offended you? Forgive him! Have you offended someone? Rush to ask forgiveness and make peace. Did someone praise you? Don’t be proud. Did someone scold you? Do not be angry. Is it time to pray? Pray! Work, etc., etc… Do this, and all of the problems of your life will be solved completely and satisfactorily.
Elsewhere he teaches this, “Everything that you do here, no matter what it is, will be a work, and if you do it with the consciousness that such a work is according to the commandments that God wants such a thing, then the work will be pleasing to God.”
When we look at the words of our Lord today, we come to understand His teaching us that the Judgment will not be by way of a vengeful God seeking to condemn His creatures. Rather, it will be by way of us, the myriad of people, seeing what we’ve done, what we’ve failed to do, and recognizing for ourselves whether we should step to His right or His left. Jesus says, “I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father Who sent Me.” (John 5:30). We know that this is true by His words from today’s Gospel, wherein Jesus says to those at His left, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” The Greek word for “cursed” is kat-ar-ah’-om-ahee, which carries the meaning “doomed”. One translation uses the word “execrate” which means to have a great loathing for. In response to this condemnation, what is the response from the goats? Is it, “You’re wrong, Lord. Let me think about how many innocents I helped during my life.” But such things cannot be truthfully said by them. The “books are opened,” and “the hidden things are disclosed.” All truth is laid bare for every human ever born to see! And so the only answer they have to offer to the sentence is, “When did we see YOU, Lord, hungry or thirsty or homeless or naked or sick or in prison and not minister to You?” This is NOT a defense against the judgment. Worse, it is not even a plea for mercy. It is an attempt to continue, at the very judgment seat of Christ, to continue living in a manner that serves only self.
And so, their fate is sealed.
But what of the sheep? See how their words to their Savior differ. They ask the same question, using the same words, but the ending differs. Instead of asking, “when did we NOT minister to You,” they instead ask, “when DID we minister to You?” We don’t recall seeing you as we walked our daily path in the world. How is it that You deign to bless us with favor?
And we know the answer. It lay in the expression, “the least of these, My brethren.” Again, the Greek word for “least” is el-akh’-is-tos, which carries the meaning “the very smallest.” Jesus is saying to them that their efforts to give a cup of water, a morsel of bread, a place to sleep for a night, or a kind visiting word to one in need, these efforts are the ones that found as their target the Master. In His loving words, Jesus establishes the fullness of “the brotherhood of mankind” with His expression, “the least of My brethren.” Here, brethren is translated as ad-el-fos’, which being translated means to be connected “from the womb.”
St. Theophan says this about our efforts to follow the instruction of St. Nikolai that we opened with, our “labor for the salvation of the soul.” His instruction is, “Just look around yourself each day and each hour; on whatever you see the seal of the commandment, carry it out immediately, in the belief that God Himself this very hour requires this work of you, and nothing else.”
He further says, “(Worldly people) have in mind all mankind or at least all of its people lumped together. The fact is, however, that ‘mankind’ or ‘the people’ does not exist as a person for whom you could do something right now. It consists of individual persons: By doing something for one person, we are doing it within the general mass of humanity.”
Finally, we’ll close with this instruction. “All troubles come from a mental outlook that is too broad. It is better to humbly cast your eyes down toward your feet, and to figure out which step to take where. This is the truest path.”
Being a sheep requires humility, putting oneself after others, and it requires that we focus on the needs of the one, not the many. Thousands were present at the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus could have “said the word” and all would have been healed. We have no such record of the Lord performing a “mass healing.” Besides the ten lepers (Luke 17:11-19), we find the Lord healing one-on-one, and most often with words such as, “Go in peace. Your faith has made you well,” God the Son ascribing the miracle to the faith of the person, and not taking credit for it Himself. Here is the definition of humility!
The Holy Church has now prepared us for what comes next week. We’ve been led to developing the desire to move toward Christ from the account of Zacchaeus. We’ve been taught that we must judge ourselves and not others from the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. We’ve been shown that we must find true repentance and carry it to the loving Father, Who waits for us to turn from our sin and return to Him. Now we’ve been shown the end of our lives and how our dispensing mercy to those in need here will impact where we will be for all eternity. These lessons have been provided to us – again – to prepare us for what comes next Sunday, the day when our desire to please God through our self-judgment brings our repentant heart before our brother and sister to seek their forgiveness, and in return to respond in mercy forgiving them.
The time grows short, my brothers and sister in Christ. Let us not waste a day, an hour, a second in seeking to be a sheep!
Glory to Jesus Christ!
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