Justice and judgment - Matthew 25:31-46 - Living By the Word - Column

Christian Century, Nov 6, 1996 by Edgar Krentz

When Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee in 1897, the London Times printed Rudyard Kipling's poem "Recessional." It scandalized the English because instead of celebrating their empire, the poem called them to repentance. The refrain "lest we forget--lest we forget" ended each stanza. England too stood under God's judgment and might vanish as a power on the world stage.

The tumult and the shouting dies;

The captains and the kings depart:

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget--lest we forget!

Lest we forget: It's the end of the church year and, as usual, we think back over the year. In terms of the lectionary, this has been the year of Matthew. What has living with Matthew meant for us this year? How has Matthew shaped our vision and our life? Have we come closer to being the church in a non-Christian society as Matthew described it?

Lest we forget: It's Christ the King Sunday. The Gospel presents a regnant Jesus who sits on his glorious throne as the judge of humanity. It is not really a parable but a judgment scene that uses an agrarian metaphor, sheep and goats. The judgment is actual, real, decisive, threatening, hanging over humanity like a lowering thundercloud. Like all trials, it passes judgment not on thoughts, but on actual deeds--in this case, deeds done to the judge: feeding him when hungry, giving water to him when thirsty, welcoming him as a stranger, clothing him when ragged, comforting him when sick, empathizing with him when in prison. Those judged are equally surprised, whether rewarded or condemned. "When did we do such deeds to you?" When you did them to the marginalized, the outcasts, the weakest and neediest in society. Christians see Jesus in the least, if they see him at all.

Lest we forget: Matthew's Gospel begins with a stress on doing the faith. Jesus himself must "fulfill all righteousness" (Matt. 3:153. Matthew uses "righteousness" to describe the proper relationship to God: Persecution will be for righteousness' sake (Matt. 5:10), for the disciples' righteousness should surpass that of even the most observant Jews (Matt. 5:20). Their acts of piety (Matt. 6:1; the Greek text reads "pay attention to your righteousness") include almsgiving, prayer and fasting. These must be done before God alone, not with a view to demonstrating piety (Matt. 6:1-18).

Lest we forget: Paul's phrase "faith active in love" fits Matthew's view of the Christian life well. Even right belief is not enough. One of Jesus' most severe words comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount: "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Matt. 7:21). To call Jesus Lord is the basic confession of faith in the early church (cf. 1 Cor. 12:3, Phil. 2:11), but it is not enough. Nor is prophecy, exorcism or miraculous deeds. Unless one does the will of the Father, Jesus will confess against those deeds. "I never recognized you; go away, you who produce that which breaks the Torah" (Matt. 7:23; the NRSV text diffuses the sharpness of this verse).

Lest we forget: We need to hear the Matthean voice at the end of this church year. To be among the "righteous" welcomed by Jesus one must live out one's faith in concrete actions of love and mercy. We must let Matthew's stark language call us to serious self-examination if we hope to stand before the great king.

Lest we forget: The language of judgment is not popular in the postmodern world, yet it is a major component of the church's heritage. I have been struck by the loss of one strand of hymnody, at least in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Our latest worship book contains hymns of comfort about the future, but I cannot find the hymns about judgment that were so strong in the Western catholic tradition: the Dies irae, whose cadences thunder in Verdi's Requiem; Bernard of Cluny's Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus, which reminds us both of the judgment that is coming and of the glory of Jerusalem the Golden. Precisely because Christians believe that the resurrected Jesus is the exalted Lord of the Universe, the Kosmokrator, they cannot forget that he is judge and deliverer. He calls for faithful obedience as well as faith, for doing the will of the Father, not just knowing it.

Art often gives an insight into reality. In Verdi's opera Don Carlo, the Grand Inquisitor demands the death of the king's son Carlo for heresy. The king asks, "Can one sacrifice love and nature?" To which the Grand Inquisitor answers, "One must sacrifice everything to exalt faith." To forget this is to forget the Matthean Jesus. Our visual representations of Jesus often portray him as a gentle helper, a sympathetic friend. Our churches rarefy have anything that resembles the Pantokrator figure that is found in the apse of Orthodox churches or standing over the doorways of Gothic cathedrals.

It's the end of the year and we look to the new year with anticipation. I remember a group of friends that would gather at an annual New Year's party and write down predictions about the coming year. On the next New Year's Eve, they opened them in order to see how reality and prognostication cohered. The results were often surprising, whether accurate or completely wrong. Our expectations are often false, deluded or wrongheaded. We need the Jesus of this Sunday's Gospel, "Lest we forget, lest we forget."