In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It has been a while, my brothers and sisters, since many of us were in school, but I recall enough about school to know that being familiar with the questions on the final exam ahead of time gives you a distinct advantage. This morning, the Lord presents us with the questions for the final exam.

The story of the last judgment, which closes Matthew’s fifth great discourse and comes immediately before the account of the Lord’s Passion, was chosen in antiquity by holy Church to be read immediately before the start of Lent each year. This custom places the last judgment as the context for repentance.

Three images of Jesus, I believe, are indicated in this parable. He is the Judge, the Brother, and the Teacher. This morning first let us think about Jesus as Judge. I know I wouldn’t want to be judged by anybody else. I definitely want to be judged by the One who died for my sins and rose for my justification. But it’s imperative to observe that the last activity ascribed to Christ our Lord in the Nicene Creed is: “He will come again in glory to judge.”

Now this morning’s parable is Matthew’s fourth straight parable about the return of the Son of Man for the purpose of judgment. There’s one at the end of chapter 24 and then three parables in chapter 25, and today’s is the last one. The theme of the final judgment had been introduced much earlier, back in chapter 13 of Matthew, in the parables of the kingdom. In the coming trials of Jesus before the Sanhedrin, the next chapter, he will speak very solemnly on this subject by way of warning Israel’s official leaders.

“I say to you hereafter, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Now this Son of Man described in this morning’s parable as the king, will sit in judgment over all the nations: panta ta ethnoi, kol goyim, all the nations. Israel is numbered among those nations. As in any trial, the verdict will be given, leading to a division, the latter symbolized by the sheep and the goats.

Now let’s reflect this morning on the extraordinary nature of this claim of Jesus, the claim to be the final arbiter of universal history. Clearly the entire body of the early Christians appreciated the uniqueness of this claim, that one person in history, a partaker of history, will eventually pass judgment on every aspect of history. Paul went to Athens to declare that. He told the Athenians that God has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom he has appointed. Paul was deeply clear on this point when he wrote to the Corinthians, “For all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ.”

The world can hear this claim of universal judgment only with skepticism and ridicule. They hear it with skepticism because those who adhere to this world find it impossible to imagine they are going to be judged at all. The reason they don’t believe they’re going to be judged at all is because they’ve been taught from the first time they took their first course in sociology that there are no such things as universal moral norms by which to judge them. That was taken as axiomatic in the institutions of where I taught, that there are no universal moral norms by which to assess the value of human life. It’s taken as axiomatic that no one can judge anybody else, especially persons from another culture. And that those who love the world hear this claim with ridicule, at the thought that they will be judged by somebody they don’t even believe in.

I remember David Mills showing me a cartoon, years ago. A man entering hell—it’s pretty bad when cartoons are about hell— Anyway, a man is entering hell, and the devil is saying to him, “Yes, I know this is only a medieval myth, but there you are.” [Laughter]

The dominant idea of this parable, in fact, is the divine judgment. God really does judge. He really does discriminate. He will not confuse a just man with an unjust man. And I pity the mind who doesn’t find comfort in that thought. God discerns the difference, and that difference means a great deal to him. God does not take that difference lightly. He assigns eternal destinies to men on the basis of that difference.

And this is what we see in the present parable. The sheep and the goats are spread asunder, just as, a little earlier in the same chapter, the wise and unwise maidens were separated from one another, and just as, earlier still, wheat is distinguished from chaff. In this world, the generous and the mean have existed side-by-side, but at the judgment it will be so no more. The elect are addressed as “blessed of my father.” They inherit the kingdom, and the kingdom they inherited has been planned and prepared since the beginning of creation; it had been in the divine mind all along.

Then comes the criterion of judgment, in which we recognize the components of many teachings of our Lord, such as, for example, the parable of the good Samaritan. And this brings us to our second point. Jesus appears as the Brother. Indeed, his brotherhood with other human beings is the very basis of his judgment. “Amen, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me. Amen, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”

You know, this Christian emphasis on the common quality of the Lord’s humanity indicates more than an ethical preference of Jesus. His complete solidarity with the rest of the human race was the condition of his ability to redeem the human race. All the early councils said that explicitly. If he’s not completely one of us, we’re not redeemed. Such was the force of the reference to Jesus as “born of a woman.” And Paul’s account of the Son’s coming to redeem those under the law, born of a woman.

Especially to be noted in this parable is his association with all mankind, especially the poor, the destitute, the neglected. To serve the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the sick, and the imprisoned is to serve Jesus who identifies himself with them. It’s interesting that the prisoners are also listed there, those that have been deemed unfit for human society. This is not a negligible aspect of the Gospel, my brothers and sisters. It pertains to the very subject matter of the final judgment.

Now, as for us, how can we know where we stand with respect to that judgment? Well, in a sense, we can’t know; in a sense, its question mark will be with us until we draw our last breath, where we put our trust completely in the mercy of God. In a sense, it’s not important that we know. I’m afraid that if we did know we might become complacent. God will not have a Christian feel so secure that he neglects his duties in this world. This is my answer to those who believe you can know, namely: God will not have a Christian so secure—feel so secure—that he neglects his duties in this world.

You see, in the present parable, the just are not preoccupied with themselves. They are preoccupied with the needs of the poor—poor in every sense. Their lives are spent addressing those needs. With respect to salvation, the last thing in the world that needs our preoccupation is ourselves. Salvation will come to those who forget about themselves in service to those who are their brothers and sisters. Such people have neither the leisure nor the inclination to think about themselves, even about their eternal security. They’re too preoccupied doing God’s will with respect to their fellow men.

Thus, at the divine judgment, they arrive unaware that they have ever served Christ at all. They didn’t know. They imagined all along that they were simply taking care of the poor. Why were they taking care of the poor? Because there’s a deep impulse inside us to make us do that, and that deep impulse is put there by God through the mediation of our mothers. That’s our first experience in life, isn’t it? The mercy of God conveyed to us through our mothers. When we were hungry, she fed us. When we were naked, she clothed us. When we felt lonesome, when we felt estranged, she comforted us. God’s mercy is planted in every human being through a mother’s love, and that impulse, God’s mercy and to spread God’s mercy, planted in us by our mothers, it’s absolutely essential to our salvation. To the extent that we act upon it, make our decisions on the basis of it, we become like Christ and thus become like God. At the judgment, the righteous are even surprised that they have been serving Christ all along. The thoughts have been solely for the crying needs of their fellow men. They have had neither time nor opportunity to think about themselves.

And finally, brothers and sisters, let us consider Jesus as the Teacher. The story of the last judgment is our Lord’s final parable before the story of his Passion. It is the last word of his public ministry. In this parable our Lord discloses to us what he wants most for us to know, namely, he’s made himself our brother, not only be assuming the conditions of our flesh but by dying for us on the cross. And this is the thesis by which we Christians are defined.

The common icon, the most common icon, of Jesus our Lord in the assembly of the faithful, and probably most of our homes, is the one just to my left, and that is Christ the Teacher. Christ the Teacher. How do we live? How do we live? This past week or so, in one of the splendid sermons he’s been giving on Wednesdays and Saturday nights, Fr. Andrew quoted St. Ignatios Brianchaninov in his book, The Arena, early in the book. It’s a book written for novices in monasteries. He had a splendid quotation he gave us the other night, of how the Gospel is the norm, the standard, by which we assess our lives. That’s why it’s imperative, says St. Ignatios, to be thoroughly familiar with the Gospel. All of you who make your confession to me know how stern I can be on that point. Let not a day go by without your encountering Jesus our Lord in the words of the Gospel.

Each of us knows himself to be a blood-bought brother or a sister of Christ, and he has left a commandment that must guide our thinking in the entire measure of our lives. “A new commandment I give you.” It’s a new Torah. “A new commandment I give you: love one another.” What’s the measure of the love we should show to one another? Next verse: “As I have loved you, so you are to love one another.” To love one another as Christ has loved us. “By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Now even just as human beings, as I mentioned, this impulse has been put into us, through that first experience we have of the love of God, which is the love of our mothers, poured deeply into us, beyond the recall of memory. That must be cultivated. That must be safeguarded. We must avoid every idea that’s inimical to that impulse. And ideas abound in contemporary world that are inimical to that impulse. The entire spirit of trying to get ahead—to get ahead, to separate oneself from the common run of humanity—is one of the most obvious presuppositions of the society in which we live, and it’s directly inimical to the Gospel. Jesus tells us that we must serve one another. Jesus gives the example, by getting down on his knees and washing the feet of his disciples. He gives the example by going about, as the Apostle says, doing good.

The Christian, if he’s filled with the spirit of Christ our Lord, will spend his entire life doing good, serving. For unto this was he called.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.