Today is the Sunday of the Last Judgment. Metropolitan Antony of Sourozh who died in 2003 and was in charge of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Great Britain and Ireland offered an unusual interpretation of the Last Judgment. In the book, Meditations, Metropolitan Antony wrote: “The day will come when we shall stand before God and be judged, but as long as our pilgrimage [on earth] continues, as long as we live in the process of becoming, as long as there is ahead of us this road that leads to the full measure of the stature of Christ [that is, the importance of Christ] which is our vocation, judgment must be pronounced by ourselves…. Judgment,” Metropolitan Antony concluded “is something which is happening all the time within us; there is a dialogue, a dialectical tension which stands in judgment upon us and before which we [also] stand in judgment.”

That is quite a profound, but complex understanding of the Last Judgment. Metropolitan Antony begins with a quite traditional statement: “The day will come when we shall [each] stand before God and be judged.” Then the Metropolitan continues with a much bolder and radical claim. He insists that while we are alive on earth “as long as we live in the process of becoming, as long as there is ahead of us this road that leads to the full measure of Christ which is our vocation, judgement must be pronounced by ourselves.” We judge ourselves? How?

Well, first, we live, in Metropolitan Antony’s phrase, “in the process of becoming”-that is, growing wiser, becoming more discerning, examining our lives and asking ourselves how we can live a better life. Second, our vocation-our purpose during our lives on earth-is to travel “the road that leads to the full measure of Christ.” Now, let’s combine those two ideas. the process of becoming is living our lives in such a way that we seek to become mature persons, as well as to draw closer and closer to Christ. As we each seek to become mature persons and draw closer to Christ, “a dialectical tension [within us] stands in judgment upon us.” 

Now, a dialectic is the art or practice of establishing truth by discussion. In other words, we keep asking ourselves: Am I becoming a mature person? Am I drawing closer to Christ? We judge ourselves; and as we evaluate ourselves we become more mature persons and closer and closer to Christ, because we have each made in our free that double choice-to do what we need to do to become more mature persons and to pray that we will draw closer to Christ. So, it is true that this practice of seeking to know the truth by asking ourselves ‘how am I doing?’ is linked to the reality that we do indeed “stand in judgment” before God at the end of our lives. Then, the Last Judgment is God’s evaluation of how we have been acting and praying and evaluating ourselves during the whole of our lives.

That’s what this Gospel today from St Matthew says: we will each be judged on how well we have served those in need and related to each other. The distinction is made between “sheep” and “goats.” I have always been rather puzzled by this. Why are goats not as good as sheep? Why should goats have a bad name? There is an issue of translation of the Biblical text here. In the Holy Gospels as published by the Holy Apostles Convent in Buena Vista, Colorado in the States, they checked carefully with the approved text of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Greek word, often translated as “goats,” actually means “young kids.” So, the best translation reads: “The shepherd separates the sheep from the young kids.” In other words, the shepherd-the Lord God-is separating those who, on the one hand, are mature in their attempt to become persons who draw closer to Christ, from those who, on the other hand, are not seeking to improve their ability to serve and relate to others, as well as to draw closer to Christ.

Surprisingly, in drawing closer to the Lord, we often feel increasingly aware of our own weaknesses and of His strength. That was certainly the experience of St Paul as he explained in Second Corinthians, chapter12, verse 10, when he wrote: “For when I am weak, then am strong.” Why? Because, as St Paul explains in Philippians, chapter4, verse 7: I can do all things through Him [that is, through God] who strengthens me.” And so it is for all of us. As we draw closer to Christ, He strengthens each of us to face whatever challenges confront us.

St Augustine agrees with Metropolitan Antony’s bold interpretation of the Last Judgment as a process that occurs throughout our lives on earth. Perhaps Metropolitan Antony did indeed know St Augustine’s approach to the Last Judgment.  In The City of God (20.1; 2014), St Augustine wrote; and I quote: “When we talk of the Day of Judgment, we add the [word] ‘Final’ or ‘Last’, because God’s judgment is happening even now. This judgment began at the start of the human race, when God expelled the first human beings from paradise, and cut them off from the tree of life, because they had committed a great sin….” In the Book of Revelation, St Augustine reflects; and I quote again: “John speaks of the opening of books and of a book: and he states what kind of a book this is: ‘It is a book of life’ … in which is shown which of God’s commandments each [person] has performed or failed to perform…. [These words, wrote St Augustine are] to be understood as a kind of divine power which enables each [person] to recall to mind all [their] actions, good or bad, and to observe them with miraculous speed by the act of mental intuition; so that each [person’s] knowledge may accuse or absolve [that is, free, their] conscience.” In other words, at the Last Judgment we will each receive the full ability to know both our good and our not so good acts.

In a sense, at the Last Judgment we are being judged by God as to how well we have loved. In recent weeks, we have learned how when we first love ourselves we gain the strength to “lift off” and love others and love God. A friend said to me last week: “If God loves me, which I know He does, then I can love myself, because He knows me and what is best for me much better than I know myself.” So it is throughout our lives on earth, we learn both to love and to judge ourselves. Let us decide now to evaluate-to judge-for ourselves and in confession our ability to love others, as well as how we are growing more and more mature and closer and closer to Christ. Then we will each be ready for the Last Judgment.   

And so, we ascribe as is justly due all might, majesty, dominion, power and praise to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, always now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.