Saturday after Advent 3

God of our future, forgive our yearning for cheap grace.  Let us recognize your mighty promise and your stark expectation.  In his name.  Amen 

Psalm 55

Zechariah 8:9-17

Revelation 6:1-17

Matthew 25:31-46

We have largely been narcotized in the church to expect that Jesus is unconditional love for us all.  That shallow assurance is reinforced at Christmastime with an easy, casual disregard of the hard realities of the world and the hard realities of the gospel that meet the world.  We should know better, because it is right there in front of us in one of the most familiar of Jesus' parables.  We readily appeal to his parable when we want to champion social justice and compassion toward the needy.  In doing so, however we do not recognize that the list of ministries to the "least" in the parable is not an imperative that commands action.  Rather it is an occasion for judgment that reviews past action.   The judgment is severe toward those who have not practiced a neighborly ethic.  The hard part is that the coming one, the Son of Man, conducts a trial and implements a judicial sentence.

The teaching is, of course, only a parable, not to be heard literally.  It is a declaration by Jesus that the rule of God operates with stark expectations that are uncompromising and come with severe sanctions.  The disregard of this expectation issues in ominous prospects for the future, ominous even if and when we are protected by our narcotized illusions. 

The parable has behind it a thick prophetic tradition.  Zechariah anticipates a new well-being, a "sowing of peace,"  a "blessing,"  "good to Jerusalem."  That good promise, however, requires truth speaking and judgments that make for peace.  These are not heroic actions for an emergency.  They are rather a new norm for which the Lamb was slain.  They are, in the parable, the price of "eternal life."  

Walter Brueggemann:  Gift and Task 

I am going to give the Gospel reading because it is one of the most important passages to me, it's what I read at my mother's funeral, at her suggestion.  This is the Good News translation.

The Final Judgment
31 “When the Son of Man comes as King and all the angels with him, he will sit on his royal throne, 32 and the people of all the nations will be gathered before him. Then he will divide them into two groups, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the righteous people at his right and the others at his left. 34 Then the King will say to the people on his right, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father! Come and possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world. 35 I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, 36 naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.’ 37 The righteous will then answer him, ‘When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? 38 When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you? 39 When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’ 40 The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!’


41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Away from me, you that are under God's curse! Away to the eternal fire which has been prepared for the Devil and his angels! 42 I was hungry but you would not feed me, thirsty but you would not give me a drink; 43 I was a stranger but you would not welcome me in your homes, naked but you would not clothe me; I was sick and in prison but you would not take care of me.’ 44 Then they will answer him, ‘When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and we would not help you?’ 45 The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you refused to help one of these least important ones, you refused to help me.’ 46 These, then, will be sent off to eternal punishment, but the righteous will go to eternal life.”

I will note that, from what Greek scholars I've read say, they say the word "eternal" as in "eternal flame" is mistranslated from the Greek which doesn't imply that the punishment would be eternal.  They say the word was mistranslated because the Latin that was used in the Western Church and, so, persisted in Western culture, didn't have a word that expressed the same thing.   I don't know, I'm not a Greek scholar - having wasted my time for the classical languages on Latin instead of Greek and Hebrew.   I have read Gregory of Nyssa and am convinced that as much as it might disappoint me when I think of such people as Hitler and Trump and Putin and Stalin, even the punishments they so richly deserve don't deserve to be eternal.