Standing Under the Scriptures
November 30, 2008

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

1 Corinthians 1.3-9: Paul, in this letter’s salutation, articulates his abounding aspirations for his Corinthian converts.

Mark 13.24-37: Jesus, in the section of Mark’s Gospel known as the Little Apocalypse, speaks of the calamitous time preceding his return.

Last Sunday, now designated the Feast of Christ the King, used to be known as the last Sunday before Advent. Either way our readings were appropriate in that while reflecting Christ’s royal role they anticipated his second coming, with which Advent is chiefly concerned.

This eschatological [pertaining to last things, the end of the age] perspective was mainly implicit in our first reading (Ezekiel 34.11-16). This is a moving passage, speaking of the sheep who had been scattered and become a prey through neglect and exploitation by their shepherds. It goes on to declare that in their affliction the Lord himself will become their shepherd, restoring them to their own land and leading them to abundant pasture. The immediate reference here is evidently to the restoration of Israel from Exile, the clouds and thick darkness of verse 12 representing the crushing of the nation by the Babylonians which preceded it. (Like Isaiah and Jeremiah before him, Ezekiel’s main concern is with the Exile: what went on before, during, or after it.) But we could see the passage as applying also to our own lives, to disappointments and failures that we have undergone, and to the promise that these things will be redeemed. Even so, redemption is not an immediate prospect, other than by anticipation. Instead it will come about essentially when, through our participation in Christ’s death, we are raised with him. Ezekiel’s speaking, later on in the chapter, of David as the Lord’s prince, can be taken as an anticipation of this, on the basis of Jesus being in the Davidic line.

The eschatology which is implicit in the Ezekiel passage is made explicit in our Gospel reading, Matthew 25.31-46. For it begins, “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. “ It goes on to speak of all the nations being gathered before him for judgment and of their being separated, so that the righteous are on his right hand and the unrighteous on his left. In the Ezekiel passage the shepherds were placed under judgment but not the sheep, with whom we would identify. Here the judgment is seen to fall on us, regarding whether we are to be accounted righteous or unrighteous. And the basis for it is our own treatment of the sheep, the least among us, whether we have ministered to them when they were hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, or in prison. For in doing, or not doing, this we have ministered to Christ the King. The division here is stark. To the righteous the King says, “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” But to the unrighteous he says, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

In our discussion we agreed that this parable could give rise to questions. One of them was whether ministering to the needy was not a species of works righteousness whereby we earned our salvation, in contrast to the classical Christian view that it was earned for us by God-in-Christ’s sacrifice of himself on the cross. The answer to that, we felt, was that insofar as we are in Christ, such ministering is our spontaneous response to the needy, our doing what comes naturally. Thus it is not the means of our justification but the mark of it.

Another and perhaps more serious question concerned the awfulness of the punishment of the unrighteous, with no middle ground between it and the reward of the righteous. But we felt that, as with the parables we considered on the previous two Sundays, namely of the wise and foolish bridesmaids and of the talents, the concern of this parable was primarily with the blessedness that comes to the righteous through their ministering to the needy. The penalty for failing so to minister is on this basis an exclusion from blessedness. And its harshness serves to remind us that what we do or do not do in life has abiding consequences.

Still our misgivings may not have been entirely allayed. For which of us has done all we might have to minister to the needy? Despite our good intentions---and those of the Millennium Development Goals---people in so many lands remain in need: as refugees, sick, hungry and, not least, persecuted for their Christian faith. We ought not to forget our obligations to such groups. Still it is perhaps not for us to take on our shoulders the burden of the whole world. The “one of the least of these my brothers” to whom Jesus directs us may be no less one with whom we come into direct and personal contact. We had some discussion about who were “the least.” They would be those whom the world regards as unprofitable and dispensable---going beyond the upper middle class types with whom we normally associate. Jesus spoke of such in the Beatitudes. A class member caught our attention by pointing out that it is not just by material gifts but also and more by association, by coming into their lives and allowing them into ours, that we meet their needs.

Altogether the parable may be taken as an invitation to blessedness, the blessedness that arises from ministering to the needy. Having once experienced it, we will certainly want to experience it again.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted