Solemnity of Christ the King – November 22, 2020
How do you judge others? How do others judge you? How does
Jesus judge you? What standards of judgment will Jesus, our Judge at the end of
our physical life, be using?
In the gospel for next Sunday, Jesus describes the General
Judgment that will take place at the end of the world. He makes it clear that
as king of the world he will be the judge. He also makes it clear that the
standard of judgment is this: “As long as you did this to one of the least of
these brothers [and sisters] of mine, you did it to me.? And, on the other
hand, “In so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you
neglected to do it to me.”
This gospel reading for Christ the King Sunday is the last
teaching that Jesus gives in Matthew’s gospel before Jesus begins the journey
of his passion and death. The verses immediately following today’s gospel
reading describe the plot of the religious leaders to put Jesus to death. In
that sense, our gospel reading is the culmination of Jesus’ teaching in
Matthew’s gospel. It brings together all the teaching Jesus has been engaged in
during his public ministry. The great mystic Saint John of the Cross expresses,
in a very brief way, the essence of the teaching of Jesus, “In the evening of
life, we shall be judged on love.”
Jesus had earlier declared in Matthew’s gospel that all the
law and the prophets hang on two great commandments, “You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,”
and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Now, in this parable, Jesus
seems to be saying that in loving the neighbor, especially the neighbor in
need, we are loving him: “In so far as you did this to one of the least of
these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me’. We can go on to say that
in loving Jesus, we are loving God because Jesus is Emmanuel, “God with us”.
The two great commandments to love are being brought together in this teaching
of Jesus. It is not without good reason that this particular reading has been
described as one of the defining texts of our Christian faith.
The first part of the gospel reading tells us that there is
often much more to the good that we do than we realize. That first group were
amazed to discover that the good they did had a value far beyond what they
imagined. What may seem of little value to us can be of eternal significance.
The visits we pay the sick, the efforts we make to ensure that strangers feel
welcome, the acts of kindness we show to those in need, the initiatives we take
for the benefit of others, no matter how small, bring us into direct contact
with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus is declaring that he will
reward deeds of love, whoever performs them. These ordinary deeds of love serve
the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. The Lord meets us through the ordinary
human needs of those who cross our path in life, and our response to those
needs is a response to him, even if we have no awareness of his presence. He
asserts that whenever those in need are served, it is he, the Son of God, who
is being served because he is mysteriously present in all who struggle and
suffer.
The acts of service outlined by Jesus are very concrete and
practical. They are six corporal works of mercy. The church, later, went on to
add a seventh, the burial of the dead. There is nothing especially heroic about
these concrete deeds of service. They do not require extraordinary courage.
They are small acts of kindness we are all capable of. The simplest of actions
are what matter; the little deeds of kindness. Another saying of Jesus in the
gospels bears that out, “Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink…will by no
means lose their reward.” And, according to Jesus, these acts of love have
eternal consequences. They are the path to life in the kingdom of heaven.
The kingship of Christ that we celebrate today is a kingship
of care. Today’s feast both consoles as well as challenges. We are consoled by
the Lord’s care for us. At the same time, we are reminded that we are judged by
the way we care for one another, especially the forgotten and ignored among us.
Fr. Don C.P.