The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

There it is. Plain and simple. All the gospel in one parable. If the rest of Matthew’s gospel, along with Mark and Luke and John were somehow lost, it would be enough. It tells us just about everything we need to know on this dark, cold morning. “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

There are three images in today’s readings, three angles that coalesce, fuse into one profound reality. The good shepherd who seeks out the lost lambs in Ezekiel; the diligent victor over death in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians; the King in judgment at the end of the ages, separating the sheep from the goats in Matthew’s simple yet harrowing account. “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

I often tell my students that as a professor, I’m not God, much as I might want to be considered as such. Rather, I simply share the god-like function of ratifying their decisions. God ultimately doesn’t save or condemn us; we save or condemn ourselves by the actions we do, and God ratifies our decisions. You don’t do the reading, you don’t prepare for the exam, you text in class rather than taking notes, OK. When the time comes for me to enter the marks, all I'm doing is acknowledging what you did or did not do, what you chose or chose not to learn, put up against a standard that applies to all.  I don’t fail you, or pass you, or give you an A; all I do is affirm your decisions. “And some shall go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life—and a good gpa.”

Because we need reminding, because we’re slow on the uptake, because, in the end, we’re stupid, Jesus keeps it simple. I was hungry, and you fed me, naked and you clothed me, sick or imprisoned or lonely and you visited me. “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”  And more chilling: “Whatever you did not do for one of these least brothers and sisters of mine, you did not do for me.”            

The simplest of standards, a criterion as wide as a plate, as long as a pair of shoes, as deep as a patient conversation. That’s IT. It’s no more complicated than that.

We long, as Paul reminds us, for that day when the Lord will conquer all foes, even death itself; we long for that day when God will be all in all. Yet we are reminded that the cosmic kingdom, that place of lasting peace is built not stone on stone, but plate by plate, pair of shoes by pair of shoes, conversation by conversation. And we are called to be the builders. “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Next Sunday, we begin the new liturgical year, and the holy season of Advent. We will remember with tender love the coming of Mary’s son among us in the humility and poverty of the stable of Bethlehem. Yet we also look to his coming in glory at the end of the ages, when God will be all in all, and every tear will be wiped away. Even more mysteriously, we seek to recognize him and minister to him present here and now in the hungry and the naked and the sick and the lost and the lonely. “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

 “Whatever you do for one of these least brothers and sisters of mine, you do for me.”

Fr. Tom Lucas, S.J.