Holy Presumption
Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost
It is difficult to hear this parable at the end of Matthew’s Gospel without an ominous foreboding, Dies Irae playing in the background, and the slow trudge for the hordes of goats taking a left turn to destruction. Or, perhaps this is just how I have been conditioned to view this scene in my mind’s eye.
In any case, this scene of judgment – and indeed the theme of judgment – always seems to have a somber edge, and I am eager to offer what might be a bit of light in what might be an otherwise dark and uncertain reading. Again, this may be a projection, but I am guessing I am not alone in this.
Fortunately, there have been numerous scholars who have done the work of understanding this passage in its context. Not only does it find a home in the literary progression of Matthew, but it must also be read within its ancient, Greco-Roman context. These scholars, not least of which is the intractable David Bentley Hart, have been able to maintain a hopeful outlook through this text, even an uncompromised Christian Universalism.
This more hopeful depiction comes from a particular understanding of the final judgment against these sheep and goats. The translations “eternal punishment” and “eternal life” are rendered a bit less final in these softer readings, understanding that the ancient concept of time is separated into “ages,” similar to the way in which we might understand “epochs.” The argument is that the “eternal punishment” prepared for the nations judged as goats might better be rendered as the “age of chastening.” These scholars point out that these ages are neither eternal (in the sense of endless, timeless punishment), nor does it suggest punishment for its own sake. Rather, they would understand this to be an age of correction, refinement, and chastening toward a hopeful end – toward the age of everlasting life alongside the sheep.
There are similar depictions of purgatory. I cannot forget my Greek instructor in seminary telling us of his encounter with some of the artwork in the Netherlands, where a triptych portrayed hell, purgatory, and heaven. He told us that hell was basically empty, apart from the devil and some surly-looking demons. Purgatory, on the other hand, was packed with people, all of them moving toward the panel that depicted the heavenly kingdom. He recalled that, for him, this spoke of a hopeful afterlife, and indeed a hopeful vision of purgatory, where the whole purpose of this obscure place was to prepare humanity for heaven. The figures in this center panel were moving toward their end in God with the angels and saints in light.
Perhaps this is a Pollyanna view of judgment, but I find it to be a refreshing change of tone, where the judge of the nations is not retributive in dealing out judgment, but rather judges for the sake of purgation and refinement. Judgment, in this view, is not existentially threatening, even if it does not sound particularly comfortable. Rather, judgment finds its place within the greater work of God, the work of drawing all creation back into communion and life with God – in short, to perfection.
It seems that the literary context of this parable bears this out. We have already heard in the previous two weeks the two preceding parables in Matthew 25: “The Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids” and “The Parable of the Talents.” I have interpreted these two parables by focusing on the road less traveled – that is to say, I have been most interested in the assumptions of the reprimanded groups in these parables. For the foolish bridesmaids, they ran off to buy more oil when the tardy bridegroom was announced with a shout. Why did they leave? Did they imagine the bridegroom, the light of the world, would not bring with him enough light to illumine their path to the banquet? Why did they trust only in their little lamps to be a light to their path? Did they not trust that it was the Word of God that would do this very thing for them out of sheer grace and kindness?
In the same way, the slave who buried the single talent did so out of fear and his own judgment of the master’s character? What if he had done as the other slaves, invested his talent, and come back empty-handed? I want to believe that his fear drove him to security over risk, and that the Master would have done as we hear in the words of St. John Chrysostom’s Paschal Homily,: “He accepts the work as he greets the endeavor. The deed He honors and the intention He commends.” In other words, does he assume the Master is harsh, and therefore in his fear, he does not risk the talent he has been given? He does not trust that the Master would greet the endeavor and commend the intention, regardless of the return. Why not “sin boldly,” as Martin Luther provocatively exclaims, trusting in the mercy and grace of God to be the foundation of the world?
In the same way, the failure of the goats is in their assumption. They do not have the imagination that reveals Christ to be all in all, and therefore they move through the world as if there are sacred and secular places and people. They cannot see in the poor, the stranger, the hungry, the naked, and the imprisoned the face of God. The shelter and the jail are not holy ground – and they certainly don’t present as such – so they live fragmented lives that imagine places where God is absent. This is what must be chastened and perfected – their ability to see God in all things, as our Jesuit friends are so keen to teach us. Neither group – sheep or goats – knows that they have served Christ in these groups, but it is the kindness shown by the “sheep” that reveals their posture toward their neighbors – a posture that has habituated the nearness of God whether they have recognized Christ in these little ones or not.
We must presume upon the grace, kindness, and presence of God in all things. This is where the disciples go wrong, as they flee from the garden as their Lord is arrested. This is what we must learn as Matthew moves from this parable to the Passion, where we will be challenged to see the grace, kindness, and presence of God is the horror of the Cross. There, our imagination must experience a conversion, where the grotesque and cruel capacity of humanity cannot impede the grace, kindness, and presence of God. On the cross, the judge of the nations hangs above the sheep and goats, and, as we look upon the Crucified One, we are faced with a judgment on our own capacity to see in the scarred and bleeding face the only Son of God, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God. It is at the foot of the cross that we find both the judgment and chastening of our vision, and so we return to it again and again, hoping that we will one day see God to be all in all.