Dear Sisters, Brothers and Friends of All Saints Catholic Church: Greetings and Praise the Lord!
Most people hate exams. The worry so much that they cannot even study for them. A few people love taking exams; it’s a chance for them to show off how much they know.
So, it’s surprising to us that taking an exam, of undergoing a test, was something that the early followers of Jesus looked forward to. “Thy Kingdom come,” they prayed. “Come, Lord Jesus.” We think this is crazy because we have another TV series to watch or maybe a new car, or house, to buy. Why would we want all this to end?
The early Christians saw God’s putting the world to the test as the way that God’s goodness and truth would be revealed; it was also the way in which their own status as children of God would be revealed. We have to remember that thinking about the end of the world in Jewish history took place when they were victims of the aggression of other nations. The final test was when they knew God was on their side.
In the Gospel today we do not see many of the images of the end of time that we read about perhaps in the Book of Revelation or even in the second reading we have today from Paul. Rather, we see God gathering the nations without fire and earthquakes, only with his Son judging them. Although the image is that of a shepherd separating sheep and goats, I doubt God has anything against goats. The image is just a way of saying what the fundamental division between redemption and destruction will be. The division, the point of testing, will be compassion.
In each of the statements the King makes, we see people who are in need, whether it’s physical need like hunger, or whether it’s social need like the isolation of prison or illness. This is the kind of Kingdom God wants—a Kingdom manifested by the care we have for those who are hurting. The parable makes it clear why: to not have compassion for others is to not have compassion on God. Our judgment will not be about how many Rosaries we have said or how many times we went to communion; it will be about how many times we saw the hurting and reached out to them.
We need to remember that God already underwent the final test on our behalf in the death of his Son, Jesus. Jesus took on every human need and hurt when he witnessed to the presence of God’s Kingdom: hungry, thirsty, abandoned, tortured: God showed himself not in the powerful or the pretty but in the suffering of the world. If we will not do something for those around us who are hurting, neither would we have done anything for Christ in his passion.
We learn from the first reading what kind of King God is: the shepherd who cares for his flock, who will do anything to preserve his sheep and keep them safe. God has shown that compassion most of all in the death and resurrection of his Son, the ultimate victory of goodness and love. In the parable we have today, Jesus is saying we can be part of that victory by learning to be shepherds for each other. That’s who God is; that how those who belong to God should be.
I think Jesus did not tell this parable to discourage his disciples; its basic purpose is to foster a fundamental attitude in his followers. We attend Mass and pray our Rosaries and other prayers precisely to have this attitude of compassion grow within us as disciples of Jesus so that, when the test comes, we will have already passed it by the way we have lived.