SOLEMNITY OF CHRIST THE KINGTHIRTY-FOURTH SUNDAY – YEAR A
Commentary of Father Fernando Armellini
A good Sunday for everyone.
There is a page of the gospel that even those who never go to church know very well; it is about the universal judgment separating the sheep from the goats. On this page of the gospel is a terrible phrase from Jesus the Judge: "Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” These dramatic words inspired artists who painted terror, despair, and torment scenes. These are words that have suggested lyrical compositions like ‘Dies Irae.’
We recall the first stanza: “Day of wrath and doom impending. Heaven and earth in ashes ending. Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth, When from heaven the Judge descendeth, On whose sentence all dependeth.”
Will the encounter with the Lord be like this? It will be a terrible day! These words also inspired musicians who translated into music the anguish of the crucial moment when Christ pronounced the final sentence. Frankly, it's hard to recognize the Jesus of the Gospel in this judge, at least as this page has traditionally been read.
It is from this Gospel account that God's judgment has been preached, and it comes across as a dramatic showdown to account for. Thus, the encounter with the Lord, far from being desired and expected, represents a great unknown for all, also for the good ones, because you never know how to feel safe in front of whom, as the book of Job says, he discovers defects even in his angels.
This is why many Christians, even good ones, would have willingly signed up for a few years of purgatory. A God who condemns this way is highly embarrassing for a Christian. It is difficult to consider this justice as a Gospel of Good News.
How do you agree with the heavenly Father of whom Jesus spoke, the God who makes the sun rise on the just and the unjust and asks his sons and daughters to do like him, who loves the righteous and the sinners without distinction? Why, at a particular moment, does he make this separation that he asks us not to do? Faced with these questions, and there would be many others, we must ask ourselves if we are sure that we understand what Jesus wants to teach us in this famous text.
Entire generations of Christians have grown up in terror, and many have turned away from the faith precisely because they could not believe in this God. So, we wonder if we have not misrepresented the meaning of the Master's words. Let us approach the Gospel text with great loyalty and not take for granted that the form it was interpreted and used is correct.
Let's focus on the first scene:
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who my Father blesses. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’”
What have we heard? I think many will respond: The beginning of a parable. It is not a parable but another literary genre and a judgment scene. The narration is inspired by what happened in the courts of the great kings of the ancient Middle East; they often summoned their feudal lords to court to assess their behavior. They were rewarded if they had been faithful; if they had committed misdeeds, they were severely punished. A judgment scene is a literary form that rabbis have often used; we find it, for example, in the Talmud, where it is said how the Lord in the afterlife will evaluate the life of the Israelites, and the Talmud says that the Lord will undoubtedly sit down and take a scroll of the Torah, He will put it on his knees and then He will tell them: Those who have behaved according to the law, come and they will receive their reward. This is how the lives of the Israelites will be evaluated, that is, based on fidelity to the Torah.
We find a judgment scene represented in Egypt, painted on sarcophagi, on graves, or illustrated in the Book of the Dead. We see the deceased accompanied by nubiles in front of Osiris because his life must be evaluated ... how? On the scale. The deceased's heart was placed on a balance plate; it is the heart from which all your choices started, and on the other plate of the scale was placed the feather, a symbol of the goddess Maat, the goddess of wisdom. If the heart was in tune with wisdom, he was rewarded; he entered the kingdom of the blessed.
We find this literary genre in the judgment scene in the famous chapter 7 of Daniel, where the Lord, the Elder, sits on the throne and pronounces his judgment. After the kingdoms of beasts appeared, he pronounced his sentence. From the clouds of heaven comes the Son of Man and gives the kingdom to this Son of Man. After all the bestial realms now, finally, a human realm begins. And the scene is significant because it is very similar to our text. The great sovereign, the Ancient One, sits on the throne; around him are myriads of angels who act as bodyguards; it is a scene similar to that of the eastern courts and is very similar to our text.
We have seen that the Son of Man entered the scene in his glory, which is the enthronement of this judge; some angels are the assistants ... And we ask ourselves, first of all: Who is this Son of Man? We rarely hear of Jesus as the Son of Man, but it is a very important title because the judge of our life will be the Son of Man. We find 77 times mentioned in the Gospels this title, 'Son of Man.' And, practically, it is always in the mouth of Jesus who presents himself as "Son of Man." What does it mean? In Hebrew, 'son of man' simply means 'man.'
In Jesus, ‘Son of Man’ means the man par excellence, who has achieved the maximum of the human. In Jesus, God has shown the full dignity of the deified man. Therefore, either you resemble him, or you are not a man. He is the real man, the successful man. Let us understand how this successful man, Jesus of Nazareth, pronounces his judgment. First of all, we must clarify well what throne he sits on.
We immediately imagine the scene of the oriental courts where the great sovereign appears in the splendor of his power. Let's clarify well from which throne Jesus pronounces his sentence in his glory. When has his glory been fully manifested? What throne was he sitting on when he finally fully showed his entire identity, when he showed his glorious face?
Here's the misunderstanding from which the misinterpretation of this Gospel passage began. It all started from the wrong image of the throne that he was sitting on. It would have been enough to read the verse that follows our text where the Son of man appeared in the splendor of all its glory. Immediately after, in the next verse, he says: “When he finished this discourse, Jesus said to his disciples: ‘You know that in two days Easter will be celebrated, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’”
The Son of Man shows them on which throne he will be raised because it is on that throne that he will show all its glory. The throne is the cross; the glorious face of the Son of Man appears in fullness: the successful man who gave his whole life for love. Judgment will occur in front of this man because he is the true man who embodies the perfection of humans. Jesus of Nazareth is the one who has made his life a gift of love.
In front of this man, at the end of our life, we will all have to introduce ourselves; we will have to present our life given, and on this Man, we will be evaluated if we have succeeded or if our life has been a failure. And in front of this man, there will be a separation: the sheep on the right and the goats on the left. The image is inspired by the practice of the shepherds who separated the sheep from the goats in the evening… For what reason? Because goats do not have wool and need protection, sheep could stay out in the open. Let us note well that sheep and goats stay together throughout the day in the same flock, and at night comes the separation.
It is the same image that we find in the parables of Jesus where the grain grows with the weeds; good fish and bad fish are in the same net; the wise virgins and the foolish virgins… Bear in mind that the same thing happens here. We will clarify it better later, but sheep and goats stay together. In the end, there is a separation.
Let's start asking ourselves: Are sheep just sheep, or are you also goats at some point in your life? Are goats just goats, or are there times in your life when you have been sheep? How will the separation happen if, at certain times, the lamb is present in each person and the goat is present at some other times? If people were divided into two very different groups, it would be easy to separate them, but it is like wheat and weeds, both sheep and goats present in each person. Then, we will see how the trial is carried out later.
And we also ask ourselves: Why did Jesus choose the image of the sheep and the goats? Maybe we think because sheep are good and goats are bad. It’s not! It's just a matter of color. A famous book from the time of Jesus, the first book of Enoch, presents on some pages the image of men as beasts and animals, and there is also the image of men like lambs or goats. It clearly says that sheep are white by color, and the goats are dark, black—symbols of light: lambs, and of darkness: goats. The lamb is the one who lets through the light that makes him like the triumphant Son of Man. The goat represents darkness; there is no light, and the light that makes him resemble the Son of Man does not come out of him.
What aspect of us does reveal the human in us and thereby reveals our resemblance to the Son of Man, the real man? This is what the narrative tells us very clearly. If you have practiced the following six works of love, You will be like the Son of man, the successful man. They are: If you have given food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, if you have welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, assisted the sick, and visited the ones in jail. After the Son of Man pronounced this sentence, we would have expected leaps of joy, songs, and dances from those on the right. Instead, the lambs make a strange objection and ask: When have we done all these things?
It is a literary device. Why is it introduced? To make us listen to the six works of mercy again so that we will have them well engraved in our minds because that's where our life is going. If we practice them, we are people; if we neglect them, we are not. Let's listen:
“Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.’”
Maybe we got a little bored listening to the list of the six works of mercy the second time, but let's get ready: Jesus will let us hear this list two more times because it is the center of the message he wants to instill, wants to teach us how to become authentic people, loving, paying attention to the needs of the brother and sister. Jesus did not invent this list of people to help; it was already known throughout the ancient Middle East.
We find it in the Bible, in the book of Job; we find it, especially in chapter 58 of Isaiah, where the fast that pleases God is presented: feed the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, share bread ... is the same list of works of love.
And we also find it outside of Israel. What is written in chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead is famous. In Egypt, it was a text that was placed next to the deceased from the second millennium to accompany him on the arduous journey to eternity, to the realm of the dead. This book was a set of religious magic formulas that had to be pronounced by the deceased throughout this journey. It is written what he will have to say when he is in front of Osiris: 'I did what makes rejoice the gods: I gave bread to the hungry, I gave water to the thirsty, I clothed those who were naked, I offered a passage to those who did not have a boat; I did what men notice and what pleases the gods.' This is what the deceased had to say in front of Osiris; exactly our list; this list of good works was very extensive.
There is, however, one detail that we only find in the mouth of Jesus. The request to visit the prisoners appears on no other list; Jesus recommends paying attention to these people. The prisoners aroused no mercy; they had lost honor, dignity, and affection; they were abandoned by all because, unlike the others in need, the hungry, the thirsty, and the sick, the prisoners are responsible for their miserable condition; they went looking for misfortune. The list that Jesus made known to all is very significant. We will understand later why he inserted the visit to the prisoners.
Now, we can define the purpose of this literary genre. It is an urgent invitation to take life seriously and wants to teach us how to behave if we want to be a person. For example, I want to read you a famous scene of rabbinical judgment. It is the midrash to Psalm 118, and in this text, we will find an impressive analogy with the narration that we have heard from the mouth of Jesus. He says: ‘In the future world, whoever is judged will be asked what your works have been. If you answer: I have given food to the hungry, you will be told: this is the door of the Lord; enter through it. If he answers that he has given drink to the thirsty, he will be told: this is the Lord's door; enter through it. If he answers that he clothed the naked, he will be told: this is the Lord's door; enter through it. The same will happen with those who raised orphans, those who gave alms, and anyone who has done works of love.' In referring to this dialogue, the rabbis did not intend to reveal the words God would have spoken at the end of the world.
They wanted to instill the values on which to focus life in this world. And now comes the sentence of condemnation for those on the left, for the goats; It is the condemnation of the darkness, of the inhuman, present in us when we do not resemble Jesus of Nazareth when we do not love as he loved. We are in the dark. Let's listen to the sentence:
“Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’”
The rabbis repeated their teachings twice to impress them on the disciples' minds better. Sometimes, they just repeated them with other words. This we call ‘Synonymic parallelism’. Other times, instead, they returned to present their message negatively, which is the case with our Gospel passage today. Jesus has already used this way of communicating the message, for example, when he talks about the house built on the rock that does not collapse, although the rivers arrive. Then he says that if you build a house in the sand ... This second part doesn't add anything new to the message; it just makes it stand out better.
What does Jesus want to highlight by negatively proposing what he has said? He has made us listen for the third time to the list of works of love and what happens to those who do not practice them, those who behave like a goat, and those who do not care about the needy. It does not look like the Lamb, the Son of man; it has nothing to do with who he has made his life a gift of love; it is not a person. This condition is expressed by saying that he is an accursed person.
Cursing, in the bible, means declaring that one is far from life, that one has chosen death. But let us note that it is not the Father who curses. Earlier, Jesus said: "Come blessed of my Father." But when referring to the “accursed,” it is not said that the Father curses. NO. These people who do not practice works of love curse themselves; they have distanced themselves from the successful man. And what is their destiny? The eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Here, we face a threat and good news, the gospel. Let's begin to clarify the terrifying images that Jesus used. He did not invent them because they were those used by all the preachers of the time. Apocalyptic literature is full of these images, and remember that they are images, not information. Let's not confuse the content, which is the message, with the cover surrounding it, which is the images.
Where are these images abundantly found? In a famous book from the time of Jesus, they had already begun to write it two centuries before. It is the first book of Enoch, where it speaks of the wicked who are thrown into hell, into the deep valley where it burns a great perennial oven. This book says that the fire was prepared for Azazel, the leader of the demons and the army of all evil angels. Because they imagined that God had his good angels, but Azazel also had his army.
In the Jewish apocalyptic, the good angels, the army that God has, do not remain idle. In the book of Enoch, it is said that these angels prepare the chains to bind satan. Then there are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, who chain the allied spirits of satan and throw them into the fiery furnace. How was this image of the perennial fire of the valley of Gehenna born?
Let us bear in mind that Jesus speaks precisely of hell with this image, which he took from the book of Enoch and which was a common image among preachers. Jesus never talks about hell; in the Gospels, this term does not appear. The Gospel talks about this cursed valley located south of Jerusalem, at the confluence with the Kidron Valley. You see it behind me; that's the cursed place. You can see the convent of Saint Onofrius, the ‘Tophet,’ the cursed place because human sacrifices were offered there to the god Molech; therefore, it was a cursed place by the prophets. There was also the city's garbage dump; a perennial nauseating fire burned because all the waste arrived there; and there were also the tombs, so an impure place. In those caves, even the lepers took refuge. And precisely there, where the convent of Saint Onofrius is located, Judas hanged himself.
This valley represented where those who make a mistake are thrown. And they are tormented by fire. And there were different opinions about the duration of these torments. In the Persian religion, the wicked were simply consumed by fire. Instead, the punitive aspect was typical of the apocalyptic narratives of the Jews. But how long did this punishment last? Rabbi Iba - the great one, said it lasted 12 months. Instead, Rabbi Johanan Benhur said it only lasted from Easter to Pentecost.
Suppose we do not consider that Jesus is using the known images and not giving information. In that case, we risk interpreting the text of the Gospel in a blasphemous way and attributing to God the justice of the executioner, but this is our justice, not God’s.
Indeed, the images are strong. There is a threat: Be careful because the part of your life in which you have not built love ends up in the garbage dump of hell; there, it burns, and nothing remains of that part. And it would be dramatic to have to verify at the end of your life that perhaps a large part was not lived humanly because you did not love. At this point, the question is: Is Jesus condemning these unhappy people, or is he condemning the wrong choices of life that they did?
Jesus taught us that the heavenly Father hates evil. No one hates sin like He because sin disfigures the faces of his children who do not resemble Him because He is love. The heavenly Father loves and will always unconditionally love the sinner because he is his son, his daughter, who sadly has made unhappy decisions.
Remember that nobody does only evil; nobody is always only a goat. Everyone loves, a lot or a little; they are lambs, and this ‘lamb part’ of their life will also end in hell? If it is the whole person who ends up in hell, there is no doubt that the divine portion that exists in them will also be destroyed. But it would be ridiculous to think like that. Therefore, people do not end up in the fire of hell; what ends there is everything, and only evil is present in each person. What is the fruit of the Spirit of Christ will remain in each person.
Let us now listen to the objection of those on the left and the response that the Son of man gives:
“Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
Those on the left are then surprised and puzzled by the conviction sentence. It seems that they were not expecting it. The question they asked allowed Jesus to be heard for the fourth time, and he repeated the list of jobs to do if one wanted to resemble the Son of Man.
This surprise from the people on the left is an invitation to reflection because it could surprise many believers who are scrupulous in observing devout practices. Still, perhaps they have forgotten that what makes them look like the Master are the works of love. This is why he repeated them four times.
Regarding all the works of mercy known throughout the ancient Middle East, the mouth of Jesus is an absolute novelty. It's this: He says he considers these people in need his brothers and sisters and adds that what is done to them is done to him: " They did it to me," to the Son of God. What does it mean?
Let's try to clear up a misunderstanding that follows specific phrases that we often hear: 'That person is unpleasant to me ... and is unpleasant to everyone, but I love her because in her I see Jesus, in her I love Jesus - I don't love him because he is a wretch, but I love Jesus in him.' Or also, ‘I love him for the love of God.’ If someone loves me for the love of God, I just don't like him ... But if he, instead, loves me because God made him understand that I am lovable, I accept his love. Jesus made us understand that every person is lovable and adorable because he or she is the son or daughter of God.
This is the reason why Jesus has included the incarcerated among the needy; they are different from everyone else in need because others appear to be without guilt, but prisoners, instead, are responsible for their condition because they are the ones who have committed crimes and transgressions. Jesus says: ‘In him is present the dignity of the son of God.’ And when you recognize him as a child of God, you put yourself at his service; you love him. He is a person in need of affection, understanding, and esteem.
Divine sonship cannot be canceled even by the greatest sin. The conclusion: "These will go to perpetual punishment (torture) and the righteous to eternal life." It is the only time in the Gospels that this term 'punishment' appears. If we consult the original Greek text, we find the term “κόλασιν’ – ‘kólasin,’ which does not mean torture or punishment. The first meaning of this word in Greek is 'to prune.' It comes from the verb ‘kolatzo,’ which means to clean. This is what Jesus said when he spoke of the vine, of the branches, a vine that has dry branches, and, later, these branches are thrown into the fire because cleaning is done.
Pruning is painful; let's call it 'purgatory' if we want to use traditional language. It is painful pruning because, in front of the Son of man, we will all go through pruning from the dead branches of our life at the end of life. When we have not served the brother in need, those are moments of our life that have not produced love; they have run dry; the sap of the Spirit of Christ has not passed through these branches, and these branches will be thrown into the fire, and there will be nothing left of them.
It is that part of our life that is canceled, but the pruning cannot for sure touch the identity of the son or daughter of God present in each person. And then the Son of man, as Paul says in writing to the Corinthians: “Will give the kingdom into the hands of the Father," Surely no child of yours will be missing; otherwise, the party will not be able to start.
This is the Gospel; this is the Good News.
I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.
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