Sabbatarians,

Here's a Crossings matrix for the Gospel on Christ the King Sunday (23 Nov.). The revised common lectionary text is Matthew 25:31-46.

Peace & Joy! Ed Schroeder

1. During most of the decade that Bob Bertram commuted to teach at the Lutheran seminary in Chicago (1983-93), he organized a Christ the King Crossings Practicum there for the last weekend of the church year. Theological Groundings for those gatherings were always the lectionary texts for the Sunday. Bob did a diagnosis/prognosis on Matthew 25 the first time it came around, and we have been reworking that first draft ever since. What follows is my revision yet one more time.

2. The worst thing to do when studying this text is to forget all of Matthew's theology in his first 24 chapters. The difference between the "righteous" and the "cursed" in today's text is not that one did good works, the other didn't. The theological either/or throughout all of Matthew is Davidic Messiah vs. Mosaic law as our linkage to God as Father. Thus the faith alternatives are a) trusting Jesus Messiah or b) trusting something else (in Matthew most often it is trusting my Torah-commitment or some similar law-measured achievement that I can claim).

3. The contrast in the text is not between Christians and non-Christians. Both sheep and goats are "insiders." Both call the judge "Lord." Together they are those called from "the nations," called when the Great Commission went to "all nations." The judgment going on here is "judgment beginning within the house of God." So the "righteous" are not pious pagans, who never knew Jesus yet did good deeds. The "righteous" according to Matthew's gospel are those who follow Jesus. Theirs is a righteousness that "surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law," Jesus' own criterion in Matthew (5:20) for "entering the kingdom of heaven."

4. Neither sheep nor goats had "seen" the Judge in their needy neighbors. So there must be two very different ways "not to see him." One way ignores him, the other trusts him; one overlooks the needy neighbor, the other concentrates on the neighbor; one way is cursed, the other is blessed and righteous.

5. All three of these value words--cursed, blessed, righteous--are relational terms. Cursed is to be in the wrong place (wrong relation to God, self, and others). Righteous and blessed are terms for the exact opposite: being in the right place for all three primal relationships. Throughout Matthew faith in Jesus Messiah is the grounds for being blessed and righteous. That grounding is central here too.

Diagnosis: Faithless "Not Seeing"

D-2 Not only un-caring, these disciples of Jesus are un-believing. Not seeing Jesus in these needy, their vision of Jesus himself is askew. Their problem is more than bad ethics. It is bad faith. Jesus, as the Son of Man, is finally the one who is the judge of their lives. Their faithless disconnection to him ("in fact" even though they are not "in truth" about it) is already bad news about them and bodes even worse news for their long range futures. We'll later see a blessed way "not to see the Judge" in the needy--the way of faith. But there is a cursed way--the way of unfaith.

D-3 In the Final Exam those who thought themselves insiders, but "in truth" were in the wrong place with Jesus Messiah, flunk the test. Their "wrong place" becomes permanent. Jesus Messiah is finally only Jesus Judge. Access to him as Messiah is passe.

New Prognosis: "Not Seeing" in Faith

P-2 (Good News for D-2)
Sinners in truth, who now own this new report card, entrust themselves to Jesus Messiah and his mercy-full apocalypse. Such faith amounts to "not seeing" Jesus (nor God either) as our Judge. Disciples of Jesus trust that neither he nor his Father sit in judgment of us any longer--ever! This not-seeing of faith is no blind disregarding God's judgment, such as the folks in the wrong place do. Faith's "not seeing" trusts the Mercy-Messiah's verdict as God's own verdict trumping the judgment verdict. They trust Jesus' verdict as God's own last word about them, and they stake their lives on it.

P-1 (Good News for D-1)
With eyesight healed the blessed are not on the lookout for themselves. Instead their eyes are open to the "least of these members of Jesus' family (NRSV)." They don't check whether Jesus really is in this one or that one. Rather they see all the needy as siblings of Jesus, as, of course, they are. Freedom from concern about THE judge's verdict is freedom indeed. With it comes freedom from any distracting concern for their own welfare. That leaves them 100% free for giving their complete and undivided attention, their very lives, to those in need. They look like "little Christs."