Matthew 25: 41-46 is crystal clear.
You cite this, but, again, the question comes down to this: “what are you, personally, doing about this situation?”
Matt 25:32 says: “Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,”
The word used for “nations” is the Greek word,
ἔθνος, “peoples” – it is not talking about a political structure, the State.
So He is separating the peoples in the world into the sheep and the goats.
The
Navarre Bible commentary made the following observation (which I think is a good one):
This parable clearly shows that Christianity cannot be reduced to a kind of agency for “doing good”. Service of our neighbor acquires supernatural value when it is done out of love for Christ, when we see Christ in the person in need…Any interpretation of Jesus’ teaching on the Last Judgment would be wide of the mark if it gave a materialistic meaning or confused mere philanthropy with genuine Christian charity.
Among the citations Navarre provided as references were the following:
St John of the Cross said,
Our Lord will ask us to account not only for the evil we have done but also for the good we have omitted. We can see that sins of omission are a very serious matter and that the basis of love of neighbour is Christ’s presence in the least of our brothers and sisters.
The Second Vatican Council stated:
- Coming down to practical and particularly urgent consequences, this council lays stress on reverence for man; everyone must consider his every neighbor without exception as another self, taking into account first of all His life and the means necessary to living it with dignity,(8) so as not to imitate the rich man who had no concern for the poor man Lazarus.(9)
In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbor of every person without exception and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon, a refugee, a child born of an unlawful union and wrongly suffering for a sin he did not commit, or a hungry person who disturbs our conscience by recalling the voice of the Lord, “As long as you did it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me” (Matt. 25:40).
Or as Pope Francis stated at the beginning of his Pontificate:
Let us never forget that authentic power is service, and that the Pope too, when exercising power, must enter ever more fully into that service which has its radiant culmination on the Cross. He must be inspired by the lowly, concrete and faithful service which marked Saint Joseph and, like him, he must open his arms to protect all of God’s people and embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important, those whom Matthew lists in the final judgment on love: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison (cf. Mt 25,31-46). Only those who serve with love are able to protect!
When you stand before The Lord on that fearful day, do you think He will be satisfied when you say, “I made sure the rich paid their fair share” or “I voted for Democratic politicians who implemented strong social justice programs to make sure the poor were cared for” will suit Him well?
Hardly.
It comes down to this:
- What did YOU do to make that stranger welcome?
- What did YOU do to give the hungry food?
- What did YOU do to] give the thirsty drink?
- What did YOU do to visit the sick?
- What did YOU do to come to the prisoner?
So once
YOU have gone and taken some of them into your home, once
YOU have used
YOUR personal time, talent, and treasure to feed and clothe them, once
YOU have visited the sick among them and bathed those infected with tuberculosis, scabies, and other infectious diseases, and once
YOU have visited those of them who are incarcerated because they are members of MS-13 or 18th Street, then come back and talk to me.
(And, oh, by the way, if you do take some kids in, be sure to not accept the $6,000 a month
being offered to do so…because it ain’t charity if you’re getting paid. Just like it ain’t charity if your “charities” gets paid
$997,456,398 to provide services over the past couple of years. Or if your “
relief services” gets paid $1,609,113,260 to do its thing over the past couple of years.)
Because otherwise, you’re just trying to be generous with somebody else’s money.
