NOTES for Mat 25:31-46

The criteria of Judgment described in this parable still surprise and trouble believers and nonbelievers today. It says nothing about faith in the usual sense of the word. Nothing about denominations, parties, or ideology. Nothing about “sins”—again, in the usual sense. Nothing about religious acts, rites, prayer, or the Church. It is not even about Christ as we imagine Him: both the saved and the condemned are sincerely astonished, certain that they have never encountered Him. It is only about those who always hinder us from “believing,” “praying,” and “being saved”—the people around us. And about us as human beings. It is about humanity as revealed in relationships between people. Here, at the Last Judgment, these relationships suddenly grow to unimaginable, truly “religious” proportions: a person’s humanity proves to be the measure of his kinship with God through the Man Jesus Christ.