NOTES for Mat 25:31-46
Today's reading concludes the cycle of Jesus' conversations about the coming of the Kingdom and about His future return, and it concludes with a conversation about Judgment. It is no surprise that those entering the Kingdom pass through Judgment; what is surprising is something else: the criteria presented to those who enter.
The traditional idea of Judgment assumed that righteousness is determined by whether a person followed the commandments and prescriptions of the Law. Here, however, at the Judgment Jesus asks only one question: did you feed Me, give Me drink, stand near Me in a difficult moment (vv. 34-46)? And in answer to the astonished questions of those entering, He explains: if you did this, or did not do this, for one of My least brothers, count it as having done it, or not done it, for Me (vv. 40, 45).
Commentators traditionally cite this conversation as a basis for works of mercy, understanding "least brothers" to mean all who need help or find themselves in hardship. But Jesus is speaking here specifically about His "least brothers," more precisely, about "these least brothers." In the scene of Judgment as Jesus describes it, there is no one except the King Himself and those who have come to Judgment. In that case, by "these least brothers" Jesus evidently could have meant only the apostles who were listening to Him, of whom He, presenting the King at the Judgment, speaks, evidently, in the third person, thereby drawing His listeners into His story.
But then the point is not the poor or those in need of help, but the community of the faithful who carry the Kingdom into the world, that is, the Church in the form in which Jesus Himself conceived and created it. At first glance such a turn in the story may seem unusual, but in other situations too Jesus had to redirect the listeners' attention from the poor to Himself. Here He directs the listeners' attention to His followers, who will have to carry the Kingdom into the world.
And this is no surprise, because He considers precisely this task the most important. The Church is not needed to satisfy anyone's religious needs, not to promote morality, and not even to help those in need. It is needed in order to carry the Kingdom into the world, and all its other activity can and must be only a consequence, a kind of byproduct, arising from the fulfillment of this main task. That is why the attitude toward those who fulfill it becomes the main criterion determining the possibility, or impossibility, for the one entering to cross the threshold of the Kingdom: the attitude toward them was the expression of his attitude toward the Kingdom at the time when it was only entering the world and had not yet been revealed in all its fullness. It is easy and pleasant to support a triumphant victor; supporting the one who still has to win is far from always pleasant, and sometimes such support involves mortal risk. But the Kingdom is indivisible, and now, while it is only entering the world and therefore sometimes remains hidden, it remains the same as it will be when it is revealed in all its fullness. And the one who turns away now from the Kingdom and from those who live by it will hardly be able at the Judgment to convince the King that his joy over the triumph of the Kingdom is sincere.