We have come to the end of the Church’s Year. Next Sunday is Advent Sunday, when the colour of our hangings in our churches will be sombre, purple or violet, to catch the mood of the season, one of thoughtfulness and reflection. It is right, then, that the Year should go out with a bang, and it does! This Sunday is the Festival of Christ the King. The hangings in our churches are joyful and celebratory, gold or ivory, or even gold and ivory, worthy of a King. They are there to lift the heart, and, God knows, we need our hearts lifting this year!
Today’s Gospel is the last great parable in Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 25, verses 31-46). It teaches us about the end of time, when the Son of Man, that is, Our Lord himself, ‘comes in all his glory, and all his angels with him.’ He is going to separate the sheep from the goats, the good from the bad, the just from the wicked, the saints from the less saintly. In my last church we had a version of this scene on our chancel arch. It dated from the Middle Ages and was rather faded. However, it was there and did its job - to remind us of the end of time and the Last Judgement, as it had done since the thirteenth century. We were meant to be frightened into being good! I don’t think this parable is there to do that. Yes, there is a warning, but there is also an encouragement. The sheep, among whom of course we count ourselves, have been doing their Christian duty all along. They are a little surprised when Our Lord commends them for feeding him, giving him cool, refreshing water to drink, clothing him, visiting him in prison or when he was sick. But he was there all along. St Francis had a similar experience in his own life. He loved God and followed him as best he could, but one thing bothered him - he dreaded lepers, who were common in Umbria, and in fact there was a leper colony outside Assisi. One day the very thing he dreaded happened. He saw coming towards him a leper and there was no way of avoiding him. Against his will Francis felt himself compelled to embrace the leper. When Francis had gone a few steps, he turned round and the leper had vanished. It had been Jesus in the form of the leper. Francis’s fear of lepers had gone, and he went and worked for some time in the colony. ‘When I was sick, you visited me… When did we see you sick and visited you?.. When you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.’ This parable is also a challenge to us, but it is one we willingly take up. Even though we cannot see Our Lord, we know he is present in the hungry and thirsty, the sick, those in prison, strangers and refugees, and we act accordingly. Sometimes, God allows us to see the figure of Christ in those we are helping, and that gives us new energy and courage to go on. Our Jesus is the Lord of all time and space, the Ruler of the Universe, ‘Pantocrator’. He is the just judge who loves the whole of creation and brings peace, justice and truth. That is what we are celebrating this Sunday.
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AuthorCanon John Green Archives
May 2021
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