| Whose criteria for seeing
the Lord?
Is not the criterion of judgment clearly spelt out as either just as you did it to one of the least of these or just as you did not do it to one of the least of these? Yet it is precisely here, any assumption of knowing the final criterion of judgment is at an impasse that threatens to open into a gaping abyss. We can easily assume we know of what the judgment scene speaks, but by whose criteria? By what measure and degree will it be applied and fulfilled? What we might consider is an adequate response to the least may be woefully inadequate. It is no exaggeration to suggest that we have more personal and social resources underpinning our lives than most wealthy people at any time in history. A short inventory of our resources and privileges mock any ready alignment with the righteous of this scene. v We live in a home, either with family or friends, with enough space for bedrooms, a lounge and perhaps a study; if by ourselves, nevertheless with adequate space. We can furnish our home with things that heat, cool, wash, dry, inform and entertain. If we have a mortgage or own our home, we most likely have household insurance in case it burns down or valuable items are plundered. We have a variety of clothing for various occasions from work to leisure activities. We assume that having three meals a day with snacks in between is normal. Electricity is in reliable supply without rationing. Water does not have to be fetched from a communal tap or well. We can pay council rates for services that ensure we are not overwhelmed by garbage, odour, sewerage and disease. The same rates also provide public libraries and parks. We most likely have a car and if we live with a family or friends, perhaps two or three cars are shared, depending on the age and number of people living at home. We certainly have third party car insurance, if not each vehicle insured at market value. We can pay taxes that are used to service roads, which provide easy access to work, home and leisure activities, while in many parts of the world a sealed road is a luxury. We commute daily without fear of political hijack or piracy. If we have children, they had or currently have access to education, perhaps even private education. With subsidised tertiary fees and loan schemes, university education is accessible. If we are fortunate to be employed, we are insulated against the fickle vicissitudes of life by several layers of security in the form of paid sick-leave, rejuvenating holiday-leave, accident insurance and superannuation. If we are not employed, we can apply for benefits that are not available to most people in the world today. To pass our time, we can indulge in any number of relatively affordable, even elite forms of entertainment. We can sustain life-time hobbies, accumulating an interest-collection that is superfluous to livelihood. We can afford a range of published and electronic information, and with a computer, have access to the world-wide-web. If with all our activities we are too busy to prepare meals, we can always buy take-away food or go to a café. We can take a vacation in natural environments. Whether for work or adventure, we may have travelled overseas at some time. We are fortunate to have access to public medical facilities and benefits; we have affordable dental, hearing and eye-care schemes to meet the inevitable entropy of the body. These are even subsidised through various government concessions for those on low incomes. Even if there is always scope for improvement, we have public protection of personal rights and liberties that is unequalled in most parts of the world. The list can be extended, but these few things give some idea of the vast array of resources and privileges we have at our fingertips. v With all our resources and privileges, what would it mean to respond to the least of these in Matthew’s judgment scene? We might assume we know of what the dramatic scene speaks but by what measure will its criterion of judgment be applied? Can we assume we know the degree to which we are called to respond? How do we know we are not among the goats—the unrighteous? The following thought may help us contemplate this: my existence is the beginning of a coup d’état affecting the whole earth. For Pascal, my existence is already a source of deprivation and suffering for someone else in the world. Similarly too, Dostoyevsky’s refrain throughout The Brothers Karamazov that, we are all guilty, but I am more guilty than all—frequently quoted by Levinas, the great advocate for our responsibility to others. Can we ignore the significance of either thought? In Matthew’s surreal image of final judgment, the focus moves from a global to a personal scene. Nations are reduced to a shepherd’s enclosure and drafting sheep from goats. National destinies are determined by individual responsibility. No collective psyche can make decisions representing everyone—not even a democracy, for a democracy can only provide slightly better than even conditions under which compromise decisions are then negotiated, if they are not invariably thwarted. Yet rhetoric representing ideals of a collective psyche can obscure or provide an alibi for the absence of personal and tangible responsibility. The judgment scene is ultimately an indictment on all human activity: no one seeks the good to such a degree that they have done justice to all its demands—personally, much less collectively. Who would assert the right to be drafted with the sheep? For this reason, Paul states that no one is just before the law of justice—all are consigned to sin or disobedience, that all may be recipients of grace. This alone establishes the righteousness of God (Romans). v Can Matthew’s judgment scene be used for any political leverage on the issue of response to neighbour? The scene is often wielded politically with some arrogance, yet as theological, the context surpasses the political. It speaks of judgment. None of its participants recognise that they had encountered the Lord. There is no place for self-commendation. The righteous had done something tangible for a particular neighbour in specific need. There is no ideological use of response to human need as a form of leverage over others—with echoes of the Pharisee who says, I thank you God that I am not like … Do we have the requisite qualifications to respond to the many neighbours in need of whom it is easy to do much talking? Whatever we might want to make of this scene through vociferous rhetoric vis-à-vis our neighbours of the world, how do we measure with those who are commended, given our extraordinarily privileged circumstances? We are if anything the goats of this judgment drama! We exist in a glaring deficit that can only be met with specific responses out of the reality of grace and nowhere else—certainly not in any presumed higher moral ground. The judgment scene is addressed to the community of faith with imperatives to tangible not ideological responses to human need. These imperatives emerge from and require the resources of transforming grace in Christ. Such grace gives us a different perspective of ourselves in the world along with the will to serve Christ tangibly in specific neighbours for whom we can do no other. References:
Pascal Pensées; Dostoyevsky The Brothers Karamazov; Levinas Totality
and Infinity; Otherwise than Being; Entre Nous. |
