Homily

This Sunday’s Gospel reveals Jesus at the end of history, at the moment of universal judgement. The scene is grandiose. On a regal throne, Jesus is accompanied by “all his angels.” Before him “all the nations” are convened: Christians and non-Christians, believers and non-believers, citizens of one or another nation, and those who lived before and after Christ. All peoples will be there. And there will be no distinction among them, save one, which only the Son of Man in his vestments of universal judgement will recognize. It is a distinction that no one on earth noticed as it was considered very small. The judge, however, does not invent this distinction; he sees it and makes it known to all, but above all to each individual person.
The Gospel writes that Jesus will divide one from another, as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. And he will place one group on his right and the other on his left. This division is not made between the peoples but within them, just as it does not divide believers from non-believers. Within each group, there will be divisions passing through individual people in such a way that one part of us will be on the left of Jesus and another part on his right. The criterion for the division is not based on differences in ideology, culture, or even religion, but on each person’s relationship with the poor. And of each of us will be saved according to the times in our life when we gave something to eat to the hungry, something to drink to those who were thirsty, clothed those who were naked and visited the imprisoned. The rest which stays on the left side will be burnt and destroyed.
Jesus, the judge, comes forward and says, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink…” The dialogue between the judge and the two groups highlights this bewildering aspect: the universal judge of the end times whom everyone, good or bad, believer or non-believer, recognizes as the King and Lord, had the face of that bothersome homeless person, of that sclerotic elderly person, of that disfigured child, of the many foreigners sent back (perhaps to die) because here we cannot give them sufficient sustenance. Anyone could continue listing them. Walking around the streets of our own city would be enough to encounter them. The monotonous repetition in a few verses of the six situations of poverty, indicate the frequency with which these situations repeat themselves. This is to say that the decisive encounter between God and us does not happen within the framework of heroic and extraordinary acts, but in the daily and simple encounters we have with the weak and the poor. The criterion of salvation, according to the Gospel that we heard today, is the practice of love and attention toward the poor. It does not matter whether you know or not that in them Jesus himself is present.
Two final brief reflections: first, we need to realize that Jesus’ identity with the poor is an objective fact. The poor are a sacrament of Christ, not because they are good and honest, but uniquely because they are poor. The recurring pretence that the poor should be honest, that they should not “take advantage,” so that we may help them, is far from the sensibility of the Gospel. It is only an excellent excuse for our avarice. The second reflection regards the “secular” aspect of this Gospel passage. It affirms that those who are not believers are put on the “right” side of the King. They explicitly say that they did not recognize Christ in the poor they helped. But this does not matter; what matters is the compassion, help and heart that are moved by the Lord’s feelings, whether one knows it or not. It is clear that helping the poor decides our salvation--the salvation of individuals as well as the salvation of society.