Today we hear the Parable of the Final Judgement (Matthew
25: 31-46). It begins:
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘When the Son of Man comes…’
Jesus is talking about the end of chronological time. He is
talking about the moment that heralds in eternity. Eternity is qualitatively
different from chronological time. At the end of time there is no chance for us
to be anything other than what we are.
The trouble with talking about this parable is the modern
dislike for the idea that God judges us at all. In the mind of modern man it
seems to imply that God has a list of rules and if we disobey these rules we
will be punished. Of course this image of God is a faulty one.
So what is divine judgement like? What our Lord says is that
it is like a shepherd separating sheep from goats. What are we to make of that
though? I think the key to understanding what our Lord is saying is actually
quite simple. Sheep are what they are! Goats are what they are!
This is not predestination, rather, once we have reached the
end of time nothing can change in us. Then we are who we are. Chronological
time is God’s gift to us. Time is God’s gift for us to change. Time is the
divine gift for us to make the eternal choice.
Finally what our Lord reminds us is that what we choose is
revealed by our actions. Remember St James exhorts us to be doers of the Word
and not hearers only.
So in this time of Lent think about time – remember you are
using God’s gift of time, the time in which we become who we are through our
choices, through what we do. The choices we make, and most of all the choice
whether to use the grace given to us or not, will determine who we are at the
end. God forgives and God can heal the wounds of sin, but we must choose whether
to cooperate with His grace or not. At
the end of time we get what we chose – that is Judgement!
Fr Ian
