Becoming Least

Today's gospel reading with its famous Jesus quote, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me," is loved by many. But I'm not entirely sure what to do with this passage, sometimes called "The Judgment of of the Nations," other times "The Judgment of the Gentiles."  And my dilemma is related to those different titles.

When "the nations" are gathered before the Son of Man and separated "as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats," just who is it that is gathered?  For much of my life, I assumed it was everyone who was so gathered, but I'm now reasonably certain that is not the case.  In the original Greek of the gospel it is the ethnos who are gathered.  This word can mean "nations" but it more regularly is used to refer to the "Gentiles."

Matthew's gospel is a very Jewish gospel, and in Jewish thought, ethnos, Gentiles, nations, provides the ultimate us-them demarcation. Matthew seems here to use it just that way. The Gentiles, the goyim, the others, are gathered for judgment.  And in a surprising turn, they are judged worthy because they were kind to members of Jesus' family (presumably meaning his followers) who were in need.

When I think about the gospel passage from this point of view, it resists simple, moralistic understandings, but it is rich with interpretive possibility. If Jesus judges outsiders, not on their receptiveness to the Christian message but on their kindness to Christians in need, what does that say about Jesus' priorities?  And if this passage is about how Jesus judges outsiders, what does that say about how the Church should relate to outsiders?

Matthew's gospel ends with Jesus commanding his disciples (and the Church) to "make disciples of all ethnos," and so the Church is clearly charged to call people to lives of following Jesus. Yet Jesus says here that these ethnos won't necessarily be judged on how they respond to this disciple making enterprise.  In fact, putting ourselves at the mercy of the ethnos, thus giving them a chance to show us kindness, would seem to offer salvation every bit as much as the stereotypical evangelistic appeal.

As part of a denomination that is not terribly good at evangelism, and sometimes seems to dabble in it only out of some survival instinct, I wonder what it would look like for us to reach out to them in an entirely different way.   What would it mean for us to put ourselves at the mercy of them, to become the "least of these" who are dependent on others' kindness?

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