Monday of the First Week of Lent
Some time ago, I happened upon a story about the old comedian W. C. Fields. According to this story, a friend came into Fields’ dressing room before a show, and noticed that Fields was reading the Bible. The friend found this odd, as Fields had never spoken to him before about the Bible, or religion, so the friend assumed that Fields was not a religious man. When the friend asked Fields why he was reading the Bible, the response came: “I’m looking for loopholes!”
Looking for loopholes…
Today’s Gospel passage presents us with the famous scene of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25. The criterion of this judgment is simple and direct: “Whatever you did (or did not do) for the least of my sisters and brothers, you did (or did not do) for me”. The Lord is very specific in pointing to those considered “least” among us. After all, we naturally treat well those who are considered “greatest” – if only for self-centered motives. The important among us can do us favors, or can make life hard for us, based on how we treat them. It’s very easy to be nice to those who can scratch our backs. The least important, by the world’s standards, have nothing to offer our egos if we are good to them, and cannot threaten our prestige if we are not. That is why the Lord regards our treatment of the “least” as a kind of litmus test. We are called to love everyone. However, how we treat the “least” among us shows, as few other things do, whether or not we are truly the Lord’s disciples.
Few teachings of the Lord are better-known. Few teachings are more rejected in practice.
Far too many times, people act as though there were loopholes in this teaching. They mark off this or that group of people as somehow subhuman and therefore not ‘covered’ by the Lord’s clear mandate. They seek people whom they can mock or blame or dismiss. They seek people to serve as scapegoats for their own sins and failures. Even we who call ourselves Christian, if we are honest with ourselves, can see some of this tendency within us. We may truly love and serve many people with generosity, and strive to forgive as we have been forgiven. Nevertheless, we may find it harder to serve or welcome or love some kinds of people.
This is true even though we may have found ourselves on the receiving end of such prejudice before. At times, some of us were/are numbered among the “least”, and therefore (to some) were/are seen as not really human, not really capable, or not really as worthy of respect or love as others. If that is so, then that feeling should help us to better sympathize with those who are even more “least” than we are.
Moreover, in the Scriptures we find that the Lord had an uncanny knack for choosing people without much worldly status. The people of Israel had been slaves in Egypt when the Lord freed them through Moses – himself a fugitive due to a murder he committed as a young man. In the Law of Moses, we see the constant refrain that people should be especially attentive to the needs of the orphan, the widow and the foreigner – precisely because they had the least status in society and were the most vulnerable. Jesus, Son of God though he was, chose to empty himself and become a slave for us, dying the most shameful death imaginable at that time. So many followers of Jesus, from the first disciples through St. Teresa of Calcutta, did their best to live out Jesus’ example and teaching though their own humble ministry to the “least” among them.
There is at least one more benefit to paying attention to those who are “least” among us. Those who are “least” remind everyone of who we all really are before God. Those who seem to be important in the eyes of society got that way because they were especially good at whatever rules for success their society had. However, take away the status and the wealth, and the important are no different from the least. We are all – whatever our social status may be – poor, weak, vulnerable beings before God. Our wealth cannot save us. Our weapons cannot save us. Our science cannot save us. All of us, no matter who we may be in society, depend on the grace and love of the Lord for forgiveness, healing and salvation. We are all in great need of the Lord’s mercy. Not only that, but we have been given to one another as means of the Lord’s mercy for one another. To despise any group of people, then, is to despise a gift of God.
Instead of putting so much energy into finding loopholes so that we can find someone we can blame and hate, wouldn’t it be better to be honest with ourselves? Wouldn’t it be better to acknowledge our own stumbling and confess them before our merciful Lord? Wouldn’t it be better to realize that the “least” have been given to us so that we might see our own weakness in them, and that we need one another in order to hear the Lord’s Word more clearly and respond to it more faithfully? Then, to our amazement, we may find that we have the desire and the ability to truly love all people, no matter who they are, for we know how merciful the Lord has been to us, and we want to be a sign of that mercy for someone else.
All of this is summed up in the words of the song “Day By Day” from the musical Godspell. Fr. Paul Pare, a priest of this diocese, was well-known for singing this song during Mass. The words are actually taken from a prayer by Richard of St. Victor, a monk and author of the twelfth century. These are the words: “Day by day, day by day, oh dear Lord, three things I pray: to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, follow Thee more nearly, day by day”.
Not a bad Lenten mantra, that.