We’re right in the middle of exam season just now and I feel sorry for those students in Year 12 and University. I clearly remember my going through this myself and I know it’s a stressful time. You wonder what areas of the subject will be in the exam and what the questions will be like. You wonder what it is the examiners will be looking for. It can help to look at past exam papers to see what has been asked in previous years and to have a few attempts at answering questions under exam conditions before the big day. I think are a lot of Christians who think Christianity is a subject and wonder if they will pass it too? The problem is that we won’t get a preliminary exam, we only get the final exam with Jesus as the examiner. If only we knew what He was looking for!
Our reading today is the only example in the New Testament of what happens when we are judged. The scene is in Matthew where Jesus returns in glory. Part of His role is to judge all people which He does by separating them into two groups like a shepherd separating out a flock of sheep and goats. Those sorted are surprised to find themselves in their respective groups. Those who are saved have been saved because when the king was hungry they fed Him. When He was thirsty they gave Him a drink. They clothed the king when He was naked and tended Him when He was sick. They even visited the king when He was in prison. They have no memory of ever meeting the king and are told that when they did all those things for the least in society, they were actually doing them for the king. Conversely those who did not feed or water the least, who did not clothe them or care for them or visit them when they were in prison were judged unworthy.
Clearly it is how we behave towards each other that forms the criteria for our judgment. It’s not about our ability to remember passages of the bible nor whether we can recite the Ten Commandments or the Nicene Creed. It’s not what version of the Bible we own or what we say we believe that matters. What matters is whether we have loved God and loved our neighbour and lived this out in our lives. It’s not some massive sin that sees us condemned but our repeated failure to be transformed people who love one another. Perhaps it’s not that time you forgot to say “Bless you” after someone sneezed but it’s those times that you chose not to love that will cause the problems? Maybe it’s more important to treat everyone we meet with love, grace, compassion and forgiveness than being able to point to what others are doing as constituting a sin? Maybe we could leave judging to the King as that is His function and maybe we could just show love, for that is our function.