In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We really do love to keep score.

I have been missing most of the Winter Olympics over in Milan, more than usual. These games have a way of firing up watchers as they become engaged, especially seeing our own countries compete and contend. One that has had a lot of attention lately is curling, sliding heavy stones across ice in order to be the one with the most stones closest to center target. Most dramatic of course is not when a stone lands in center target, but when one competitor successfully knocks the stones of another competitor out of the target entirely, preferably at the very last minute.

Of course, these are places where it is right to keep an agreed-upon score, with international competition and high stakes to match, and it is really good sport. But perhaps we shouldn't be keeping score everywhere in our lives.

In the Gospel of the Last Judgment, there’s a concern for who is keeping score in the wrong places, and in the wrong ways.

In Christ’s parable, He comes for the Final Judgment and He divides the righteous to his right and the unrighteous to His left. He says to those on His right, 'go onto your inheritance, for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was sick or in prison and you visited Me; I was naked and you clothed Me.' They are taken aback and said 'When did we see You hungry and give You food? When did we see You thirsty and give You a drink? When do we do any of these things?' And He said 'I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to Me.' They are taken aback. They have not been keeping score at all. This is a big shock to them that any of this factored in. Then to others, He says 'I was hungry, you did not give Me food; I was thirsty; You did not give Me drink,' and so on. Then they were also taken aback because they thought they knew the score. They thought they had it figured. 'When did we see You hungry and not feed You? When did we see You thirsty and not give You a drink? When did we not do any of these things?' He said 'You did not do it to the least of these My brethren; you did not do it to Me.'

This moment Christ is describing what is called Krisis in the scriptures, the word that is used for a moment of judgment. You and I know the word Krisis as Crisis in everyday life. And in this Krisis, in Christ’s Parable of the Final Judgment, the biggest revelation is not the final consequences of their actions, which shouldn’t be to anyone’s surprise, but the truth behind the behavior that led them there.

The righteous are astonished to hear that they have fed Christ, clothed Him, visited Him, welcomed Him, and cared for Him.

The unrighteous are equally astonished to hear that they have neglected Christ, ignored Him, passed Him by, and failed Him.

The righteous sought no recognition, whereas the unrighteous didn’t know what to do without it.

The righteous did not keep score. They loved because love had become natural to them.

Whereas unrighteous did not consider themselves cruel. They simply learned how to look away.

Both groups ask the same question: “Lord, when did we see You?”

This tells us something essential about the nature of judgment. The Last Judgment is not a test of religious trivia. It is not an exam on Bible verses.

It is about who we become, and in the end, it will be impossible to conceal our true nature from our Lord. This is either a great comfort for us, God knowing who we’ve become, or a dreadful reality we can’t escape from quickly enough. 

And there is something each of us can do right now; we can begin to heed the parable. We can give our Lord’s teaching a place to take root inside of us, doing everyday things like feeding others and practicing real concern for others, doing the small, virtuous things and not giving into the temptation to thinking more of them than that, letting God be the judge of where that leads. Perhaps even to the point of forgetting we’ve done it.

We can stop keeping score in our relationship with God and with others. We can condemn the satisfaction that wells up inside of us when one of us falls short, but mourn it instead. The success and salvation of my brother and my sister is my success as well and encourages my own salvation.

May God forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, quickly and freely.

May God help us take to heart these precious parables, which reveal to us what love looks like, that we may begin to demonstrate and become the same.

And may God help us as we approach our own final judgment, knowing that in the end, we are all in need of God’s mercy and help.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

- Rev. Fr. William Bennett, Pastor