Sermon Notes by Roy Bradbrook and Father Constantine Lazarakis

Homily Judgement Sunday – February 23^rd 2014

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

If someone asks you how would you describe yourself, would you say I’m a mother, a teacher, a retiree, a yiayia? I would say I’m a Priest. Yes, we all are different in so many ways. but all of us have words with which we identify ourselves.  The names and labels we apply to ourselves define our identity.  What percentage of your identity would you consider your status as a parent, as business person, as a sports fan, as a sibling or a friend?   Certainly most of us gathered here together today have one very important name that we all share. We share in our identity as Christians.

The title of ‘Christian’ was originally given to us by those who persecuted the early followers and believers of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  It was the Romans, who were attempting to eradicate Christianity from their empire who first called the followers of the Christ by this name.

We all proudly wear the Cross of Christ, we self proclaim it as the essence of who we are and what we believe in. Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God who came to suffer and die for us so that we who believe in Him shall have His gift of Eternal Life in Paradise.

Break down the word ‘Christian’ and its easy to see that the root word is Christ.

Firstly, let us ask ourselves a question. How important and essential is Jesus Christ to you? If we call ourselves Christians and truly mean it, then the answer has to be that He is the most important, the most essential and truly the Alpha and Omega of our existence.  You identify as a Christian, right?  So just how important is Christ to you in your day to day?  That is the essential question as we embark, in just one week, on our Lenten Journey.

As Great Lent begins next week, we are all called to increase our focus on our spiritual lives.  This is the perfect time to ask ourselves that question. Hopefully, as you examine your hearts, you will have no doubt of how essential Jesus is to you. That you know for sure that He is our bridge between Heaven and Earth and is the total key to our salvation.

Too often our eyes are closed or are lifted to heaven in our spiritual life and I do not see clearly all that is going on around me.  As important as it is lift our eyes to heaven, the horizontal plane is equally important to our salvation.  Our relationship to our fellow human being is just as important as our relationship to God.

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus brings us sharply to task about this. He tells of the Day of Judgement and how some will be accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven and some rejected, and He lays out the criteria by which we shall all be judged. He talks about how we treat people, not the people necessarily whom we know and love but how we treat strangers, the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the disadvantaged, even how we treat our enemies, those who would seek to hurt us.

The Lord himself talks of whether or not He was personally treated well by those placed at his right hand. He says, “I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was naked and you clothed me.”  and then to those on the left, he says, “I was hungry, and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me drink…” and so on and so forth.

When asked, in apparent puzzlement, ‘When did we see you hungry, needing clothes or medical help?’  Christ makes the biting comment that we should all read and reread and take to heart, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me’ and perhaps, even more biting. ‘If you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me!’

Maybe, they and we wonder, just who are,’The least of these’ that are spoken about?

Let’s look back a bit. Yes, we all must spend time on our relationships with God, with Jesus and with the Holy Spirit but we also must take His admonishments to heart and seek out those whom Jesus mentions. Those who need food, clothing, help of all kinds. Do good deeds for someone you don’t even know. Do them for people you may not like and who you may not feel that you wish to associate with. Listen to those words, “the least of my brethren.”   Jesus is telling us to alleviate the suffering of even those whom we would never associate with him.  In every human being, even the worst among us, deep inside is the image of God.  We were, all of us, created in His image, and we are, all of us, His children.  So we have an obligation to on another, all of us, even those we do not like, even those who hurt us.  We are called to love an care for the criminal, the atheist, the gossip, the liar.  Christ warns us, ’Do it for the least of these, and you are doing it for me!”

Victor Hugo wrote in his epic, ‘Les Miserables’, a memorable sentence that ended up in the musical version. ‘ To love another person is to see the Face of God’.  When we love our fellow human being, we are loving God.  When we serve our fellow human being, we are serving.  Conversely, if say that we love God, but fail to love one another, we are fooling ourselves.

We have a responsibility to enhance, to support and to uphold this dignity If we do that, we too will see the Face of God and we too can then hope for a favorable report and verdict when in due course, we as all will do, come before that awesome judgement seat of God.

Amen

The Gospel of Matthew 25:31-46

The Lord said, “When the Son of man comes in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”