Late Night Thoughts on Preaching on Matthew 25:37

by James E. Crouch

James E. Crouch is a retired Disciples minister and a former New Testament professor living in southwest Virginia. He currently is translating the multi-volume Matthew commentary by Ulrich Luz for the Hermeneia commentary series.

You’ve probably heard the excuse as often as I have. Someone — for the sake of this example let’s assume it is a man — is guilty of an especially egregious act. He has done something thoughtless, damaging to others, even abusive. When challenged about his behavior he first claims it wasn’t that bad. Then he blames it on someone else. Finally, he resorts to the plaintive appeal: “But I’m a good person!”

A good person? Do you mean to say being a good person justifies doing a bad thing? Or being a good person means what you do can’t be that bad? Are you saying there is a difference between what you are and what you do?

Years ago, I would have bought into that kind of thinking. In a rather pseudo-sophisticated way I was critical of people who called themselves “behaviorists.” I knew just enough about the early leaders of the psychological approach called behaviorism, John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner, to drop their names in a conversation. I had read Skinner’s novel Walden Two and pronounced it a “not very good story.” I scoffed at therapeutic techniques that tried to bring about desired changes by giving and withholding candy. I insisted that, of course, who we are, our essential inner life, cannot be reduced to what we do. I even let myself be taken in by people who said, “But I am a good person.”

Today I’m no longer as dismissive of behaviorists as I once was. I’ve changed for a couple of reasons. I’ve grown up a bit. I’m at a more tolerant stage of life. But there is also another reason. I’m more open to the behaviorist perspective because lately I’ve been reading the Gospel of Matthew. And Matthew, if I may be permitted to use the term somewhat anachronistically, was a behaviorist.

The Larger Context
“So what?” I’m tempted to ask. Isn’t the text before me a red-letter text? Doesn’t it come to me from the mouth of Jesus? Well, yes, it does. But it comes to me through Matthew. And I keep remembering it comes to me only through Matthew. For some reason Mark, Luke and John did not use this text to help their congregations understand what Jesus had to say. Only Matthew did. Maybe, just maybe, if I understand something of what the risen and living Christ was saying through Matthew to Matthew’s congregation, I will be in a better position to let him speak through me to my congregation.

And what the Jesus of Matthew says to his congregation is: Don’t talk to me about who or what you are; I’m interested in what you do.

One text near the end of the Sermon on the Mount is so powerful that I am rereading it as part of my preparation for preaching on Matthew 25. It is Matthew 7:21–23. Jesus speaks to people who “on that day” will appeal to him because they are Christians; they call Jesus “Lord, Lord.” What’s more, they are charismatic Christians; they have the gifts of prophecy and of performing mighty works in the name of Jesus. Yet on the great Day of Judgment they will hear Jesus say to them, “I never knew you.” And he will say it simply because they did not do the will of God. That does not make them bad persons. It simply makes them “evildoers.”

As I approach my text I also will remember Matthew likes to talk in simple terms about a correlation between what people do and God’s judgment. One thinks about the petition: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Or the warning: “With the judgment you pronounce you will be judged.” It’s almost as if he likes to say, “What you do is what you get.”

Now I know from experience that many commentaries — most of them written by Protestants — worry about what they perceive as Matthew’s “works righteousness.” Does Matthew’s emphasis on what we do mean he thinks we have to earn God’s approval? Well, no. Matthew may not use the word “grace,” but his presentation of the gospel is replete with it. People do God’s will because they have experienced Jesus’ healing power. Matthew’s gospel message begins with the announcement of “Immanuel”— God is with us. And it ends with the promise, “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew’s congregation knows Jesus as the great Enabler, as God’s presence in their midst. And they know it is a presence they did not earn. So here, as always, I must keep my anxiety from intruding into my preaching.

The Smaller Context
Still, Matthew is not afraid to talk about God’s judgment as something related to human behavior. And that is what he does in the text before me.

This single verse is, of course, part of a larger text. Its position in Matthew’s narrative alone would make it important, since it is the last text before the story of the passion begins. It is also Jesus’ last discourse to his disciples. The members of Matthew’s congregation who hear the gospel read to them sense the growing tension. They also have just heard (24:30–31) about the coming of Jesus, and they may wonder what will happen when he comes in glory with the angels. Now they are about to learn.

And they learn that what will happen is judgment.

At first the text gives the impression that it is going to be a parable. God’s judgment is compared to the action of a shepherd who divides his flock into two groups. But then the text moves in a different direction and turns out not to be a parable after all. From verse 34 on there are no comparisons, no metaphors. Just a straightforward conversation between the king and those on whom he pronounces judgment.

It is a compact text that offers me no occasion to launch into a flowery description of eternal bliss or of everlasting punishment. Furthermore, it is not a trial scene; it does not end with a verdict. It simply consists of two dialogues that explain the judgment that already has taken place. In the first conversation the Son of Man/King explains to the “blessed of my Father” why they are the elect. He mentions three pairs of deeds – six in all – which they have done. These righteous ones respond, asking when they did those things. The same thing happens, in reverse, with those who are cursed. Same list of charitable deeds. Same response. I am astonished. Except for some minor abbreviations, I am confronted four times with the same list of deeds. I wonder what a teacher of creative writing would say about this style. Talk about slowing the action!

Why do you suppose Jesus/Matthew says essentially the same thing four times in the course of 11 verses? I have the sneaking suspicion he wants to be sure that even someone as slow as I gets the point. And the point is: When I stand before God, I am what I do. Or, in this case, what I have done.

The Verse
So what about those six acts of charity according to which people are divided into three camps? Last year One Great Hour of Sharing focused on one pair of them, welcoming the stranger and clothing the naked. This year I’m looking at the most basic needs of all:

Then the righteous will answer and say to him: “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you to drink?”

The people who have been listening to Matthew’s gospel story, if they have been paying attention, know Jesus hungered when he saw the fig tree and his disciples plucked grain for the group to eat. But now they are confronted with the surprising news that the risen Jesus still experiences hunger and thirst. His promise that he will be with us until the end of the age is indeed a comfort. But it is more than that, for now we learn he is present not only in strength and healing but also in weakness, in hunger and in thirst. He is present not only in the word of grace that sustains us but also in people for whom hunger and thirst may be the only signs of his presence.

And it is a presence that confronts us with the issue of our salvation. It is a presence that led John Chrysostom, the fourth century Antiochian preacher, to proclaim in the name of Christ: “Then I suffered bitter need for you, I endure it even now for you in order to move you to compassion. … On the cross I suffered thirst for you; now I thirst in the person of the poor, in order to move you to love for the sake of your own salvation.” The exegesis may leave something to be desired, but what power!

Thirst, I suspect, is worse than hunger. Perhaps that is why the One Great Hour of Sharing theme slices the text even more thinly to focus this year on “when was it that we saw you thirsty…” Typically, people who fast still need to drink water. Of course, too much water can also be a problem: Think tsunami. But right now I’m remembering the people whose lives are damaged because they do not have enough water – good, clean, healthy water: Think Darfur.

But then I’m also thinking it is not enough for me to think about them. Now I know I am expected to do something.

Furthermore, I am expected to do something that is in my best interest. This reference to people who are hungry and thirsty reminds me that early in his gospel story, Jesus/Matthew blesses people “who hunger and thirst for righteousness” with the promise “they shall be satisfied.” Now as the gospel story nears its end, it is these same “righteous” people who give food and drink to people who are hungry and thirsty. It turns out that righteousness, doing the will of God, is not a burden to be borne or a law to be obeyed; it is a way to satisfy my own hunger and thirst.

Just Among us Preachers

One other thing I will keep in mind as I prepare a sermon on this text: My task is not to deliver a lecture on its original meaning; it is to preach the gospel. I say that because it seems this is one of those situations where there is no natural fit between the situation of my hearers and the text’s original meaning. A careful reading of Jesus and of Matthew suggests the “lowliest brothers (and sisters)” of the text were not originally all people who experience hunger and thirst, are strangers or in prison. They are, instead, the itinerant missionaries who in the name of Jesus proclaim the reign of God and who live a radical lifestyle based on their traveling orders in Matthew 10:7–15. In Matthew’s day Christians living in settled communities still needed to be reminded to extend hospitality to disciples who had left all for the sake of God’s reign.

My hearers will be people of a different time and place. I will remember, therefore, that the meaning of a text is determined NOT ONLY by the author’s intention but also by the situation of the hearers. I also will remember some texts are so rich that they point beyond themselves to new meaning. The judgment text of Matthew 25 is one of those texts. While a universal reading of Matthew 25:37 in terms of all people who are thirsty may not reflect the text’s original situation, it expresses the larger message of the Gospel of Matthew – a gospel in which the final criterion is love, including the love of one’s enemies.

Finally, while writing the sermon, I will remember I am called not to manipulate people to support a program but to help them experience the liberating power of the gospel. Not all of the thirsty people that day will be in the text; some of them will be in the pews. I hope that worship will be for them an oasis, not merely a mirage.

Week of Compassion/Congregational use permitted