Last Judgment – Father Alexander Schmemann from his book ’Great Lent’

Our Pre-Lenten journey now brings us face to face with something that many of may find uncomfortable: Christ’s parable of the Last Judgment. Our temptation may be to elevate our own judgment(s) above the starkness and clarity that Christ presents to us in this powerful parable.

Certainly, one possibility of why the Church Fathers have placed this in our path at this point is to wake us up to the seriousness and sobriety we need for the journey ahead. It may also be true that this sobriety, this wakefulness, needs to apply itself to our tendencies to dismiss those judgments from our Lord and Savior that we may find difficult to understand or accept.

We are not alone. I think of the Apostle Peter’s response to what he perceived as the unacceptable truth of what would happen to Christ.

From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.  Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.  But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Matthew 16: 21 – 23

When we think about the first two weeks of our Pre-Lenten preparation, it is clear what the examples of the Publican and Prodigal have to teach us about repentance. But what do the examples of the Pharisee and the elder son have to teach us about what prevents us from repenting? Are there some common barriers to repentance that these examples illumine and illustrate?

Certainly, most of us would point to the pride of the Pharisee as a barrier that prevented him from the experience of ongoing repentance so essential to our spiritual journeys.

Isn’t an important aspect of this pride the inflation we place on our own judgements of ourselves and of our knowledge of what ’God’s will’ should be in our circumstances? The Pharisee’s judgement that I am not like these others men … these sinners? The elder son’s belief that his judgement of what is just and fair about what should happen to his brother should be the way his Father sees this?

And isn’t it clear that these judgements of the Pharisee and elder son are completely lacking in a fidelity to what Christ has given us as our Great Commandment?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Matthew 22: 36 – 40

Isn’t a way of thinking about the sin and separation between the elder son and his Father, this allegiance we have to our distorted judgements that are devoid of an experience and expression of love? The possibility that our judgements are separating us from the most basic and foundational experience of a communion of Love with our Father and the expression of that Love to our neighbor.

I find this quote very compelling:

“Repentance is the beginning, middle and end of the Christian way of life.”

St. Gregory Palamas

Perhaps, our Church Fathers have prepared us for the Sunday of the Last Judgement by reminding us of how far our own judgements are from those that are inspired by Him. With this in mind, let’s look now at what Father Schemman has to say.

Father Alexander Schemman on the Last Judgement

Christianity is the religion of love. Christ left with his disciples not a doctrine of individual salvation but a new commandment “that you love one another”, and He added: ”By this shall all know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Love is thus the foundation, the very life of the Church which is, in the words of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the ”unity of faith and love.” Sin is always absence of love, and therefore separation, isolation, war of all against all. The new life given by Christ and conveyed to us by the Church is, first of all, a life of reconciliation, of ”gathering into oneness of those who were dispersed,” the restoration of love broken by sin. But how can we even begin our return to God and our reconciliation with Him if in ourselves we do not return to the unique new commandment of love?

When Christ comes to judge us, what will be the criterion of His judgment? The parable answers: love – not a mere humanitarian concern for abstract justice and the anonymous ”poor,” but concrete and personal love for the human person, any human person, that God makes me encounter in my life.

Christian love is the ”possible impossibility” to see Christ in another man, whoever he is, and who God, in his eternal and mysterious plan, has decided to introduce into my life. .. For indeed, what is love if not the mysterious power which transcends the accidental and the external in the ”other” – his physical appearance, social rank, ethnic origin, intellectual capacity – and reaches the soul, the unique and uniquely personal ”root” of a human being, truly the part of God in him? If God loves every man it is because He alone knows the priceless and absolutely unique treasure, the “soul” or ”person” He gave every man. Christian love then is the participation in that divine knowledge and the gift of that divine love. There is no ”impersonal” love because love is the wonderful discovery of the ”person” in ”man,” of the personal and unique in the common and general. It is the discovery in each man of that which is ”lovable” in him, of that which is from God.

In this respect, Christian love is sometimes the opposite of ”social activism” with which one so often identifies Christianity today. To a “social activist” the object of love is not ”person” but man, an abstract unit of a not less abstract ”humanity.” But for Christianity, man is ”lovable” because he is person. There person is reduce to man; here man is seen only as person. The ”social activist” has no interest for the personal, and easily sacrifices it to the ”common interest.” Christianity may seem to be, and in some way actually is, rather skeptical about that abstract ”humanity,” but it commits a mortal sin against itself each time it gives up its concern and love for the person. Social activism is always ”futuristic” in its approach, it always acts in the name of justice, order, happiness to come, to be achieved. Christianity cares little about that problematic future but puts the whole emphasis on the now – the only decisive time for love. The two attitudes are not mutually exclusive, but they must not be confused. Christian love aims beyond “this world”. It is itself a ray, a manifestation of the Kingdom of God; it transcends and overcomes limitations, all “conditions” of this world because its motivation as well as its goals and consummation is in God.

The parable of the Last Judgment is about Christian love. Not all of us are called to work for ”humanity,” yet each one of us has received the gift and grace of Christ’s love. We know that all men ultimately need this personal love – the recognition in them of their unique soul in which the beauty of the whole creation is reflected in a unique way. We also know that men are in prison and are sick and thirsty and hungry because that personal love has been denied them. And, finally, we know that however narrow and limited the framework of our personal existence, each one of us has been made responsible for a tiny part of the Kingdom of God, made responsible by the very gift of Christ’s love. Thus, on whether or not we have accepted this responsibility , on whether we have loved or refused to love, shall we be judged. For ”inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me … ”