The Solemnity of Christ the King St. Matthew 25: 31-46 “And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Mark Twain once said, “When reading the Bible, there are some stories I simply don’t understand and that bothers me. On the other hand, there are stories I do understand and they bother me even more.” Could this Bible passage from St Matthew’s Gospel be one of those Bible stories? If Mark Twain had read this passage of the Final Judgment, would he have been bothered by it? It’s a pretty good guess that he would have understood it. It is perfectly clear and understandable. Does that make it more disturbing? Are we disturbed by its implications? This is the Lord’s own description of the Final Judgment awaiting all humanity. St. Matthew’s entire gospel has proclaimed the encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ as one of divine love, mercy and justice. Humanity is given the choice to embrace or reject that divine encounter. Now as the gospel moves into the Lord’s Passion, we are presented with a sort of study guide to prepare for the final exam. Have we been paying attention? Has St. Matthew’s Gospel changed us? Has it bothered us enough to motivate our life for different purposes? Do we understand what God has done for us and now what God expects us to do with this same love, mercy and justice? The Judgment awaiting us examines the motivations for our lives here on planet earth. What motivated our life? Did we search for life’s meaning by getting ahead of everyone else, getting more although we already have excess, taking advantage of others, taking more than our due, winning the rat race, and losing our soul in the process? Or was life’s motivation a constant caring for others, a determination to be of service, a desire to make a difference in someone else’s life, a choice to let go of ambition for compassion, and responding to a compelling belief that love and justice can make a difference in the world we live with all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. This is the hope born from the Lord’s passion. This is the love poured out from the cross. This is the faith handed on authentically and passionately from the moment of Pentecost to our day today. This is the true motivation born from an encounter with the Living Christ and a desire to serve Him everywhere. This is offered as the motivation of our every choice, every decision, and every priority. We bring Christ into the world, while realizing that Christ is not absent from the world. The Risen Christ is always present throughout the world, but only rarely is he recognized there, honored, served or worshipped there. Both those that served the poor and those neglecting the poor were surprised that their choices were directly related to Christ. Jesus is to be discovered wherever humanity lives, but most especially in the lost, forsaken, burdened, wearied, crushed, oppressed, exploited, abused, abandoned, and discarded. The Risen Christ is “tabernacled” in the broken pieces of everyone’s humanity. Our mission in communion with the Church is to reveal Christ’s presence in all, especially the poor. The Gospel is not telling us we must feed everyone or visit everyone or clothe everyone. The Gospel does not insist we become more generous with everyone standing in median strips with cardboard signs of various plights. Rather, the gospel first calls us to become more aware of the people around us, and then reach out to one; feed one hungry person, clothe one naked body; welcome one foreigner to our care; just one at a time. If everyone at this Mass reached out to one person this week that you might not otherwise have, then hundreds more in our own community will know the caring touch of another human being. That is where it all begins. This is how Christ is made known, served and adored in daily life. Our Catholic faith describes these as the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. These merciful works address the physical, spiritual, and intellectual needs of all humanity. They address the whole person and all people. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy serve many functions and are at the core of Catholic morality. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and those in prison and welcoming the stranger and foreigner build bonds of community through solidarity. Works of mercy restore humanity through human touch manifesting divine mercy. The works of mercy move us from self-centered world to an “other centered” world. These works transform our life’s motivations and goals. The works of mercy extend the mercy God has given us to those still awaiting a reason to believe. These works cleanse and transform us; preparing us for eternal life. As we participate in these great works of Christ, we will grow and mature spiritually. Our patience with those suffering can deepen. Our ability to stand up for justice against the powers that be can grow. We can enhance our ability to identify false compassion and set clear boundaries and refusing to enable destructive behavior. The Prophet Ezekiel identifies God as the only shepherd taking complete responsibility for the flock and taking complete responsibility for our care. Where other shepherds appointed by God often failed miserably, God’s shepherding is complete. Using images like these from Ezekiel, Pope Francis has said he wants the church’s pastors to “smell like the sheep”. The Scriptures this weekend tell us that Jesus not only smells like the sheep; he also feels our hunger, experiences our thirst, receives our rejection and scorn, suffers our loneliness and knows the collapse of our physical health. Instead of a bitter and angry suffering that isolates and alienates, we reach out of our own suffering to others suffering likewise and become agents of Christ healing and redemption. Discovering Christ in the world opens our heart to the possibility of eternal salvation. Meeting Christ in the poor and serving him there reveals our life’s true meaning and purpose. There is a bitter anger alive in our society these days. This polarizing anger is fed most often by fear. Fear of the other, the stranger; fear of scarcity, fear of violence and terror, fear of taking a risk, fear of living a dark loneliness because ultimately no one cares. This fractures communities and people live with isolation even in densely populated cities. We grow lonelier residing amidst more people. The gospel presents the healing balm to all these wounds, these fears, these angers. The gospel presents the human touch, more explicitly the Church’s human touch; the touch of all baptized into Christ as the healing remedy for all humanity. This touch reaches out and gathers people together into community; communities of care, generosity, and compassion. These renewed communities founded on compassion, governed by justice, and motivated by love ease humanity’s fears and heal the wounds. This starts with one reaching out to one other person in a solidarity of care and compassion. In all of this and most importantly, we come to know the Risen Christ. We come to know him in the sufferings of his people. We come to know him in a society more human. We come to know Christ as King of all creation and sovereign of every act of compassion and justice. .