"When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the 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 astranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and youcame to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?' 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 thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?' 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." (Matthew 25:14-30)

Now what are we to make of this morning's Gospel? When I was in England as a student, one of the things I was doing is dissertation research. A great deal of the research involved travel, because the topic of the thesis was "Hermits in Medieval and Renaissance English literature, iconology and art." It involved going hither and thither. One of the things I discovered was that hermits were all over the place. It involved traveling and seeing churches among other things. Of course after you see so many churches, you learn something about styles of architecture and you learn a great deal about how long it took to build.

One of the very picturesque cathedrals is the Cathedral of Salisbury, in Old English called "Sarem," down in the southern part of England. It is a unique cathedral not only because of the design, but there are several other features there. For example, one thing, there is the decree of the canonization of St. Oswald, signed nonetheless by Henry VIII, when he was still in good graces with Rome. It's a unique cathedral because it was built within sixty years. And that is most extraordinary in medieval building of cathedrals, because generally it took 250, 270 years to build those cathedrals. And that one was built all of one design, all of one pattern, with one architect, unique in medieval history.

As you walk down one of the main streets from the cathedral square, you come to a perpendicular Gothic church, 13th or 14th century, the Church of St. Thomas. Not a terribly imposing architectural church, until you walk inside. There inside, like the medieval people were wont to do, the stone had been plastered over, and on every inch of plaster there were drawings and paintings. And the paintings were very vivid with those bright and brilliant colors that the medieval people loved so well. Very bright blues, reds, greens, golds--real gold. They were so pristine in their shape and in their color because they had been cvovered over in the time of Elizabeth I, not destroyed but covered over with whitewash. And so very painstakingly the whitewash had been taken off to reveal the paintings in all of their glorious color.

Now medieval churches in England are of a very special kind of architecture. You would be sitting in what would be called the nave of the church. I would be standing, talking to you, from what would be called the chancel of the church. We would call it necessarily the sanctuary. But in the medieval churches the chancel included the choir, the presbyterium where the priest sat, and also the sanctuary and the altar. And separating the chancel from the nave, the nave always wider than the chancel, was what they call the rood screen. And called "rood" because the Old English word for "cross" is "rood." And it was a screen, usually of wood,sometimes of stone, that went from side to side at the chancel opening and tracery up above it, solid down below, tracery above, and on top of that a crucifix, with a statue of the Blessed Mother and John the Evangelist, and sometimes, as in Westminster Abbey, an organ was up there. Now above this rood screen there was an arch, and in St. Thomas Church on the arch at each side were these vivid paintings. And in the middle was Christ, sitting in judgment. A perfect depiction of this morning's Gospel scene from St. Matthew. And as I looked at it, I thought, "How marvelous the preachers had, what a great time they had an illustrated sermon right there." They didn't have to show slides, or as the British would say, "transparencies" at Mass to give sermons. They would just simply refer upward. And there is Christ, seated in glory, with a very stern look on his face, very serious, very intent about what he is doing. And there around him are all the angels of the Heavenly court, ranked in the order that only angels can have. And on his right is a very idyllic pastoral scene, beautiful grass, a stream runing through, and a tree. And sheep are being led to that very idyllic pasture land. They are being saved. On the left is the mouth, the gaping mouth of a huge whale, what the Old Testament writers called "Leviathan." And his mouth is stretched wide, wide. And out of the mouth is belching fire and smoke and steam and soot and everything else that you could associate with Hell. It is depicted as the very mouth of hell itself. And there are devils there with pitchforks and horns and tails in those vivid colors of red, prodding souls in the shape of goats, prodding them to the mouth of Leviathan. And you can see some of the souls very hesitant to go in, and they are being jabbed in places that we need not mention here this morning, to force them, to prod them to go in.

And it reminds me, as I say, of Matthew, in fact it is this morning's Gospel illustrated. And it must have been a marvelous example for the priest, because when he preached he said, "If you're good, that's where you're going to go, and if you're bad, that's where you're going to go," and they had this marvelous illustration to demonstrate it. It is the artist's description of this scene. Just as the Gospel scene that Matthew paints for us is Matthew's idea of what judgment is going to be. It's not necessarily Jesus' judgment, but Matthew's--Matthew's conception of judgment. And as Matthew depicts this judgment scene for us this morning, there are certain characteristics or certain elements that we should notice. It is the whole world, all humankind that comes before Jesus as judge. And humanity is divided, not because of belief or unbelief, not because of baptism or lack of baptism in Matthew's Gospel. Humanity is divided, and this surprises those who are receiving the judgment, on how they have treated the poor and the lowly. Not on whether, for Matthew, they have been baptized or are unbaptized; not whether they are churched or unchurched, but their relationship to the the poor, their relationship to those who are on the margins of society. Their relationship to all of those that Jesus has been concerned about in life. And what comes as an even greater surprise when we see Matthew's depiction of theology here, the theology of salvation or the theology of damnation, what becomes very central is that Jesus so carefully identifies himself with them. Or they are so carefully identified with Jesus. And that comes as a shock. And we get it from the text, because the saved as well as the damned say, "When did we see you in these various conditions?"--and incidentally, those conditions depict the seven corporal works of mercy-- "When did we see you hungry, thirsty, in prison? When did we see you?" And Jesus says, "When you did it to the least of my brethren, you did it to me."

And another surprise that comes in Matthew's understanding of judgment is that those who did what they did to the poor, or those who did not do what they should have done to the poor, are not conscious that they were doing it to Jesus. They simply saw someone in need. They simply saw someone who was neglected by society, and so they extended a helping hand. And it begins to tell us a great deal about morality for Matthew. Morality for Matthew is Christocentric, it's centered around Jesus, even though we might not realize it. It's centered around people who are identified with Jesus, even though we do not realize it. And the big question that Matthew wants us to ask is simply, "How do we treat people in need?" And however we answer that it is really Jesus that we are treating when we treat people who are in need. Or it is Jesus we are neglecting when we neglect people in need. And that will determine for Matthew salvation or damnation. And I suppose that when you look at that scene in the St. Thomas parish church, when you read this passage from St. Matthew's gospel, the question I ask myself is, on what side of Jesus will I be standing? On his right or on his left? Will I be invited to pastures with marvelous streams, fruit, beautiful grass, or will I be invited into the very mouth of Leviathan. Maybe not invited, but prodded. How I conduct my life in relation to other people, especially those in need, is going to determine where I shall be when the end of life comes.