Unity NOT Division
Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28; Matthew 25:31-46
The image of Judgment Day and its unique criterion – what you did or didn’t do to others – is clearly underscored in today’s parable. Another point that is clearly depicted, from our gospel, is the reality of judgment, God is a judge. This attribute of judgment agrees with the title of this Sunday – Christ the King. As King of the world, Jesus exercises the right to judge and apportion justice, among other rights. But if Christ is universal King, what are we, subjects to be ruled or co-rulers with Christ and princes and princesses of Christ? As our God and King, God must do better than what the earthly kingdoms and governments can do. What does God offer us differently and superior to what any earthly leadership system can offer?
Going by Karl Marx’s historical and dialectic materialism, we know why political systems mutate and why the present political democracy will decline and be replaced with another political model. But with democracy as the reigning system of government today, and kingdoms and kings in decline, the three readings of today propose something different, something that has not taken place yet, but which we hope for. So, we are dealing with the theological virtue of hope, something that we expect in the future, something that we need to help build alongside God.
The limitation of past and present political systems include, fundamentally, their power to create and legitimate division: division between the haves and the have-nots (bourgeoisie and proletariat classes), exploiter-exploited, lords and slaves, strong and weak, etc. Christian vision is the reconciliation of all kinds of divisions and the creation of communion and unity among human beings. Is the unity and communion in question here, the unity and partnership of like minds or social stratifications of human beings, NO!
The theology of hope put forward today is koinonic, it creates koinoniacs out of human beings. In everyday language that “something” or “koinonaics” we expect looks like this – We are invited to be care-providers for the good, the bad, and the ugly of our societies. “Welfarism” is not what we are called to because charity cannot be premised on a systemic avoidance of the realization of the dictatorship of the proletariat. No! “Care-provider” is a family theology, it is a communion theology, it is Trinitarian, it is a theology which claims God as the fundament basis for human unity and communion.
“Koinoniacism” is God’s desire to have human beings who don’t segregate among themselves on social or genetic bases but build bridges on the basis of charity and sacrifice. A concrete example of the creation of human koinoniacs is our first reading – “I’ll assemble and gather my sheep from all corners of the earth, where they are scattered.” If we remember that Israel was scattered abroad on account of Babylonian captivity, and today we have all kinds of slaveries and exploitation and complexes, then, God’s desire to assemble his children and create a universal koinoniacs will make sense. The oneness between the shepherd and the sheep, according to our first reading smacks off unity.
If God is a builder and creator of unity here and now, this shows how much unity is essential to God’s nature. Consequently, it is impossible for any political system that fail to promote unity to receive God’s approval. And, if we had spoken of “hope” of building a universe of koinoniacs, that gives us a sole criterion for Judgment Day. Anyone who fails to take care of his brothers and sisters has separated himself/herself from God. The Judgment Day scenario of the gospel shows that only koinoniacs will make heaven eventually. Just as God attends to human needs without regard to race, status and gender, so should his children be.
According to Paul, in the second reading, Jesus wishes to hand over to his Father a united humanity having obliterated death. As long as death remains a possibility, permanent union with God remains impossible to the degree to which God wants human beings to have immortal life with himself. The immortality of the soul is guaranteed in charity, in the cares we provide for one another; little wonder then, our gospel makes the treatment we mete to one another to be the standard for judgment at the end of time.
To create unity is to go beyond differences in all its multiple forms, and to be blind to differences and be opened to unity and oneness. It is only when we have stopped seeing human beings but God himself in each human being that unity will be created as God wills it. When the water of baptism speaks a language of unity beyond international passports, when humanity transcends geographic boundaries, when love substitutes for hatred and bigotry, when faith in God becomes a binding force rather than a motif for segregation, then, and only then, shall Judgment Day be cancelled because there will be only sheep, all the goats must have metamorphosed into sheep!
Yes, God wants the transformation of goats into sheep, he wants to be the shepherd of sheep and not of goats. Indeed, Ezekiel’s prophecy that God will gather together his sheep meant that the sheep was already scattered. If the Babylonian captivity coincided with the prophecy of Ezekiel, it simple means that God desires the unity and oneness of his flock, a flock exclusively composed of sheep, with no goats. If God goes out for unity, it is because he wishes human beings too to work for unity, then there will be one flock and one shepherd. To realize this, God counts you and I, our refusal to live in sin, but our determination to live in holiness and concord!