An Evangelical Baptist friend and I once had a fairly long argument about being saved by “receiving Jesus as your Lord and Savior.” That was his phrase, and I’m sure it’s very familiar to you. And he was saying that’s all there is to it, and I was saying no it isn’t! Eventually I pulled out my trump card for this argument. To anyone who thinks that if you say some prayer one time, nothing after that matters when it comes to salvation, I could choose from dozens of contrary Scriptures, but my favorite is this one from Matthew 25. You can’t read this and not know that our actions, our works, have something to do with our salvation.
In this case, though, my friend was unfazed by my Biblical trump card. He said, “Well, of course. Accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior isn’t just something you say. It’s what you do that determines whether He’s your Lord. His Lordship has to make a difference in your life, or it’s just an empty word.” Um… oh. I was surprised and definitely humbled to discover, so far into our conversation, that I’d totally misunderstood what my friend had been saying. Once we cleared up my bad assumption, we couldn’t really find any real disagreement between us. Knowing us, we probably started arguing about Mary instead!
Jesus may have been getting at the same idea when he warned that “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father.” Honestly, how could He have possibly made it clearer than that?
So… what does it mean to do His will? Well, fortunately for us, we don’t have to guess; He’s given us commandments. And I think that when we talk about following His commandments, we tend to think first about the negative commandments: the things we are not supposed to do. Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery, don’t kill, don’t get drunk, don’t look at impure images. And nothing I say is meant to downplay the importance of these commandments. Calling Jesus your Lord while admitting these things into your life is an absolute contradiction, and one that will be sorted out someday one way or another.
But in Matthew 25, when Jesus separates the sheep from goats, when the goats are sent off accursed and lost, it is not because of bad things they did that they shouldn’t have done - what we call sins of commission. Every single example in this story is a sin of omission - things they ought to have done but did not.
St. Paul, too, puts sins of omission in the forefront when he defines sin as “when I know the right thing to do, and do not do it.” We invoke both every time we pray the confiteor, admitting fault in what we have done and in what we have failed to do.
A great number of Catholics, when preparing for confession, I’m convinced, examine their consciences purely by trying to remember any sins of commission. If they don’t recall lying, cheating, stealing, killing, et cetera, they’ve simply come up empty. That’s also among the reasons so many Catholics ignore the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Sins of omission are simply not on their radar at all. If that’s you, I hope Matthew 25 will convince you that you may be in very serious danger.
It came as such a surprise to them. “Lord, when did we see you hungry and not feed you?” There’s that word again. They call Him Lord now, but they never recognized Him when He needed them. They never recognized Him in the hungry or sick or imprisoned.
But it was just as much a surprise to those on His right. “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?” For those who give their lives for others, it will be a fantastic surprise to see with the unveiled eyes of eternity exactly what difference you made. And that’s also a nice thought in context of our November remembrance of the faithful departed… the thought of our loved ones who have gone before fully realizing how much difference their love made.
Everyone in this story was in for a big surprise at the Judgment. For those who did nothing to help the God they never recognized in the hungry and sick and imprisoned, these sins of omission were not the good kind of surprise. But for those who lived love and service and generosity, even though they, too, often failed to perceive the Lord in those they served, it was a very good surprise indeed. I think of friends and teachers I’ve lost recently, and I think they’ll be surprised to find out what a difference they made in my life. Multiply that by all the other lives they touched, and you’ve got a piece of the joy of Heaven.
“Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or sick, or naked, or in prison?” Jesus tells this story so that we won’t have to ask that question. Pleading ignorance didn’t work for the lost in the story, and still less will it work for us who have been told very clearly what it means to serve the Lord. You know where to find Him. You know what He’s commanded. Not just a list of stuff you aren’t allowed to do. To help. To serve. If you’ve been in the habit of ignoring Him, this story is a warning to repent. If you do help, well, you don’t think you help enough, I know - in fact, if you aren’t at least a little tortured by that question I’m worried about you - but even though you aren’t sure you help enough, this story is the greatest encouragement there could be: it is Christ you have served, whether you recognized Him or not. Even if you didn’t recognize Him, that isn’t the point. The point is that when you stand before judgment, He will recognize you.
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