The other day I read something about Mother Teresa. The article said that she “saw Jesus” in the people to whom she ministered. This reflects the third parable in Matthew 25, in which we read the following:
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 just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by 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 a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”
Then the righteous will answer him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?”
And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”
Then he will say to those on his left, “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, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?”
Then he will answer them, saying, “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
(Matthew 25:31-45)
Far be it from me to say anything negative about Mother Teresa. But one can affirm the good she did while noting that she fell into a common misinterpretation of this passage — one that even Barak Obama repeated while being interviewed by Rick Warren (Saddleback, Purpose Driven Life, etc.) when he referred to America doing more for “the least of these.” I personally ran into this misinterpretation when I was doing Bible Studies at Juvenile hall: the leader of the program asked me if I saw Jesus in the faces of the kids there.
Nevertheless, the point here is not that Jesus is present in the poor and downtrodden. Rather, the point is that Jesus identifies with his people and in particular, Jesus is present in his people. This is the clear teaching of the New Testament in many places; in particular we see it in Colossians 1:27 — “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
What this means is that we do not find Jesus in the people to whom we minister. But if you think about it, something far better happens! We bring Jesus to the people who are in desperate need of him! The wonderful thing about Mother Teresa was not that she saw Jesus in those she helped; rather, she brought Jesus to them.
Jesus refers to “the least of these my brothers.” It is clear from other passages in Matthew that this refers to “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven” — see Matthew 12:50. In saying this Jesus “stretched out his hand toward his disciples,” indicating those he was talking about.
There’s an important spiritual principle here: identification produces identity. To rephrase this, our identity comes from those with whom we identify. As we identify with Jesus we become his brother and God’s children. Again this is taught in many places; the most crucial is probably Romans 6:1-5 (the whole chapter extends this idea). Matthew 10:24-42 applies this idea to persecution (Sam Chou has pointed out that the three parts of Matthew 10 probably correspond to the three parables in Matthew 25).
I want to make one final point. In our identity as “brethren” of Jesus (recall Hebrews 2 which discusses this at length and says, “That is why he is not ashamed to call them ‘brothers'”) we become brethren of one another. The well-known passage says, “All men shall know you are my disciples by your love for one another.”
An old pop song had the following words:
These are not my people,
These are not my people,
And it looks like the end, my friend,
Got to get in the wind, my friend….
Many times I have looked at my fellow Christians and found myself saying or thinking this. There are so many differences between me and them — values, ideas, experiences, goals — and it’s often hard to understand what it means for us to be “one in Christ.” In particular over the years I have found that politics divides Christians like almost nothing else. While the current political situation in the US has highlighted this tendency, it is by no means new.
I can, right off the top of my head, think of at least five instances where significant differences between me and other Christians arose because of politics, to the point where I wondered how we could both say we belonged to Christ. But note the following: before we engaged in political discussion, frequently I was as close to these people as any other Christians. We were one in Christ; only when we started arguing about Caesar did divisions arise.
For this reason I have come more and more to see politics as a temptation from the world. By becoming caught up in worldly, temporary concerns, Christians are divided, fighting one another for “the scraps of power that fall from Caesar’s table.”
Rather than finding our identity in identification with some worldly cause — no matter how good it may seem — we need to show solidarity with one another as we identify with Christ. This is far more powerful and more lasting than the temporary issues of politics. And this by no means allows evil to go unopposed. Because when we Christians show the World our unity of the Spirit, when we show our love in concrete actions of help toward one another, we overthrow the divisions that the World imposes on us. We are told that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”