In a Bible class, two men were called upon to recite the Twenty-third Psalm. One was an accomplished speaker, trained in the techniques of speech and drama. He intoned the Psalm with great beauty and power:

When he had finished, his audience applauded with enthusiasm and asked him to repeat the verses that they might again hear his wonderful rendition. Then the second man recited the same words:

But when he finished, not a sound came from his audience. Instead, the people sat quietly, in a deep mood of prayer and devotion. Then the first man rose and said, "I have a confession to make. The difference between what you have just heard from my friend and what you heard from me is that I know the Psalm; my friend knows the Shepherd."

The parable of the last judgement in today’s Gospel lesson confronts us head-on with one of the great paradoxes of our Christian Faith. It is one which many of us have yet to grasp even though we have been members of the Church all our lives. To put it as simply as possible: the very best way to know and experience the Presence of the Lord who is our Shepherd, the very best way to make the inward journey to God, is through the outward journey to others. Or, as one of the early Church fathers put it centuries ago, "The prodigal son cannot fully experience the Father's Love until he has walked the Jericho Road with the Good Samaritan.

Jesus said, "....the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many." (Matthew. 20:28). He did this throughout His entire life and, ultimately, on the Cross. And He made it clear in His teaching that those who are His followers are to be women and men for others also. This teaching appears more powerfully in the "Parable of the Last Judgment" which we have just read from the Gospel of Matthew.

One of the reasons Matthew's Gospel was placed first in the New Testament is that it is the most inclusive of Jesus teachings.

The Sermon on the Mount is found only in Matthew's Gospel. And only Matthew’s Gospel contains this Parable of the Last Judgment. This is a key parable in our Christian experience. In order to understand this, we need to celebrate for a moment.

We need to celebrate the reality of God’s amazing Grace. We need to celebrate the fact that God, who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, is a God who is continuously offering us His loving Presence as the Source of meaning for our lives. And while most of us have to discover it the hard way, the Gospel truth is that the meaning of our lives is not derived from our money and possessions, not from our reputation in the world, not from our worldly achievements, but from our experience of the Love of God. And only to the degree that we experience God’s Love do our marriage and our family and our career and our possessions and all the other things of life take on their true meaning.

God, in His goodness, has given us many ways in which to position ourselves to experience His love for us. Prayer is a shining example. But, ultimately, when all is done and we stand before the throne of God, the only question remaining is, "Did you feed the hungry... where you there when they needed you... did you serve Me, love Me in this way?"

When we hear this parable about clothing the naked and feeding the hungry we tend to think—and rightly so—of the physical situations of life and the structures of society that need to be improved. But we forget that Jesus often "loaded" His words with deep meaning. There are many husbands and wives, many children, many people close to us who are starving for emotional and spiritual support, starving for acceptance, starving for forgiveness, starving for understanding. There may be persons very close to us who hunger and thirst for the discovery of meaning in their lives. Yes!: a ministry of love to the world. But also a ministry of love to those who are closest to us.

The Lord God Almighty, in His infinite goodness, has implanted deep within us the precious seeds of His mercy and love. If we nurture them and allow them to flower in our inmost being, they will produce new seeds for us to plant, out of simple love for others.

Feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, giving clothes to the naked, visiting those who are sick and imprisoned, showing hospitality to the stranger—these are ways of experiencing the Christ Presence in our lives most deeply, most abundantly. When we lose ourselves in a ministry of love, we find ourselves not just knowing the Psalm, but knowing the Shepherd.

Out of the French Revolution came the story of a mother who had wandered through the woods for three days with her two children, trying to survive on roots and leaves. On the third day, she heard some soldiers approaching and quickly hid herself and the children behind some bushes. The sergeant in charge prodded the bushes to see what was stirring behind them. When he saw the starving woman and children he immediately gave them a loaf of brown bread. The mother took it eagerly, broke it into two pieces and gave one piece to each of the children. "She has kept none for herself," the sergeant said. "Because she is not hungry," a soldier replied. "Because she is a mother," the sergeant said.

In the Parable of the Last Judgment, the lesson goes deeper than that. We offer ourselves in loving service to those who hunger and thirst for our spiritual, emotional and physical support, not merely because we are mothers and fathers and Good Samaritans. We feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty because in them we see the Lord Jesus Christ. Because we know the Good Shepherd, they shall not want.