26th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A October 1, 2023
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
It’s not a ledger. We talk like it is, but judgment isn’t a ledger with good on one side, bad on the other, and whichever has the most decides your fate. If you don’t know better, it seems reasonable that your final fate is determined simply by whether or not you did more good than bad or more bad than good. That kind of idea why the first reading is addressed to people who accuse God of being unfair in how he judges people who either repent or turn to evil at the last minute.
Perhaps you already see what’s wrong with someone accusing God of being unfair, but be careful. Part of the reason we struggle to evangelize people… part of the reason we struggle to simply keep our own children in the Church is that we spend a lot of time answering questions no one is asking… or just dismissing the questions because we have the answer. But, that’s not how people learn, is it? It’s why math teachers ask you to show your work… they don’t want the number, they want to see you understand why. Just telling a child the answer to a math problem might get them a good grade on homework, but it won’t help them become the kind of person who can solve problems. Simply telling people God is fair and just isn’t enough for them to trust God.
So let’s try to understand why someone might think God is unfair. Recall last week’s parable – the workers in the vineyard – when everyone got paid the same amount whether they worked one hour or the whole day. It teaches us that people who are faithful their whole life and people who repent at the last minute both get to go to heaven.
This raises a reasonable question. If someone repents at the end, their life still has way more evil deeds in total, so shouldn’t they still go to hell? On the other hand, if someone spends their whole life doing great things and messes up right at the end, why should a few bad deeds wipe away a lifetime of good ones? Why does it matter so much what order they were done in? Do you see how someone might think God is unfair for this?
Now that we can sympathize with their objection, how do we get to the right answer? As with any search for truth, the answer requires humility, patience, and attentive effort. It requires us to challenge assumptions and shift our worldview. So let’s allow Scripture and the Church to help us gain the right perspective to see the right answer.
Ezekiel says that if “someone virtuous turns away from virtue… it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die.” Notice what causes the death. The sin itself. Sin causes death, that’s a pretty straightforward idea. What about the opposite? What causes life? Well, Ezekiel doesn’t actually tell us what causes life. He tells us that the man who “turns from the wickedness he has committed, and does what is right and just… shall preserve his life.” The good deeds don’t give him life, they preserve it. That means the life comes from somewhere else.
That’s why judgment is not as simple as the number of good deeds vs. evil deeds. Darkness is the absence of light, death the absence of life, sin the absence of good. We can’t cause our own life, we can either preserve what we’ve been given or we can lose it by sinning. Fortunately for us, God is merciful. By turning away from sin and toward God, we can receive new life from him. So what matters most at the end of life is not the number of good deeds or bad deeds, but whether or not you have life within you. Bad deeds cause death, but it is actually life that causes the good deeds. Virtue manifests life, it does not create it.
Think of life like electricity and good deeds like wires and lightbulbs. The power is being provided by someone else. All we can do is make sure the wires are properly connected. Turning on the lights matters – it brightens the room – but the lightbulbs and wires don’t cause the electricity. Sin is like cutting or damaging the wire. Little sins weaken the power and dim the lights, but even a single mortal sin is like cutting the wire completely. Then it doesn’t matter how many bulbs you have or how long the wire is, that cut means no power.
Jesus’ parable makes it clear that actions matter. If you say you’ll do God’s will but don’t – like the second son – you might be flipping the switch on, but there is a broken wire and so no light. If you struggle to do God’s will, but end up doing it like the first son, it’s as if we delayed flipping the switch, but found a real connection when we did.
So yes, our good and bad actions matter, but they don’t tell us everything. Ultimately, actions are signs and tools of who we are. Being comes before acting.Actions both reflect who we are and shape who we are, but who and what we are is what matters most.
We glimpse this in the second reading, the letter to the Philippians, which describes Jesus’ obedience: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death… Because of this, God greatly exalted him.” Notice that it doesn’t just say that “he obeyed,” it says he became obedient. The act of obedience matters, but it matters primarily because it makes him an obedient son and reveals that obedience. To go to heaven is to be a certain kind of person. Our actions matter because of who they make us into and who they reveal us to be.
And the order does matter. The longer we live, the more our inner self is revealed. Decisions made later in life are often more mature, more spiritually permanent than those earlier in life. A good life that turns evil near the end is often a revelation of a hidden rottenness or woundedness. Or even if the earlier good was genuine, sin can still sever that connection to life. A thousand foot wire with a break at the end is just as useless as a one foot wire with a break. In either case, what you need is to fix the break – repent of sin and be forgiven – not extend the wire.
So do not focus on the ledger. Do count up the good and bad deeds as if you can presume to balance them out. Do not presume to judge another’s fate by the total of their deeds, even if you are right to describe those deeds as evil. You, they, and I were all born in sin. So do not let stubborn pride jeopardize your own salvation by being jealous that someone else “got away with” more than you. All of us “get away with” infinitely more than we deserve if we accept the gift of God’s mercy, so it’s absurd to talk about more or less. We are all called to live according to that gift now, to turn from sins old and new, to receive again and again the gift of life, and to let that life bear fruit in acts of love.
We do not do what Jesus did because his actions were good. We do what Jesus did because He is good and because He dwells in us, doing those good deeds in us if we just let him in, cast away the sins that wound him, and keep him there, loving him day-by-day into eternity. It’s not too late even with a lifetime of sin behind you. What matters most for final judgment is not how many sins are in your past or your neighbor’s past, but whether or not you’re willing to give those sins to God before it’s too late. Before your sins become your eternity.