Sunday of the Fearful Judgement (Meatfare). Octoechos Tone 3. Post-feast of the Encounter. Our Venerable Father Isidore of Pelusium (408-50).
1 Corinthians 8:8-9:2. Matthew 25:31-46.
Read Matthew 25:31-46
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Hunger. Thirst. Displacement. Nakedness. Sickness. Imprisonment.
Our bodies limit us. We can only be in one place at a time; we can only do what we can do in our bodies. Throughout the ages we have employed techniques and developed technologies to leverage the natural order to make the efforts of our bodies both more productive and more destructive. With the right technology, we can build a mountain or blow it up. But we are still limited.
It is no wonder, then, that we are prone to a turn of mind that our spiritual life can somehow be separate from our bodies. The hopes and aspirations of our immortal human souls reach beyond the limits of our mortal human bodies. If we are not careful, we can assume that in our eternal future we will finally have no limits, and then project that false imagination back upon our earthly existence in thinking that there is a difference between what we do in our spirit and what we do, or don’t do, in our bodies. Today’s gospel reading makes it clear that nothing could be further from the truth.
God made humanity – all humanity – in His image (Genesis 1:26-28). The “living being” that is humanity is of both “dust of the ground” and God’s “breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). St. Paul makes it clear that, like Christ, our eternal life is also in a body – imperishable instead of perishable – but a body, nonetheless (1 Corinthians 15), and subject to the Judge of all the Earth.
We cannot avoid doing physical things for others – even “the least” – and be spiritual, now or eternally. We cannot separate loving Christ from physically doing things for other people – other images of God – in our bodies, for their hungry, thirsty, displaced, naked, sick, and imprisoned bodies.