My heavenly Father will treat you in exactly the same way that you treat your brother!

 The poignant message we hear in the Christ parable shared in today’s Gospel is that God will treat us exactly in the same way that we treat our brothers and sisters. It is therefore our real behavior towards   others that determines our relationship with God.

This is one of the new aspects of Christianity. Jesus explicitly stated that our relationship with God is directly dependent on our relationship with other humans.

Prior to Jesus and even to this day, people have the false belief that they can have a relationship with God but hate their fellowmen. Jesus came to reveal to us that, because God is the life-force which animates all living things, how we treat other living things, especially our fellowmen and women makes all the difference. We cannot love God, says St. John, and hate our neighbors. This is truly the break-through made in human history and in human thought.

The problem truly is, however, that very few people truly believe this. There are more wars being fought in our world today because of religion. All of God’s attempts to change the hearts and minds of people to live like His children seem to have impacted very few.

We, of course, can be different. We can hear the message of Jesus and decide, despite what others in our society say, feel or do, that we will embrace the WAY of Jesus and not surrender to the mores of our society or its values.

Yes, this will make us marginal people! Yes, this will open us to ridicule by those who do not believe in God’s revelation through Jesus Christ. But, it will make us children of God.

Of course we have to believe in the truth of the revelation of God through Jesus. If we don’t truly   believe that God became incarnate in the Person of Jesus, then none of this means anything. We just embrace the values of our society and forget about the teachings of Jesus.

I, for one, would rather be in sync with Jesus, Who I believe is God incarnate, than all of the people in my society who may not have the foggiest idea about an after-life or the meaning and purpose of life. I find that many people only think about life as it is right now. They don’t think life is eternal and don’t think that we have been put on earth to learn how to be children of our God-Creator.

I won’t take that chance!