mmm, damnation!

“‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and  you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'” – Jesus (Matthew 25:35-40).

“Our temptation is to spiritualize all this talk of union, to make our connection to the hungry a mystical act of imaginative sympathy. We can thus imagine that we are already in communion with those who lack food, whether or not we meet their needs. Matthew is having none of this: he places the obligation to feed the hungry in the context of eschatalogical judgment. Paul, too, places neglect of the hungry in the context of judgment. At the eucharisstic celebration in Corinth, which included a common meal, those who eat while other go hungry ‘show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing’ (1 Cor. 11:22). Those who thus – in an ‘unworthy manner’ – partake of the body and blood of Christ ‘eat and drink judgment against themselves’ (11:27, 29). Those of us who partake in the Eucharist while ignoring the hungry may be eating and drinking our own damnation.” – William Cavanaugh (Being Consumed, 97-98).