"Unto Me‪"‬

“UNTO ME”

The Religious Quality of Social

Work

When Jesus

looked forward to the great climax of History, the Last Judgment, he saw it as

a process by which the inner significance of their own actions and relations

would be revealed to men. Those men on his right hand whom he welcomed to their

reward had never realized the high quality of their own actions. Here was a man

who had seen a work-mate in the heat of the harvest-time eating a crust, and he

had shared the contents of his dinner-pail with him and gone on half-rations

himself. Here was another who had seen a foot-sore and dusty stranger limping

into the village at dusk, and had taken him home, helped him clean up, and

turned over his bed to him while he slept on the earthen floor. That one yonder

had restored the self-respect of a poor neighbor by setting him up in a new

suit of clothes. This one had visited a poor debtor pining in prison and

brought him food and human comfort in his hopelessness. They all thought they

had done it for folks, for dusty, sweaty, tired, discouraged individuals. But

Jesus says: “Oh, no, ye did it unto me. My life is so identified with my

brethren that when ye fed and clothed them, ye fed and clothed me. God is

living in these worn human bodies. When ye comforted them, ye comforted God.”