I mention that it's a Biblical term because that has made me wary of writing this post. It's hard to say "We should stop saying this phrase" when Jesus used it and it's recorded by Matthew. Yet I believe the phrase is overused and used to mean something that Jesus didn't. We use the term to refer almost exclusively to the materially poor and disadvantaged. I've written before about how one of the foremost disadvantages of the poor is a broken identity, but we continue to damage the poor's identities by calling them "the least!" The tale is told of the youth group that wears t-shirts about "serving the least of these" while on a mission trip. The recipients of such service, no doubt, would not be spiritually inspired if they could read the shirts.
What then did Jesus mean when he talked about "the least" anyways? Sometimes I find it helpful to set aside deep study of the Scripture and return to what I call a "casual read." If I simply read the passage like I might read a novel, what does it plainly say? This can be a helpful tool when you miss the forest for the trees. A casual read of Matthew 25 makes me think, based on the pronouns, that the use of this phrase hinges on a misreading. We tend to attribute "the least" to the list of disadvantaged people in the passage, but what if "these" was the intention? Then Jesus would be making a hyperbole by saying, "If you serve the least of all these poor and imprisoned folks, you're serving me." A very different reading!
The Bible talks elsewhere about "the least." In Matthew 5, Jesus defines "the least in the Kingdom of Heaven" - it's people who ignore parts of the law. Paul, in 1 Timothy 1, calls himself the worst by saying that he is the chief of sinners and God's grace redeemed him. Scripture would hardly tend to define the materially poor, the disadvantaged, the imprisoned, or the alien as "the least." In fact, Scripture tends to express a preference for such people! When we identify these folks as "the least," we are building an impasse between us and them, by inference saying that we are not the least. This is clearly contrary to what Scripture teaches. Let's agree together to stop making this distinction and instead think of Jesus as making an extreme statement: "Imagine the least desirable type of people to be around. Now think of the very 'least' of these. Go and serve that person."
Mt. 25:40 adds another phrase right after "the least of these;" Jesus helps identify these by adding "my brothers (and sisters)." If the least of these are "brothers" and "sisters" of Jesus, that helps give them more dignity. For earlier in Matthew (12:49-50), Jesus said his disciples who do the will of his Father in heaven are his brothers and sisters. In Mt. 10 Jesus sent these disciples out on mission, telling them not to take any money or food with them but to depend on the hospitality of those to whom they went. Those that received them into their homes would be also the ones receiving their mission and message, and thus receiving Jesus (Mt. 10:40). Even one who gave one of these "little ones" a cup of cold water because he (the little one) was a disciple, would not lose his reward (10:42). Thus Mt. 25:31ff. is about the final judgment, after Jesus' "brothers" have gone out on mission to all the nations, who are judged according to how they received and welcomed (or not) the least of these his brothers. To receive one of them was to receive Jesus and become a "sheep;" not to receive or help one of these brothers was to reject Jesus and become a "goat."
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