Not everything (not even most of the things) I read in preparation for the sermon make it to the pulpit. Here’s a great comment on Matthew 25:31-46 that didn’t make it into the sermon:

Feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers, and visiting the sick are mundane acts. In this sense ‘virtue is not far from us, nor is it without ourselves, but it is within us, and is easy if only we are willing’ (Anthony the Great). The Son of Man does not demand supernatural feats but simple, unobtrusive charity. The former but not the latter can easily be counterfeited (24:24). Charity [Christian love] is accordingly the true test of faith. [1]

[1] Rene Kieffer, “Matthew,” in The Oxford Bible Commentary, ed. John Barton and John Muddiman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 879.