TWO QUESTIONS, TWO ANSWERS
Matthew 25: 31-46
What a scene! What a magnificent scene! The King of heaven and earth on his throne, billions and billions of angels surrounding him, the nations at his feet. We believed, we hoped, we knew all along that the lowly Son of man is the King of kings. And now we see! Faith has become sight. No more ambiguity now! The Judge of the universe is separating the people of the world: sheep on the right, goats on the left We knew it! We knew all along that we were on the right side of the great divide. In fact we had already done a little sorting ourselves in anticipation of this final revelation of the antithesis, between the people of the world and the people of God: that's a sheep and that's a goat. And now it's there for all to see. What a victory celebration for the Lord of lords! And for us! What an awesome sight! Let's celebrate!! That's the mood this passage evokes in us at first blush.
But perhaps we are not reading this passage right. Maybe our desire to celebrate is premature. Maybe it is not appropriate for us to be so triumphant, now. Two little words in this passage tell me that it is not yet time to celebrate.
Those two little words are 'when' and 'then'. When the Son of mankind...(31) and Then the King will say to those...(34). These two little words reoccur in this passage again and again with different meanings and they tie the texts of this passage together and they tell us that a victory celebration is still a long way off and that the deliberate sorting of people into two camps is a thing of the future.
Chapter 24, which is the context for our passage this morning, makes the same point. From this chapter it is clear that the events Jesus is talking about will happen 'at the end of the age', on the Judgment day.
So, not yet. Our celebration is premature. We still live in 'the day of grace', in the time of the wheat and the tares. The language of our text is eschatological. When...then, not today. Now is the time, not of the triumphant Jesus, but of the long-suffering Jesus. Today Jesus puts up with a lot of our sin and suffers long because He finds no joy in the death of the wicked. He does not want anyone of us to perish. As a result it is not at all clear, today, who are the good guys and who the bad guys, who are sheep and who goats. If we were to look for them, we might find sheep in the most unexpected places. They may be people who have left our church because they found it less than neighbourly. Who knows right now? It's not clear. Too early to tell.
What this passage is absolutely clear about, however, is the way in which we should live our lives today, what we should be doing now. And this is another reason why our celebration is pre-mature. Today is not a time for celebration because there is still a lot of work to do, a lot of good deeds to perform. And this passage is crystal clear about what these good deeds are, crystal clear about what is the Christian thing to do, now.
I tell you the truth, says Jesus, literally Amen! to be a Christian today, before the end of time is to feed the hungry, give the thirsty to drink, to welcome the stranger, to clothe the naked, to look after the sick and to visit prisoners. There is no ambiguity about that. You find the same clarity of direction in Micah 6:8: What does the Lord require of you? To do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. And in James 1:27: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. These are the things that make up a Christian life style for you and me, today. that's what human life now is all about.
Central to the biblical image of human life is the concept of neighbourliness. To be a real human being, biblically speaking, and to be a practicing Christian, is to be a neighbour, especially to the down-and-out. I say that this image is central to the bible's view of human life. It is not something we also do. It is what we are. What God created us for, what we were meant to be, is to be neighbours. If we are not a neighbour to others we deny our humanity. Being a neighbour is also the only way in which we can image God, or be like Jesus. We were made to serve one another. Jesus Christ modeled true humanity and true Christianity for us. Though He is our King, He became our slave.
There is a pervasive stereotype in North American culture that to be human is to be an individual. And to be an individual is to be self-sufficient, self-supporting, and self-serving. To be really alive, according to this stereotype is to look out for number one, is to help yourself. There is also a strong belief that God, if He exists, helps only those who help themselves.
Well, our text of this morning says that this stereotype is a damnable lie. Human beings are not self-sufficient. We need each other to be ourselves. And the meaning of life is not to be self-serving, but to serve one another. The meaning of a full human life is to is to feed the hungry, to give the thirsty to drink, to welcome a stranger, to give your clothes to the naked, to care for sick people, and to visit prisoners, is to be a neighbour to your neighbour.
Now, we may take these words literally or interpret them in terms of our 20th Century North American affluent situation, the message is clear: we are called go out and do these things. They are good deeds and good deeds carry a lot of weight with God.
God likes people who do these good deeds. He likes them so much, that He wants them to live with Him in heaven forever at the end of times. Jesus calls people who do these good deeds 'blessed by my Father' (vs.34). In the original Greek they are called eulogaamenoi, i.e. people who are well spoken of by the Father. To these do-gooders, the sheep He says :Come! And to the others, to the good-for-nothings, to the goats, He says: Get out of my sight!
Well, what kind of a gospel do we have here then? Is the point of this passage that we can work our way into heaven? Are the good deeds we do today kind of like payments on a never ending all expense paid holiday mansion in paradise after we die? Are these deeds indulgences on our way to heaven? Can we earn our way into heaven? Is this salvation by good deeds?
Well, not quite. If we want to take this passage seriously, and do what it says, we must read all of it, especially the little words and the little phrases. Come, you who are well spoken of by my Father,...take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
Take your inheritance. An inheritance is not something you earn, but something you get if you are related to someone who died. An inheritance is a gift. You do not get it on the basis of merit, but purely because of the grace of the Giver.
You get an inheritance when someone has died. In this case it is the Son of Mankind, who is the King of heaven and earth who has died, died for the sin of the world. And His will is opened, and read, and done. It is testament time. It is New Testament time, at the end of days. A place in heaven is an inheritance for some, and not for others.
Is this the point then of this parable: God's grace is free, arbitrary, capricious? He gives to whom he will? Is it a matter of being lucky: God rolls the dice, some get the inheritance, others don't? Those who get it are the sheep, those who don't are the goats. Is that the point? No, because getting the inheritance is attendant on, if not conditional to the fact that the sheep did the good deeds, whereas the goats did not do. "Take Your inheritance for I was needy and you helped me", and " Depart from me...for I was needy and you did not help me." The ones who receive the inheritance have to be related somehow to the One who gives it.
So, what is the point of this passage? Well, the point of this passage, I think, is still to come. We find it in the two questions, which are really answers in response to the Lord, which the sheep and the goats give, in vs.37-39, and vs. 44. (read)
Structurally these two answers seem to be the same: When, Lord, did we see you....? But in terms of the direction of life these two answers reveal, they are worlds apart. There is an antithesis in these two answers, that reveals an antithesis between two ways of living, of those who do good deeds and those who don't. And it is this difference in life style which ultimately betrays a difference in attitude. And it is this difference in attitude that motivates the Lord to say "Come!" to the sheep, and "Depart from me!" to the goats.
To get at this difference we must look more closely at the answers of the sheep and the goats. Let's take the answer of the goats first. Their answer is very familiar to us. We meet it every day, and sometimes we find it in our selves. We have no trouble understanding it. In effect the goats are saying:" My goodness! When we walked past those hungry and thirsty people, when we rebuffed that stranger, when we were too busy to care for a sick neighbour, or the time we refused to talk to that guy in jail, because he had it coming to him, was that you, Lord? Was that really you? Why didn't you tell us, Lord? We would have helped you. If only we had known! Too bad we missed such a golden opportunity! Too bad!
Because it's good business, you see. It's not good business to help someone in need when she can't pay you back. Charity
does not pay, except as an income tax write-off. We all know that.
But to give aid to a beggar, who is the Lord of life and death in disguise, well, that's good business, that's a good investment, a deal of a life time. We had lots of money, the goats say. But they told us you can't take it with you when you die. If only we had spent a little of it on you, then, we would have bought ourselves a comfortable place in heaven, now. If only we had known it was you, Lord. We would have helped you as an insurance policy for life after death.
Even in their extreme condition, when faced with the Judge over life and death, the answer of the goats betrays their attitude toward life. They are goats through and through, and goats are self-centered, self-serving, envious creatures.
During the war my father kept goats. He kept them tied up in stalls standing next to each other, like cows, with a common trough in front. But my father's goats were fussy creatures. They would not eat the feed he gave them. And since they did not eat, they did not produce the milk we needed. So, my father had a problem. He solved it by lengthening the rope for each goat, so that each could reach out and steal the feed of their neighbour. And then they ate like crazy. Same feed, only it was not theirs, it was their neighbour's.
That's what goats are like. The goats want a safe place in heaven, after they die. But heaven is no place for goats. What would they do there? With their kind of attitude they would soon turn heaven into their own private hell!
We understand the answer of the goats. Their attitude is not unfamiliar to us. We meet people like that every day. And sometimes we catch ourselves being goats.
But the answer of the sheep is truly amazing, truly astonishing. Those sheep, who did help people in need, who practiced neighbourliness, they also asked the question: When, Lord, when did we see you in need and helped you? Their question expresses surprise. Did they not know that what they were doing was the Christian thing to do? Did they not do it 'as unto the Lord'? No, they didn't, and that is what makes them so endearing to the Lord.
What they are saying in effect with their question is: Good Lord, you mean to say that when we helped these people in need we did something important, something extra-ordinary, something 'religious', like praying and singing hymns and going to church, something for you? We did not think it was such a big deal. Someone needed our help, and we gave it. Isn't that natural? Isn't that normal? What's the big deal? They are artlessly good, naively so, it does not arise in them to do otherwise. And the Lord loves them. Come! he says, I know you. My Father talks about you all the time.
I had a conversation with a lady the other day. She is a Christian. She and her husband have children of their own, but some years ago they also decided to adopt several other children, children who were hard to adopt because they are handicapped. And I asked her: Tell me, why did you take on these kids? Why did you do it? And her answer was simply: Well, those kids need a home too.
Those kids need a home too. So what's the big deal? If I were to press her for a more detailed Christian reason, she would probably say: Surely, you don't need to get your theology straight before you can help someone in need?
Sheep. They are not big on theological arguments. They don't attract attention to themselves. They are hard to notice. They go about their way quietly doing good, inside the church and out. Women more often than men. All of them leaders in the Kingdom of God.
They have no ulterior motive for doing what they do. They don't do it to score browning points with the Lord. They don't do it for the good feeling of being good, they are not like the Pharisee, who says : I thank you Lord, I feel so good that I'm not like that Publican over there, not like that goat. I fast, I tithe, I pray, I'm an offspring of Abraham, a churchgoer and a Calvinist. I am good.
No, they are just responding to a need. That's all. No big deal. They are sheep. And the Lord loves them. And he wants them with Him in heaven. For always.
And now we have finally come to the Gospel, the good news embedded in this passage. It comes to us who are goats by nature, prone to be self-sufficient, self-centered and self-serving. And the good news is this. When the Lord comes to you and me, then he comes with a gift. He comes to change our heart around, to give us a new life style, a new attitude to life, so that we respond with compassion to the hunger, the thirst, the estrangement, the sickness and the awful imprisonment of our neighbours, and so that we do it naturally. No big deal.
That is God's gift of grace, that is our inheritance, that is the Kingdom of God. God's gift of grace is not that he gives us a prosperous life now, and a safe place in heaven, later. His inheritance is that He turns us from goats into sheep, now. He makes us what we were meant to be: neighbours to one another. That is what he died for. That is what is in His will, His Testament, Old and New. That is what each of us may pray for.