Readings for November 26th

Here’s something that might sound crazy: I love this parable of the Last Judgment—I love it because it so beautifully ties together everything we’ve been learning about Jesus and his teaching and his way of life and his saving grace as we’ve been reading through Matthew this summer and fall. I frequently tell you that parables are supposed to give us some unexpected, shocking insight; they’re supposed to turn our default understanding on its head and open our eyes to God’s surprising, unimaginable kingdom based on the gifts of forgiveness, acceptance, and love rather than power and retribution. Where’s the surprise in this story, though? The good sheep go to heaven, right, and the bad goats end up in hell. Nothing surprising there, especially since, of course, we’re the good sheep…

Let’s talk about sheep and goats. In Jesus’ day, shepherds included both sheep and goats in their flocks, grazing together. Separating them was a common thing: at night, the goats, who don’t have the thick wool of the sheep, would be separated out so they could be put into a warmer place. Jewish law allowed either a goat or a sheep to be used for the Passover meal. There’s nothing, really, from the shepherd’s viewpoint that makes sheep and goats different from each other. Back in chapter 13 of Matthew Jesus had a parable about the wheat and the weeds growing together in the field—he said, “You don’t want to uproot the wheat by pulling out the weeds—so wait until they are gathered.” And then he said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a fishing net that was thrown into the water and caught fish of every kind. When the net was full, they dragged it up onto the shore, sat down, and sorted the good fish into crates, but threw the bad ones away.” The point is not a simplistic “sheep good, goats bad; wheat good, weeds bad,” thing. The point is, as Jesus says in chapter 5 of Matthew, “God sends rain and sun on good and bad alike.” Wheat and weeds grow in the same field; sheep and goats are both cared for by the shepherd. It’s only at the end—at the harvest, at the drawing in of the net, at the return of Christ the King sitting on his throne of glory, that a distinction can be made—and making that judgment between them belongs to the King, not to us. As I like to tell people, that decision about who’s in and who’s out is way above our pay grade.

Over and over again in his stories, Jesus tries to hammer home the point that it is NOT goodness and badness that determine entrance into the Kingdom of God. In his story, the joyful father runs to greet his Prodigal Son who’s coming home not because he’s suddenly reformed, but simply because he’s hungry and cold and he trusts in his father’s care. In one of the many parables about feasting, the king proclaims, “Gather everyone from the streets, good and bad together, and bring them into my banquet.” Every one of Jesus’ disciples abandoned him at the Cross. The rock of the church, Peter, denied Jesus three times. It is not goodness and badness that determine entrance into the Kingdom of God because, as St. Paul says in Romans 3, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” If it were about goodness and badness, I’m afraid we’re all weeds and goats. None of us gets what we deserve—that’s the truth, and the scandal, of forgiveness and grace. SO…I take back what I said a minute ago: it’s not that making the judgment call about who’s bad and who’s good is above our pay grade—it’s that none of us even deserves to be paid at all. And yet, Jesus says over and over again, the kingdom of heaven is like when those who don’t deserve to be paid are given an uncountable fortune as a gift. This is a gift of abundant grace, Jesus says—not earned in any way, but just accepted—a gift that takes only a response of trust and thanks and joy.

This last Sunday before Advent and the beginning of a new liturgical year is Christ the King Sunday. Jesus’ stories the past few weeks have all been about his surprising, upside-down kingdom and the surprising, upside-down kind of king he is. So many times Jesus proclaims his kingdom that works only in the last, the lost, the least, and the little. “Come, you that are blessed by my Father,” the King says to those on his right hand, “and inherit the kingdom…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” And the righteous scratch their heads and say to him, “Ummm…excuse us, your highness, but when exactly was that?”

The righteous looked at Jesus and said, “We didn’t know what we were doing—It just seemed like the thing to do.” It turns out those entering into the kingdom on that day of judgment are those who have been living in one of its suburbs all along. They have been in a relationship with Jesus all along because it turns out what that relationship with him means is meeting the needs of others in very simple, tender, undramatic ways—and that is enough. The righteous are surprised to realize they had cared for the King of all creation—when all they had been doing was simply sharing themselves and sharing what they had been freely given, without any calculation or expectation of reward. And the unrighteous are similarly shocked to discover that they missed opportunities to show love to their King—“If we had only known,” they say, “if we had only seen, that God was in our midst, then we would have done the right thing. If we had only known, we would have tried to earn it.” But the mystery is, it can’t be earned—it can only lived, day in and day out.

I have three important take-aways for you. The first: God is not some remote old guy with a long beard on a throne in the clouds—that’s Zeus, or maybe Thor. God is here, in the muck of our human lives. In the Christmas story coming up soon, we hear how the creator of the universe is here, not as a Marvel superhero, but as a helpless baby in a manger. Today we heard Jesus say God is here right now, in those who need us. We see the face of God in the faces of the vulnerable, the weak, the children, the homeless, and the immigrant.

The second: as much as we’ve fought and killed over whose doctrine is true and whose is false—fought and killed over who’s in and who’s out, over a long list of issues about which Jesus had absolutely nothing to say, the truth is, what Jesus did say is, “What you do to one of the least of these members of my family, you do to me.” Presbyterian John Buchanan, whom I quoted last week, says this about today’s reading: “Students of the New Testament know that the only description of the last judgment is here in Matthew 25. There is nothing in it about [correct] religious practices. There is not a word in this passage about theology, creeds, orthodoxies. There is only one criterion here, and that is whether or not you saw Jesus Christ in the face of the needy and whether or not you gave yourself away in love in his name.”

This leads into the third: In the words of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” God wants us to be in a deep, personal, loving relationship—with God, and with each other. In Jesus, God redeems us and hands us the gift of true, abundant life. God wants to save us by teaching us to see and care for each other. God wants to save us from ourselves by teaching us to look out for others. God wants us to know that to love is to live—and nothing else is—just to love. To love, to give, to sacrifice: that’s the surprising, unexpected thing that Christ our King did, and on judgment day that’s what those who live in his kingdom will have done. In the words of one of my favorite hymns: “The King of Love my shepherd is, whose goodness faileth never. I nothing lack if I am his, and he is mine forever.” Amen.