The Sheep and the Goats
Back when my wife and I were newly married, we had some friends in college that we absolutely loved playing board games with. We all attended college together and lived in the married student housing. We’d spend evenings at their house playing games, and numerous times each month we’d gather together at the local coffee shop to play board games in their back room. It was a great time, some of the best memories that I have from college.
As with all good things, that time came to an end. We all graduated and moved on with our lives. These friends moved home to Indianapolis. However, one unforeseen benefit was that every year a large gaming conference is held in Indianapolis called GenCon. Board game and video game manufacturers set up their booths, and the diehard fans spend days on end playing games. We’ve had the opportunity on a few occasions to make the trip out to Indianapolis to attend GenCon.
Having grown up in a small town, I was amazed at how busy Indianapolis was. Parking was near impossible to find, and when you walked down the street you were constantly surrounded by people. It was the first time that I’d actually seen people panhandling on the street corner. This was a new experience for me
When we moved to Colorado Springs, we once again found ourselves in another big city, and again, panhandling was rampant. The city had tried to put laws in place to reduce the amount of panhandling, but you could always find people standing on the street corner with signs saying things like, “Will Work For Food” or “Any Little Bit Helps.” One guy, I have to give him credit, had a sign that read, “I Bet You Can’t Hit Me With a Quarter.” But as we’d drive by or get stopped at a stop light with one of them standing next to us, I’ll admit that I would avert my eyes and not look at them. I’d pretend I didn’t see them. I’d turn down the Christian radio station that I was listening to, so that maybe I wouldn’t feel quite as guilty.
Of course I’d justify it to myself. I’d tell myself that these people would leave this corner and go climb into their nice cars and drive away. I’d tell myself that if I gave them money they’d simply go out and spend it on alcohol or drugs. But no matter how much I told myself that, there was always that feeling deep down that I was ignoring somebody in need.
A few months back there was a lot of discussion, there still is to some extent, about allowing Syrian refugees to come into the country. This whole topic seemed to be a divisive topic among conservatives. The liberals all seemed to be in agreement that we needed to allow these people into the country, but conservatives seemed to be polarized. Nowhere did this discussion become more polarizing than on social media. I’d see Christian friends nearly at each other’s throats because one of them posted a meme indicating their support or opposition to these refugees.
I try to stay out of social media debates like those. As 2 Timothy 2:23 says, they just lead to more fighting There is very little chance that I’m going to change their mind. What’s more likely to happen is that we’ll get into this big heated discussion, my stress level will go through the ceiling, and eventually we will just stop talking to each other. However, on occasion, while reading things like this, I’ll feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit that I need to say something. In situations like this, I find it amazing how God works in your life to prepare you for just those conversations. I had one such encounter with a person on Facebook, and God brought to mind Matthew 25:31-46 which I’d been reading only a couple of days earlier.
Reading through this passage, the overarching message is obvious. God has called us to do these things that separated the sheep from the goats, feeding the hungry, taking in the stranger, and visiting the sick, but I want to take some time to dig a little deeper into this passage.
In some of your Bibles, and even in some of the scholarly writings, this passage is referred to as “The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.” However, the definition of a parable is that of a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. Each person or object within a parable represents someone or something else. Yet here, Jesus is pretty straight forward. In fact, if we look back at the scripture before this passage, if you have a red-letter Bible that puts Jesus’ words in red, we see that this passage is at the end of a very long dialogue by Jesus. If we follow it to the beginning, we come to Matthew 24:3. Here we see the disciples asking Jesus, “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” This is the question that sparks this long dialogue by Jesus that stretches through the rest of Matthew 24 and all the way through Matthew 25. He explains to them the signs leading up to the destruction of the temple as well as what it will be like when he returns. Then we come to this passage, and unlike the parables before it, it doesn’t start, “the kingdom of heaven will be like…” Up to this point Jesus was answering their question, “this is what it’s going to be like leading up to my return,” but now he’s taking it a step farther and tells them, “When I come again… When the Son of Man comes in his glory… He will separate the people just like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”
Jesus says to the righteous ones, “Come take your inheritance… For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” This shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us. Being in the church and looking at the life of Jesus, we know that this is how we are to act. We know that this is the type of person that each of us has been called to be, but I find the response of the people interesting. They seem completely dumbfounded by Jesus’ claims to their generosity. Jesus explains to them, “When you did this for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.”
When we read passages like this, I hope that you feel that little tug on your heart as the Holy Spirit convicts you about this. I hope that reading Jesus’ words about helping the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the sick, or the imprisoned spurs you on to make changes in your life and to intentionally minister to these people, but that’s not where these righteous people were. When Jesus said this, they didn’t respond, “Oh yes, we took care of all of these people, because we knew it would honor you.” Instead, they were completely baffled.
While they had been doing all these things, they hadn’t been doing it because they knew it would get them the label of “righteous” at the final judgement. Whenever I read passages such as this, my mind always goes back to God’s grace. We in the Church of the Nazarene have, on occasion, been labelled as legalistic. We’ve been grouped with those churches that preach a works based salvation. It’s the idea that you’ve been a good person and therefore earn salvation. However, that description of the Church of the Nazarene couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Just so there is no mistake, Jesus Christ paid the price for sin. It is only through his sacrifice that we receive salvation. However, we also can’t ignore passages such as this that clearly indicate that the righteous and unrighteous were sorted based upon their compassion and generosity. These righteous people were baffled by Jesus’ comments, not because they hadn’t been generous or charitable, but because they didn’t realize they’d been charitable to Jesus.
Many times we can do the right thing for the wrong reason. I have to believe that, in light of everything else the Bible says, on that day of judgement there will be generous and charitable people standing to Jesus’ left with the unrighteous because refused to accept Christ’s offer of salvation. There will be people standing there that have given money to the Red Cross and have given money to panhandlers. In addition, there will also be people on the left that claim Jesus Christ as Lord but that didn’t help the hungry, thirsty, homeless, and stranger.
The people on the right were baffled because they didn’t know they’d been doing these things for Jesus. They didn’t set out to take care of the poor because they knew it would earn them brownie points. They had chosen to enter into this relationship with Jesus, and generosity and charity were a natural byproduct of that. They helped their neighbor because they saw they were in need and were able to help. The question is, does your love for Jesus compel you to help, not because it’ll get you a shiny crown in heaven or it’s the admission fee to enter the pearly gates, but because your love for Christ compels you to show that love to others, his brother and sisters?
When you see that person on the street corner, do you see them as a child of God? Do you see them as a neighbor in need of help? When you see these refugees fleeing certain death in their own country or men and women coming to your city in search of work, do you see them as homeless, as a stranger, and invite them in or do you shut them out? Do you say, we don’t want them in our country, we don’t want them in our city?
Granted, we need to protect ourselves. We need to make sure that our children and our families are safe, but are we using that as an excuse to do nothing? Are we really going to stand at the judgement seat and tell Jesus, “I didn’t invite the stranger in because there was a tiny chance that they might, maybe, try to hurt me.” Jesus would likely respond, “I welcomed everybody, and they beat and killed me.” Are we going to tell Jesus, “I didn’t feed the hungry or clothe the naked, because I thought they might trade what I gave them for drugs or alcohol.” Our job is not to determine who is deserving of our help. Our job is to take care of the least of these brothers of Christ.
One of the things that I love about the Church of the Nazarene is our generosity. We have Alabaster offering where the money goes solely to the building of new churches in areas where they can’t afford it. We have compassionate ministries and child sponsorship. We have opportunities within the church to show the love of Christ to others.
More than a parable, this passage speaks of a time to come. It doesn’t take a Bible scholar to figure out what it’s saying, and the question that it poses is equally as simple. On that day of judgement, will you be a sheep or a goat? Will you be at Jesus’ right hand and hear him say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance,” or will you be on the left and hear the words, “Depart from me, you who are cursed?” Which side do you want to be on? The answer to that question is determined by how you live your life today.