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A sermon presented by the Rev. Dr. Eugene C. Buie
November 20, 2005
Matthew 25:31-46
For the past two Sundays, we have been considering the revelations of Jesus regarding the kingdom of heaven and what the kingdom would be like when he returns to earth in power and great glory. First, Jesus spoke of that time using the parable of the ten virgins, five of whom were wise and five of whom were foolish. Next, Jesus spoke of that time using the parable of the talents, telling the story of a man went on a long journey, entrusting his property to three servants, and what happened when he returned. Finally, this Sunday, we hear Jesus when he is through speaking in parables and speaks plainly concerning the events of his return.
Today is the last Sunday of the church year, Christ the King Sunday. This is traditionally a day when Jesus speaks to us through the scriptures about the last day, the end and goal of time, the last event in human history, the final judgment. For at least 4,000 years, God has been telling his people that human history is going somewhere. Life is not a random journey. The events of our lives are not left to chance or accident. Certainly, we realize we have some freedom to move around, wandering to the left, meandering to the right. But always, we are moving down God’s highway toward a destination not of our making.
When I was in high school, one of my camping and fishing buddies had an old, worn out Model A Ford. We would toss our gear in the back and take off down the road to Lake Grandbury. The old wheels would wobble this way and that way, and the car would wander back and forth between the center stripe and the shoulder as we cruised along at almost 45 mph. Every once in a while, we would have to stop and blow the deposits out of the gas line, but eventually the road would take us to our destination.
That pretty much describes human life, according to the Bible this morning, and this road of life will eventually take us to the Last Day and the Judgment. [Read Matthew 25:31-33] Jesus uses two metaphors that were familiar during his time, that of God gathering his scattered flock from the nations[1] and a shepherd separating the sheep and from the goats in his flock,[2] to illustrate what would happen on that last day. The point seems to be that the people of Jesus’ flock will be gathered and separated one from another on Judgment Day, and this is where things begin to get a little dicey for us modern and enlightened Christians.
At this point, we have so much to talk about that I hardly know where to begin. For many, many generations, the very idea of a last judgment was enough to hold Western civilization in check, morally speaking. The institutional Church took full advantage of the leverage provided by the threat of the final judgment. But with the Reformation and, subsequently, the Enlightenment, things began to change. Before we get into that, however, let’s look carefully at how Jesus said he will separate or judge between the sheep and the goats.
Curiously, Jesus doesn’t say anything here about "accepting him as your Savior." Neither does he discuss "confessing your faith in him," or being "baptized," or even "repentance and forgiveness." He doesn’t mention any of those acts with which we associate church membership. Consequently, we might well begin to get the very uncomfortable feeling that all of these people, who are gathered from the nations, share something in common. They all are part of Jesus’ flock. They all are disciples of the Christ. Thus, when the final judgment is made, and Jesus separates these people one from another, one group will be on his right, the preferable position, and the other group will be on his left.
Those on his right he calls his sheep, and we note that the actions that make them his sheep are all rather mundane acts of kindness to others who have been less fortunate in life. These are not spectacular acts of charity, but rather minimal deeds of loving kindness that are found so often in rabbinic literature, like Deuteronomy 15:7-11, Isaiah 58:7-10, and Psalm 37:21. [Read Matthew 25:34-36] And, what’s more, those who perform these acts of mercy are not even conscious of doing them. Jesus must bring it to their attention. By doing these unimpressive acts of love toward others, they have unknowingly expressed their love for Jesus. Not so for the goats on Jesus’ left, who have done none of these things. [Read Matthew 25:41-43]
Now, I don’t know about you, but all of this gives me pause. For one thing, it tells me that my salvation is not just about me but, also, it is about what Jesus expects of me with regard to others…..particularly those whom Jesus considers to be the lest of these he has gathered into his family from all the nations. Another thing we might notice is that all Jesus’ sheep are expected to be aware of and responsive to the needs of others. Of course, there are those who are more needy than others, and there are those who are more able than others to give assistance. But there are no victims, and there are no victimizers, a very popular association in our time. The focus Jesus calls for is not on ourselves but on our neighbors.
If this whole matter is becoming burdensome, let me remind you that Jesus is still talking about mundane acts of kindness that should be second-nature to us, as Christians who love Jesus. These acts should come so naturally that we are not even aware of them. The difficulty for us, however, arises from the fact that, whereas Jesus was explaining the final judgment to his disciples who lived in a community-minded culture, we are reading his words and attempting to apply them in a culture where people are focused inward on themselves and understand themselves to be autonomous individuals with little or no responsibility for either others or the community. In an individualistic culture, such as we now have in North America, our first thought is not for the welfare of the community as a whole and needy people in particular but for ourselves individually. Therefore, it is more difficult for us to engage in random, mundane acts of kindness without being intentional about it. Spontaneous caring behavior no longer comes naturally for most people.
If we believe and are personally convinced that Jesus’ words are true, and that someday there will be a final judgment, we will most assuredly want to do our best to find ourselves among Jesus’ sheep. But woops…tsk!, tsk!, tsk! ….there we go again, thinking primarily about ourselves and what is best for us. As I said earlier, the Church has used this leverage for many generation, much to its disgrace. People are naturally motivated by self-preservation and gratification. It didn’t take the bishops, priests, and pastors of the Church long to figure out that, as self-appointed gatekeepers of the kingdom of God, they could control the lives of those seeking eternal membership in the kingdom through the Church. But God’s own truth has a way of asserting itself. The Reformation came along, tearing down that gate and with it the imperialism of the Church. Nevertheless, people are still motivated by self-preservation and the appeal of individualistic salvation. We remind ourselves of the great paradox of God: the one who seeks to save his or her life will lose it, and the one who seeks to lose his or her life for my sake, Jesus said, will save it.
Our self-absorption in this age becomes a real problem for us where God is concerned. We want to save our lives and be counted among the flock of the Good Shepherd, but Jesus is saying there are both sheep and goats in his flock. We must love Jesus, and to do that we also must love one another with a selfless love. We must love one another to the extent we engage in random, mundane acts of kindness without even thinking about it. Then and only then have we become the sheep of the Good Shepherd. Perhaps one reason the sheep in Jesus’ story did not know the good they had done in life was because their acts had seemed to the so small as to be inconsequential. "Lord, all I did was volunteer a couple of hours a week at the local hospital." But the King will reply, [Read Matthew 25:40].
Finally, remember this is not about you and it is not about me….it’s about the kingdom of God. We do the good that we do because it is the nature of the kingdom, a kingdom that takes form through an infinite number of small deeds, taking us toward the world that God intends for his sheep. Amen.
1 See Matthew 24:31 and John 10:14-16.
2 "All the nations will be gathered before him [Jesus], and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." (Matthew 25:33) The imagery invoked by this passage should be taken as simple and straight-forward. A shepherd would have both sheep and goats in his flock, a sheep being considered only slightly more valuable than a goat. Frederick Dale Bruner writes, "As Palestinian shepherds separated sheep form goats into separate enclosures at night, so the Shepherd Son of Man will separate the unrighteous and the righteous into separate eternities at judgment." See Ezekiel 34:17-24.