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This passage reminds me of an old Sunday School song. Maybe you folks know it. Let’s give it a shot. It goes:
I just wanna be a sheep. Baa, baa, baa, baa
I just wanna be a sheep . Baa, baa, baa, baa
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
I just wanna be a sheep. Baa, baa, baa, baa
I don’t wanna be a goat, nope. I don’t wanna be a goat, nope
Haven’t got any hope, nope. I don’t wanna be a goat, nope
I just wanna be a sheep. Baa, baa, baa, baa
I just wanna be a sheep . Baa, baa, baa, baa
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
I just wanna be a sheep. Baa, baa, baa, baa
Well, that out of the system, I could just ask you which are you, a sheep or a goat, call it a sermon, and we’re done. But that’s too easy and, believe it or not, this parable isn’t as straightforward as it seems. It’s complicated. Let me bewilder you for a minute.
If, as the parable says, history ends with Jesus coming back and judging between those who have or have not shown mercy to him by showing it to the “least of these”, well then, I’m a goat. In truth, every one of us here is a goat. We have our good moments for sure, but overall, we’re goats. How do we know? There are still people in the world who are not just hungry, but worse. They are dying of hunger. There are people dying of thirst, due to not having a well or some source of clean water in their village – a problem easily fixable. Clothing the naked? A good deal of the inexpensive clothing that we wear is made in a sweatshop somewhere in Southeast Asia by people who only have the clothes on their back. Welcoming the stranger? The refugee situation in the world today (that’s this very day) is the worst it has ever been. Who’s going to welcome them? Visiting the prisoner? We tend to view prisoners as criminals getting what they deserve. I was exposed to prison ministry in seminary. From what I saw, prison contributes more to the problem than it does to the solution. There’s very little compassion and a whole lot of dehumanization. Caring for the sick? Well, we try but it’s painfully obvious the wealthy areas have really good medical care while poor places and people get nothing.
We are all participants in and contributors to the problems that perpetuate the harsh reality of there being people who are the “least of these” in this world. Sadly, we as individuals do little to nothing about it. We’re all goats. Those whom Jesus could or would call sheep are few and far between.
So, there you have it. Whether we mean to be or not, we’re all goats. We can come up with thousands of excuses in an effort to shirk this basic human responsibility that we have to show mercy to “the least of these”. We can blame the governments that ourselves we elect. Blame the corruption in foreign governments as if it didn’t exist in our own. Most frequently, we just blame the victim. We can say we don’t have time or we don’t have the money or we just don’t know what to do.
But, guess what? The quick, easy test for how to tell if we’re goats is the fact that we make excuses in an effort to rationalize our neglect of the “least of these” and to self-justify in order to escape our guilty consciences. In the parable, the goats do this rationalizing and self-justifying by blaming Jesus for hiding himself. They make Jesus, God, their excuse for not caring for the least of these. “If we had known that what we did or didn’t do for the “least of these” was done or not done to you, Lord, then we’d have been all over it. But we didn’t know because you hid himself and it led to our neglecting the “least of these”.” That’s pretty lame. It’s like saying, “God, it’s your fault I’m the selfish jerk that I am.”
The sheep are the polar opposite. They didn’t know they had something to gain by tending to the needs of the “least of these”. Their motivations for showing mercy were unselfish, not motivated by some sort of eternal personal gain. It’s just the way they are. It seems the sheep are merciful, compassionate simply because that’s the way they are. It’s their nature.
Well, if the reason the sheep are the way they are is that that’s just the way they are, well then, the case could be made that that’s the way God made them. And here we’ve got another problem. If the sheep are sheep and the goats are goats because that’s the way God made them, then we’re dealing with a huge theological problem called double predestination which was disavowed by the Presbyterian Church in 1904.
Predestination by itself is problematic enough without having to double it. Predestination deals with the question of why some people come and follow Jesus and others just don’t. Predestination says that God predetermined before creation who would and who would not be saved. Those predetermined – predestined – for salvation are called the “elect” or the “chosen”. There’s no room for personal decision. In fact, they say sin has corrupted our decision-making capacity to the extent that there no longer is anything we could call free will. That’s the Doctrine of Total Depravity. So, we can’t of our own free will decide to follow Jesus. We must chosen, predestined by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so.
Predestination is problematic. The language of chosen is scriptural. Personally, I feel like God chose me and has been at work my whole life to draw me to himself and it’s been an irresistible pull. But to say God chose me to be saved and decided not to choose somebody else is a bit further than I’m willing to go and I think it’s also a misunderstanding of what the Bible says. If one carries predestination to logical rather than scriptural conclusions, one could argue that if you are not chosen, well, you can try your best to be a sheep and even be more sheep-like than those whom God has chosen but still not be one of the chosen and thus still damned to the fate of the goats. So also, you can be the biggest goat there ever was, but because you’ve been chosen, you’re really a sheep. You’ll still go to Heaven, but you’ll probably be working in the sewage treatment plant. That’s assuming people will still have bodily functions.
Double Predestination is even more troubling. It goes one step further than just saying all are damned yet God has chosen some to be saved. Double predestination says God created some to be saved, sheep, but he also created some to be damned, goats. Basically, God apparently created the majority of humanity so that he could destroy us in Hell. That sort of thinking needs to be reined in. 1 Timothy 2:4 says that “God our Saviour desires for everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” If it’s God’s desire that everyone be saved, then why would he predetermine that some would not be saved and more so, why would he create some for the specific purpose of watching them burn? I hope you feeling the bewilderment by now.
Well, let’s now throw the Gospel into the equation which is not spoken of in the parable. This Gospel says “Well, let’s just admit that sin has made us all goats, even the Mother Teresa’s among us. There are no longer any sheep. We all deserve the punishment reserved for the goats. But, God in his infinite love for us has made it so that we can yet be saved. God the Son became human as Jesus and on our behalf, he lived the faithful life we are unable to live, died the death we deserve, but because he was innocent God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand from whence we await his return. By making the personal decision to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and then living faithfully as his disciples from here on out we have the new way to be sheep. Moreover, God gives us the Holy Spirit who works in us to heal and transform us to be more and more like him and also through us to heal and transform the world by showing mercy to the “least of these” while being a living witness to the goats of what this so very hidden God expects of them and the new and living way God has made available to them. By the grace of God, it’s now again possible to be a sheep. We may fail miserably, but in Christ we are sired anew or born anew to be sheep.
But grace is not cheap. If we are going to follow Jesus, then we must follow him. Just saying I believe in him isn’t enough. Faith without works is dead. We who profess to be his disciples, more so than anybody else, must be the flock of mercy. If we are sired anew, born anew sheep, then we must be sheep and above all else tend to the needs of the “least of these” among whom our Lord is hidden and abiding. Unfortunately, the church has a track record of behaving like goats. We’ve been overly concerned with trying to get people to join our Jesus Club, with being the morality police, with being the right beliefs police, with trying to rule the world of politics, with everything but showing mercy to the “least of these”. If showing compassion to the “least of these is the way we the followers of Jesus are to show our love for him, we’ve largely blown it.
But as I said earlier, the proclamation of the Gospel is not part of the parable. Jesus doesn’t mention it as the means to become a sheep. That parable would indicate that sheep are sheep and goats are goats and that’s the way things are. The parable simply says that Jesus will come back and judge between the sheep and the goats on the basis of how we showed mercy, loving kindness to the “least of these” and thus to him. Jesus is the crux of human history and existence. Everyone will answer to him. He will return and hold us each accountable for how we have or have not shown mercy to the “least of these” and thus to him. Whether we follow him or not, we must still give account for how we have or have not fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, took care of the sick, and visited the prisoner. I don’t know about you, but I want to be a sheep and yet I’ve got a lot work to do. Amen.
