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Matthew 25:31-46
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, sheep or goat?” Then 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 that. It’s complicated. Let me bewilder you for a minute.
Jesus is very clear here in saying that we will be held accountable for how we treat “the least of these” in this world for, as far as he is concerned, they are the same as Jesus himself. If 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 am inescapably a goat. In truth, every one of us here is a goat. For sure, we have our good moments. But overall, we’re goats.
Here's how the evidence stacks up against us? There are still people in the world who are not just hungry. It’s worse than that. There are people dying of hunger at the rate of 1 every 3 seconds. War being the root cause. 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. Already this year almost 800,000 people have died due to water related diseases. 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) remains the worst it has ever been. Again, war is the root cause. 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 way 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 that wealthy areas have really good medical care while poor places and poor people get little to 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.
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? It just seems to be the way they are. It’s their nature and that’s problematic and raises a question: Does God create some people to be merciful and others not to be? That sounds like old school Double Predestination, that God created some for Heaven and some for Hell. According to that doctrine, you could be the most faithful disciple of Jesus there ever was and still go to Hell because an all-powerful and all-knowing God predestined it. Presbyterianism dabbled in that for a few centuries but we finally denounced it back in 1904.
The problem with the Sheep and Goat thing is that we reduce it to being simply a matter of me the individual. Seeing to the proper care and dignity of “the least of these” doesn’t boil down to simply being each of our individual responsibilities. Let me try to explain. I can sell everything I have and give it to the poor to the extent that I am living under a bridge sharing my blanket and any meal I can muster with my homeless friends, but the problem wouldn’t be solved. In fact, my extreme acts of sheeping only added one more to the “least of these”. Caring for the “least of these” is a collective responsibility. It’s like recycling. If recycling is just a matter of me being responsible to recycle every piece of plastic that comes into my life, I just wind up with a huge pile of unusable plastic in my backyard. There needs to be a community-wide means of collecting it. And most importantly, there needs to be legislation restricting the production and use of plastic. Carbon emissions only get reduced when nations pass laws to limit them. There is national responsibility here.
Returning to the Parable and your Greek lesson for the day. Verse 32 says: All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them from each other like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” It’s the nations that get separated one from another. Nearly every Bible translation since the 1980’s and likely since the 60’s has been translated adding the word “people” which isn’t there in the Greek – “He will separate the people one from another.” The Greek does not say that. The judging is between nation from nation. Jesus will hold each nation accountable for how it has cared for the “least of these.”
In this world there are Goat nations and there are Sheep nations. What do Goat nations look like? They spend exponentially more money on the war industry and waging war. Globally speaking, war is the main cause of hunger, thirst, nakedness, and refugees. Goat governments are swamped with corruption. Their elected officials come from among the wealthy and thus do not understand the day to day needs of “the least of these”. They pass laws that protect the interests of the wealthy. Healthcare is a commodity for those who can afford it rather than a basic right. Obesity is endemic. Goat nations act like international bullies. The refugees the Goats create are not welcome among the Goats particularly if their skin is of a different colour. There is usually an indigenous people within Goat nation borders being sequestered or outright erased from history. There are Goat nations and they will face judgement. Every empire falls.
What do Sheep nations look like? Minimal money resources are spent on the war industry. Indeed, the biggest difference between the Goat and Sheep nations is the amount of their defence/war budgets. Healthcare is universal. Education all the way through university is affordable without accruing debt if not free. There is a minimum income provided or at least a livable minimum wage. Housing is affordable. The streets are safe and clean. There are nations like this on earth: Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway. They were among the top ten nations in this year’s World Happiness report.
This being Remembrance Sunday, we take time to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in wars fought to protect our nation, indeed the world, from Goat nations trying to build empires. We need also to remember that war is the main global cause of the circumstances that create poverty, hunger, thirst, homelessness – the situations under which “the least of these” subsist. For the lives lost in war to truly not be in vain, we the people must aspire together to be a Sheep nation. When we practice our right of peaceful revolution otherwise known as voting we should consider putting people into power who truly have a heart for “the least of these”. If it is the case that in times of war soldiers abide by the heroic mandate that no one is left behind, then free citizens in free nations should make it a point that no human being anywhere is left behind. Amen.
