Sheep and goats; knowing and not knowing

Matthew  25:31-46

            This was the first scripture I ever preached on here at Grace and Red River, and I’m happy to report, in spite of the rumors flying apparently making the rounds in the community, this will most definitely not be my last. No, we’re not going anywhere, so if you’ve heard that one, feel free to go back to the source and correct them. I’ve got far too many adventure race ideas to leave anytime soon.

            But back on the subject of this scripture, this is really a tough one. I mean, on the one hand, we should obviously be treating everybody who is hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison as if they are Jesus himself. This is good. Go do it. Still, I don’t know what Jesus is up to here, because the moral of the story seems to be: Do good and that’s how you’ll earn eternal life, which runs contrary to everything else we’ve been taught—that it’s not about works; it’s about faith. And if it’s about works, then how will we ever know if we are sheep or goats?

            This is where it gets kind of interesting. In this parable, the sheep don’t know they are sheep and the goats know they are goats. Everybody is confused. At first, that doesn’t fill me with confidence. Not only does Jesus suggest salvation is about something different than he’s been suggesting all along, but now it also comes to people who don’t know on which side of the fence they stand. This is not comforting.

            But, then, there is this matter of the sheep and the goats, and I wonder if Matthew’s Gospel hasn’t been preparing us for this all along. This is the last parable. And it’s our inclination to make the last parable the most important, but perhaps that’s not quite it. Perhaps this parable is simply the reminder that all that stuff about faith and grace, which matters so much, doesn’t change who we are or how we are to act. Most of all, perhaps this is a reminder that we haven’t got God figured out, not even a little.

I think the problem we have with this parable is that we are such good theologians—even those of us who don’t see ourselves that way. All I mean by this is that all of us want a coherent view of God. We prefer the God who is simple and approachable to the one who is magnificent and scary. It is human nature to want everything to be neatly packaged and consistent. We want to take God, make God something we like, and put God in our pocket for times of need. Saved by grace through faith, we say, as if that explains it all. Do good and God will take care of the rest, we say, as if that isn’t contradictory to the first point. The truth is more complicated. God will not be boxed in. God is the God of the Old Testament, the fathering God, the creating mothering God, but not only those things. And God is Jesus, but not only Jesus. And God is the Holy Spirit, but not only the Holy Spirit. God is revealed to us in the Bible, but not only in the Bible. God shows God’s self to us in the world, but not only in the world. God is into faith, but not only faith; and works, but not only works.

We know God in part but never in whole. That’s why, immediately after this parable, we killed Jesus. The truth is we don’t actually like the real God too much. It’s far easier to imagine what we like about God, make that the God we worship, and forget about all the stuff that challenges us. Before long, God loves the people we love and hates the people we hate. Before long, we are spewing hate in the name of this God who we say we know in love. Before long, we honestly believe we have this sheep and goats thing figured out. We know where everybody stands and most of all ourselves. But it’s all a façade.

After all, the sheep didn’t know they were sheep, and the goats didn’t know they were goats. And that’s just the thing: If the sheep didn’t know they were sheep, and the goats didn’t know they were goats, then what possible chance do we have to figure out God with our little heads? This sheep and goat business assures us that we will fail to live up to Jesus’ standards. We will fail to see God in the poor and in the imprisoned, and there are 2.1 million imprisoned in this country—more people than the population of both the Dakotas and Wyoming combined.

But we will also fail at faith, because we will make that into something we do as well. We will make it a measured thing, comparing ourselves with others. We will see ourselves as sheep or goats, and we will be confused when Jesus tells us how it is. We will question God but never ourselves.

We’ve been reading weeks of Matthew’s parables, and I think, in the end, the purpose of these parables is to remind us that we don’t understand a single thing. We’re not that smart. None of us. That doesn’t sound like good news at first, but hold on a minute. We are so far below God that the best we can ever do is find hints. I’ve found that the problem with these parables, practically speaking, is that the idiots will use them as weapons against the just, and the tyrants will claim authority reserved for the meek. And here we are. These are parables that seem, on the surface, to reinforce the status quo. And, yet, I keep coming back to those sheep and goats. The sheep didn’t know they were sheep, and the goats didn’t know they were goats.

If that’s the case—really, truly, the case—then we might as well do as Jesus suggests after all. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners—all that and more—not because we are doing it to prove our righteousness, because, at the end of the day, this parable is telling us we can’t know, won’t know, will never know what we are. Rather, we do all this because, since we can’t know, we might as well just go about caring for one another. We err on the side of love every day, because that’s who we are!

These parables at the end of Matthew’s Gospel are hard because they at first appear rather black-and-white, then they become gray, but as Lent turns toward Holy Week, we may begin to see that what we took for gray is something different. These parables open the door to Easter morning, begging us to consider something bigger and wider than our expectations. What was gray becomes a kaleidoscope of color. The God who was unknown becomes known—not fully but personally, viscerally. And what felt like the weight of the law becomes the freedom of the Gospel. Not because you know you are a sheep, but because you know who is the Shepherd. Ultimately, that’s all you have to know.