Christ Encourages Imperfect People

Matthew 25:31-46

Can we love the parables of Jesus?  Sheep and shepherds, fig trees, pigs and pearls, widows and mites.  Can we love them; can we live them?   They’re a bit like Aesop’s fables, great morality tales.  But most are not as clear, the morals not as distinct. We probably cannot live them perfectly. Some parables are a bit too open-ended, too lacking in clarity.   While some of them lack clarity today’s parable, the last of Jesus’ parables in Matthew is all too clear and thus hard to love.  Mark Twain has been attributed with this honest quote: “It is not what I don’t understand about the Bible that bothers me. It is what I do understand!” 

Today’s parable yells, it shouts unmistakably the message and witness of Jesus, his central theme, the revelation of his life that led him to the cross.  God demands we live compassionate lives of love. God demands that we deeply care when others suffer. And God is infuriated when we don’t.   God in fact wants us to live in societies that have no hidden away people, in societies where there are no children starving, in societies not bifurcated between poor and rich, housed and homeless, where some enjoy burgeoning walk-in closets and others wear only what they have on.

 On the Mount of Olives surrounded by his disciples; Jesus told this parable of judgment. He tells a story about how our lives will be audited by a Great King.   It’s tax season, and no matter how thoroughly and honestly I complete my tax return, I always worry a bit about an audit.   Audits reveal the truth and we too often just don’t want the truth made known.  

It’s terrifying to ponder a divine audit of our lives, what did we do that pleased God; what did we do that did not? Jesus means to encourage us with the threat of an audit, not to terrify us. 

Jesus was encouraging the disciples; he was encouraging them to love the message of the parable, to live it. Yes – it’s hard to feel encouraged after hearing this parable. But I cannot believe that Jesus was suggesting the disciples stop in their tracks and try to decide whether they were sheep or goats pulling up their spreadsheets of faithful behavior and comparing tallies.  I cannot believe Jesus told the parable so that the disciples could actualize themselves into sheep. I cannot believe he told this parable so centuries of Christians could then speculate over the architecture of eternal punishment or the furniture of eternal life. We are not invited to realize this parable by getting stuck in our own personal judgments of who is in and who is out, who baas and who bleats. That is the opposite of the parable’s message.  

Can we love the parables about judgment?   Who am I kidding, of course not; they terrify us a little.   They are too like the bloody Grimm’s fairy tales with horrid outcomes for horrid people.   But let’s remember that they are parables not to be taken literally.   None of us are really baaing sheep, none of us bleating goats. The bad goats are not pushed out of the judgment hall to a place of eternal punishment nor are the good sheep paraded down a gilded path to eternal life. It’s a parable. As disciples of Jesus, let’s ponder our Rabbi’s parable. What could he have meant; what could he mean?

Rabbi Jesus shared that his relationship with God was like that of a child to his Abba Father. The relationship was warm, a tie of caring love.   

With that in mind recall the Ezekiel passage read this morning (34:11-16). The mindset of the people of Israel resonated with a God who was like a nurturing and protecting shepherd. God says, “I will search for my sheep and look after them.” Abba. “I will tend them in a good pasture…they will lie down in good grazing land, they there will feed in a rich pasture.” Abba. “I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down…” Abba. “I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.” Abba cares about what we do and what we do not do.

Now imagine our God, the loving Abba Shepherd of all creation looking down upon us.  God looks concerned for all of us.   God created a world of abundant life; really there is enough in the pastures for all of us if we share. And God sees humanity disregard God’s equal care and instead we parcel up the grasses of the pasture into stockpiled hay stacks for the more powerful sheep.   We build fences around the most fertile areas and lock the grasses in with gates and create hungry sheep.    We create weapons to guard our fences protecting the privileges of a few. We build prisons in which to place those who buck the system. Too many of God’s sheep become homeless, hungry and cold.   The Abba Shepherd is angered witnessing the parceling of the pasture and the sheep. 

She threatened often enough, “Wait until your father gets home.” That was enough to change my afternoon behavior. After hitting my little brother, Terry and hearing his cries I heard, “Wait until your father gets home.”   After arguing over what television program to watch, “Wait until your father gets home.” 

After the time I caught the living room carpet on fire playing with candles, “Wait until your father gets home.” Just the idea of my mother being disappointed enough to tell my father filled me with regret. 

And then the idea of my dad’s afternoon disappointment filled me with dread.    I really knew better. I knew better than to play with the hot candle wax and the flames in the house but I did it anyway.   It wasn’t a big fire. The area of wax and melted carpet was not large. 

Jesus told the parable to threaten us with the reality that God cares about how each of us lives our lives. Jesus told the parable to reveal that God cares about how we treat each other.  The parable reveals that God really cares for all of us especially when we are mistreated by others, especially when misfortune comes our way. The parable reveals that God wants us to help each other, to witness to each other God’s love, to fall in love with all humanity too. The knowledge of God’s care for us is Jesus’ encouragement. We, imperfect as we are - are encouraged to utilize God’s very image within us to care like God. Jesus wants us to be infuriated along with God when we see injustice. We are to clothe, and shelter, and feed, and visit the imprisoned. We are to reunited the pastures.

It gets confusing in the parable. Jesus’ identity gets confused with the poor ones and the homeless and hungry ones. He says, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”   The encouragement is one of solidarity. As Christ’s followers we are encouraged to be in solidarity as Jesus is in solidarity with the poor.    The infamous American Socialist Eugene Victor Debs picks up Jesus’ message in this quote, “So long as there is a lower class, I am in it; While there is a criminal element, I am of it; While there is a soul in jail, I am not free.”[1]  We are invited to re-enter God’s unified pasture, to reclaim our human solidarity – where the face of the poor is the face of Jesus; where the face of the poor is our own face. We are be invited to delight in our mutuality and to look for ways to serve each other.  

Later in the day I saw through my bedroom window that my mother was in the garden. I sheepishly emerged from my bedroom.   I thought I should try to clean up the wax as best I could before my Dad got home.   It was a miracle of love. My mother had cleaned up the wax.   You could hardly tell the fire had ever happened. The burned tops of the carpet strands had been trimmed off with scissors.   The whole area looked like it had received a bit of a lawn mowing.   My Abba mother came in and I remember her saying, “Let’s just not tell your father. He won’t notice.”   My mother’s love for me overcame the anger that I be punished.   Jesus teaches us that God is Abba, our God’s mercy and love overwhelms the anger.  

Jesus tells us the parable of the goats and the sheep to encourage us to be like the sheep of the parable. To live our lives loving God and neighbor as children of a loving parent.     Jesus encourages us not to do good works to gain a heavenly home. Notice how in the parable the sheep are surprised that they are to be rewarded. We are encouraged to love our brothers and sisters so deeply that we cannot but help helping them.   It becomes natural to us.  

We live in a world that has already been parceled and segregated. We live in a society that contradicts God’s desires and pushes us to further isolate ourselves from each other.   So as children of God, and followers of Jesus we are called to protest the systems of our society that create and permit any brother of sister to go hungry or to be without shelter or dignity.   Albert Camus encourages his fellow writers to hear the call to protest injustice. In his book “Create Dangerously” he encourages contemporary artists to use their talents to speak up in solidarity with the poor. I quote him, “We writers of the twentieth century shall never again be alone. Rather, we must know that we can never escape the common misery, and that our only justification, if indeed there is justification, is to speak up, insofar as we can, for those who cannot do so. 

But we must to do it for all those who are suffering at this moment, whatever may be the glories, past or future of the States and parties oppressing them; for the artist there are no privileged torturers.”[2] 

Friends, as you contemplate this parable of Jesus don’t spend a moment wondering whether you are sheep or a goat. Instead pray with thanksgiving that God loves us all. Pray with thanksgiving that God calls us to care for each other. This Lent pray with hope and humility our corporate prayer of confession. And pray for the courage and compassion to live out your days naturally lifting up those who have been trod upon. And give thanks that when you are trod upon, that your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ teaches a parable about how he is in solidarity with you. Let’s learn together to love and live this parable that calls us to mercy and compassion. Amen.