Matthew 25:31-46
Introduction
How do you feel about tests? My suspicion is that most of us do not enjoy tests but at the same time they are necessary evil. There are times that we have to measure how well people grasp the material that has been presented to them. My father was a truck driver and I remember when they introduced the Z qualification for air brakes. My father was quite nervous about this as he was not much of a student, even if he knew how to do his job by instinct. He was told that he would have to pass a written test to keep driving truck and he went into that test fully expecting to fail. The good news is that he passed the test. The bad news is he passed, because the instructor told the class that he was leaving the answer sheet on the desk and was going to wait out. My father did not complain.
Just recently I completed one of my courses for being a military chaplain. This course was on counselling skills. In the CAF, the tests are called PCs or Performance Checks. Obviously it is not enough for us just to hear lectures, we must also demonstrate our comprehension. In this case, there was only one PC. We had to do a role play of a counselling session and there were a list of things for us to include in the session in order for us to meet the standard. I was very happy when the instructor said the words: “Standard met.” That was very good news.
But what would it mean for Jesus to say to us “Standard met”? This is a tricky question. The reason is that ever since the Reformation 500 years ago, the church has struggled with the tension between faith and works. The Roman Catholic Church insisted on the importance of doing certain things and the Protestants insisted that we are saved by faith alone. Of course both traditions could point to passages that supported their position. Now as a Baptist and a Protestant, I do believe that we are adopted into God’s family by faith and not by achieving a certain level of good works. But we have to ask, is God only looking for believers? That is does God only care about where our faith is placed or does God have other concerns as well.
When we read the Gospels, it looks as if Jesus teaches that we are supposed to live our lives in a certain way. Some Christians, who want to hold to faith alone, suggest that Jesus never expects us to do those things and that the impossibility of doing everything Jesus teaches is meant to push us into relying on God’s grace. While I agree that we need to rely on grace, as I read the Gospels and the picture of life and discipleship that Jesus paints, I am convinced that he expects is to take those teachings seriously. The passage that we are going to look at is one of the most challenging of Jesus’s parables, especially if we are hoping for an easy Christian life.
Sheep and the Goats
The parable takes place in the context of a final judgment. There were plenty of other ancient writings that imagined what happened after death, specifically in terms of the judgment that determined the nature of the afterlife. For example, the Egyptian Book of the Dead has a spell called the negative confession, in which the deceased had to recite 42 negative confessions, asserting that they had never committed forty-two specific sins. What Jesus presents here is significantly different. The test that presented is not that of avoiding certain sins but rather whether the people had done what they were expected to do.
Those who come before the king on the day of judgment are divided into the sheep and the goats. To the sheep, Jesus gives praise because ever time Jesus was in need, they were there to care for him. The only problem is that none of the sheep ever recall encountering the king in difficult circumstances. They had helped other people but never the one who was presiding over judgment. Or had they? The Son of Man states that ever time they performed acts of kindness to the least of these, a group that we might call today the marginalized, they were actually doing it to Jesus. The result was a great reward as they were welcomed into a blessed afterlife.
But then there were the goats. If we think of judgment day and those who are condemned, we would think of the worst of the worst. We would think of the Hitlers and the Stalins. Even among the unknown, we would assume that the goats would be rejected because of all the bad things they had done. And yet that is not what we find here, The standard is the same as it was for the sheep. They never helped Jesus when he was in need. The goats are just as confused as the sheep. They do not recall this oversight. If they were aware of Jesus in need, they would have done something. Once again, the marginalized and the outcast are seen as symbolic of Jesus. Just as they ignored the needs of those around them, so had they ignored the needs of Jesus. Just as they had not welcomed Jesus, Jesus will not welcome them.
The Test
Now there are a couple of difficulties here. One is that we still have to wrestle with how this standard of judgment fits with salvation by grace. Secondly, even if this is the standard, how do we know how much helping of the marginalized qualifies us to be classified as the sheep? You can see how someone become overcome with anxiety, fearing that they had not been good enough.
Here is where we find the clue to these mysteries. Notice the response of the sheep. They do not assert their good deeds as reason why they should be welcomed by Jesus. This is very different from the Egyptian Book of the Dead where the deceased asserts their worthiness. Hearing this parable, you do not get the sense that they were trying to earn their salvation. They simply did what came natural based on who they were. And who were they? The sheep. Again, you do not get a sense that there was anxiety that they fed the hungry but perhaps did not get around to visiting a prison. These are not boxes to check off but a posture of love and compassion to be adopted.
This parable, especially the part of the goats, seems to illustrate what the letter of James describes as faith without works being dead. Faith is key to the Christian worldview but it is not a faith in terms of mental assent to a selection of doctrines. It is faith that leads to action, specifically actions that care for the marginalized by society.
We might think of this as a test for personal afterlife, but could we also see it as a test for a faithful church? Could this be our Performance Check, the opportunity to see if we actually comprehended the material that has been presented to us? Notice that in our culture, the measure of a successful church is the size, the budget, and the number of programs. And yet the parable of the sheep and the goats seems to point us toward caring for the marginalized. If congregations are judged on the last day, there might be some surprises.
Conclusion
What are we going to do with the parable of the sheep and the goats? One option is to fall back on salvation by faith and conclude we can safely ignore it. Or we can ask what salvation by faith actually looks like and what Jesus expects out of our faith.
It may be that this is a test for us to see if our faith is really transforming us. It may also be a test that helps us to see if our church is doing what it is supposed to. It is not about ticking off boxes for charity in specific situations. It is about having a heart for the marginalized in general and being prepared to help as the opportunity presents itself. It also means that as we care for those in need that we see that not just as an act of charity but as something almost sacramental. Even though society may reject certain people, Jesus embraces some so much that he even identifies with them. What we do for those we can see is intimately connected with what we do for the One we cannot see.
