One Shepherd, One Flock

Reign of Christ, Year A
Texts: Ezek 34.11-16, 20-24; Matt 25.31-46

I don’t know about you, but when I read this text, the first question I want to ask is “Who are the goats?” As I probe that question, I find that the real question—the question hidden underneath—is “Am I a goat?”

I wonder if that’s true for anyone else. How does this story leaves you feeling? Does it comfort you, or frighten you? Are you confident that you’re a sheep, or do you worry that you might be a goat? Or maybe this story doesn’t sound at all like the God you know, the God of grace and love, and you’d just as soon ignore it altogether—anyone like that option?

If I take this story seriously, the answer I find is that, yes, I am a goat. I do neglect to clothe the naked, offer food to the hungry, visit the sick and in prison. Of course, I am also a sheep. I also do do these things. The truth is that all of us are both sheep and goats, or as Luther would say, we are all simultaneously sinners and saints. If that’s true, then how will it ultimately be decided which “hand” we each end up at?

Read more: One Shepherd, One Flock

Is that one of the questions this story brings to your mind? What I notice about that question is that it comes from a place of fear which is based on the assumption that God will exclude some of us from the salvation we all hope to see. Did you notice that? Rather than allowing that assumption to dictate how we read this story, what happens if we set it aside? What happens if we look at the story without reading it through that lens?

One of the things I notice next is that this is a story about Christ—the son of God, meaning the God of the Jews—judging the nations. In Hebrew, that word nations most often refers to all the other nations, the non-Jewish nations. It’s the word we so often translate as Gentiles. If that’s the case, then this story is actually not about who God excludes, but who God includes—and, according to this story, God includes everybody—even the people who don’t worship or even know God.

I am also noticing the word “judgment.” In the Church, we mostly talk about judgment in the sense of a judge (or a king) handing down a sentence, right? It’s a legal definition; but that word has other uses. We make judgments every day. If I choose to stuff myself at Thanksgiving dinner, I’m likely to feel bloated and unpleasant that evening. If I choose to walk across an icy sidewalk, I run the risk of falling. If I decide to talk politics at the dinner table, I’m probably going to start a fight! None of these things come with any condemnation—but they do all come with consequences.

These kind of judgments we make are less about what is “right” and “wrong” and more about what is the most happy, healthy and helpful way to live our lives. I wonder if this story might be about the same kind of judgment, using the metaphor of a king to help us see that. What if the “eternal fire” is not a punishment for doing wrong, but a natural consequence of choosing not to live as God intends us to live? What if our failure to recognize the “least of these” as Christ’s own sisters and brothers—and our own sisters and brothers—actually harms us in some way?

Did you see how both the people on the right hand and the left—both the “sheep” and the “goats” are surprised by King Jesus’ ruling? Everyone is just doing what they think is best. The right-hand people are surprised to learn that helping such people—something the world says is foolish and even dangerous—is actually how God created us to be. They are surprised that their instinct toward love and compassion is God at work. The “goats,” on the other hand, are surprised that by looking out for themselves and their own safety and wellbeing, they are actually working against their own safety and wellbeing.

In the context of this story, I wonder if Jesus isn’t trying to tell us something deeper about the nature of creation that we have forgotten. We tend to see ourselves as independent, as separate. I do what’s best for me, and I expect you to do what’s best for you. What if that way of thinking is harming us? What if we are most happy and healthy and whole when we do what’s best for one another?

Consider the example of how we care for our world. Humans act as if we have the right to “subdue” all of creation—but we are beginning to see the disastrous consequences. When we fail to care for the “least of these”—including our non-human created siblings—we are condemning ourselves to unhealthy habitats, polluted air and water, and disordered ecosystems that cannot support us. Even as we act for our own benefit, we find that we are actively working against our own benefit. So what if Jesus is showing us an alternative?

In the story, Jesus takes all our assumptions about our separateness from the other nations, our assumptions about who are sheep and who are goats, and our instinctual need to exclude and throws them out the window. I wonder if he is instead showing us the reality of how all creation is one—part of one kingdom, with one king, as it were. What if he’s telling us that the most happy, healthy and helpful way to live as if everything and everyone belongs to God and to each other?

I see this story bearing witness to three great truths. The first is that all creatures—human and non-human, living and non-living alike—are created by God out of love, and everything bears the fingerprints of our loving creator. Our worth is in being the expressions of God’s love, rather than in what we can do or how we can be used. The second is that, since everything is an expression of God’s love, God is visible in all of it: in stars and planets, in rocks and trees, in dandelions and marmots, and in people—even the “least of these.” Everything and everyone created bears witness to the God who created them.

Finally, everything that came from God returns to God. The Omega is the same as the Alpha. This is God’s supreme and final victory, because there is nothing that not a part of God’s kingdom, nothing over which Christ does not rule. What we do to the least of these—or whatever is done to us—is done to Jesus himself.

When we choose to ignore or deny these truths, we do so to our own harm. In fact, I wonder if we worry about who God will exclude because that’s the way the world has taught us to think. I wonder if we worry about being cast out into the “eternal fire” because that’s what the world consistently does to those “strangers” who are different from us, to those who don’t have enough money or means and end up hungry or poor or naked, to those who make mistakes and become prisoners.

The world excludes all of these, casting them into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the sight of them won’t trouble anyone else. We know this because we have seen it; some of these people are our neighbors; maybe you are even one of these people, one of these “outcasts.”

But where the world casts out, God welcomes in. God continually calls us back to the truth, back to the “sheepfold.” We may find ourselves making choices that land us in hot water—or in “eternal fire”—but God is always beckoning us to greener pastures with still waters that restore our souls.

Today we celebrate that Jesus is king over all—including us—and that can never and will never change. We are the people of God’s pasture and the sheep of God’s hand. This is as true for us as for everything else that God has lovingly made; we can ignore or deny this truth, but it doesn’t make it any less true. God is God of all the nations, God of all creatures, God of all creation—down to the very least of these. Everything and everyone has a part in what God is doing—even us. Jesus died to tell us this, and he rose again to show us how true it is: not even death can separate us from God!

Since we are assured of God’s ultimate and final victory and our place in it, I wonder how that might make us able to see that victory already coming to pass. Where do you already see Christ reigning over all things? How can you see the kingdom of heaven already here? Where do you see Jesus revealed in “the least of these,” especially when the least of these includes you?

That’s hard to see in this world. That’s part of the reason Pope Pius instituted this holiday: to remind us that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, God’s kingdom is coming. As we turn our calendars ahead to Advent, we remember that this is the kingdom, this is the victory, this is the world to come for which we are waiting: God’s world, where all the outcast are gathered in and cared for by the One Shepherd who will feed us with justice, where the Rejected and Crucified One is king over all.