In the ethos section of the proposal to come together and become One, on which HopeWhangarei
was constituted it says “We aspire to
truly understand, embody and proclaim Jesus’ good news about the Kingdom of God.”
And to help us with that aspiration this year we’ve been working our way
through a sermon series called ‘A 2020 vision of the kingdom of God: the
Manifesto, Mission, Meaning and Means of the Much awaited Kingdom of Heaven in
Matthew’s gospel. Looking at the five blocks of Jesus teaching on the
kingdom of Heaven in Matthew: the Sermon on the Mount, the manifesto in Matthew 5-7, Jesus instructions to his disciples
as he sends them out on a short term mission in Matthew 10, the mission the parables of the kingdom
in Matthew 13, the meaning, Jesus
teaching about being a community in response to the disciples question who is
the greatest in the kingdom, the Means how
we are to live humbly as a community in
Matthew 17-19 and the Olivet Discourse, his other sermon on the Mount… of
olives, where Jesus speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem, the end of the age
and his coming as king and how his disciples are to be ready and on watch, the Much awaited, that’s in Matthew 24-25.
Today we finish that whole series by looking at the
surprising fourth of four parables with which Jesus ends his Olivet Discourse.
The sheep and the goats. The fourth of four parables which in Matthew’s gospel
is Jesus last teaching before his betrayal, crucifixion, death and
resurrection. It ends the teaching ministry, a ministry that had started with
the revolution of grace in blessed are
the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ending in it being
shared and shown in practical care and concern for the least of Jesus brethren.
It ends the four parables with which Jesus had told his disciples what it meant
to wait for his kingdom to come in its fullness. To be on watch and alert, to
preserver in doing good, in the parable of the unfaithful servant, to be
Prepared, in the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, to be productive
in the parable of the talents and now in the parable of the sheep and the
goats. That we are accountable to God for how our faith in him is worked out.
Let’s look at the parable.
Well in actual fact it is more a picture of the coming of
the Son of man as King and how he will judge the nations. Unlike his first
coming his advent, almost incognito, there will come a time when Jesus will
come in his full glory, as if the veil is taken off and we know who he is
indeed. Jesus uses the imagery that his disciples here would expect of the
messiah as the conquering King with his armies, angelic armies, with his sitting on his exalted throne,
assembling the nations before him. This is right before Jesus crucifion, and we
need to be reminded that Jesus death is portrayed in all the gospels as a
coronation, the inauguration of his Kingdom.
Jesus then switches and uses an image from the countryside
around him, one infused with much meaning from Israel’s past. The king on the
throne is like a shepherd who separates the people into two groups, like
separating sheep and goats. In Palestine it was not uncommon to allow the sheep
and the goats to graze together during the day, they ate the same food, but
goats needed more protection and care in the cold nights, so it was common to
see shepherds splitting the flocks as sunset. Now we have a very western
European idea of sheep and goats which make it hard to realise what is being
said here. Our cold weather sheep, grown for their wool, look totally different
from our goat population. But in the Middle East there was not much of a
difference in appearance between sheep and goats. One commentator said that the
only difference was that sheep had tails that went down and goats had tails
that went up. In this we find echoes of parables like the wheat and the weeds
in Matthew 13, where Jesus says it is only in the harvest that you can truly
separate those two different plants which had been sowed, one by the farmer the
other by an enemy, in the same field. Again like we will see in this parable
the difference is in the crop or fruit which is produced. So really there is no
easily discernible difference between the sheep and the goats, by sight.
The sheep are placed on the right side of the king, which in
royal circles signifies a place of honour and favour. The goats are placed on
his left which is seen as a place of displeasure.
The sheep are welcomed into the blessing of the Father, the
kingdom that was prepared for them since the creation of the world. The surprising thing about that however is
the reason why. Most of us would think it is because they had accepted Jesus as
their lord and saviour, and that’s part of it. But rather it is because they
had fed and given water and clothed and visited and welcomed, cared for Jesus
when he was hungry thirsty, naked, a sign of abject poverty in Jesus day, a
stranger, and a prisoner or when he was sick.
The second surprise is that the sheep are at a loss. They
say when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you water?
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you in, or needing clothes and cloth
you? When did we see you in prison and go and visit you? They are genuinely
perplexed at what Jesus is meaning. It is interesting that by the end of the
week the disciples would see Jesus in all those situations at his passion. His
radical and redeeming identification with the worst of humanity and our pain
and suffering, stripped naked abandoned, beaten, thirsting on the cross, in
agony, and dying.
But Jesus answer is
again surprising. AS you have done this for the least of my breather, my
brother’s and sister’s, you have done it for me… Now there is some discussion
over who Jesus is talking about here. Brothers and sister could mean his
followers and disciples, and the nations are being judged for how they/ we are
treated. It could mean fellow believers, like in the parable of the unfaithful
servant the first of Jesus parables in the Olivet discourse. It can mean the
poor and the least in society and the world, who are equally made in God’s
image, objects of his love and compassion, the focus of the coming of his
kingdom. All those things challenge us to think of others in light of the
gospel and the kingdom of God.
The goats, on the other hand, and that is a proper use of
that phrase really isn’t it…on the other hand… are told to depart from Jesus
presence to the place that was set aside for the devil and all his angels, a
place of rejection by God. Jesus words to the goats are the mirror opposite of
what he had said to the sheep. They did not feed him, give him drink, cloth
him, welcome him in, visit him care for him. The goats also answer in a
surprised manner, that they had never seen Jesus in any of those states. Again
Jesus surprising answer is as they hadn’t done it for the lest of these, and
his hand may well have swept across the people on his right, then you have not
done it for me.
The punch line is that they are sent away to eternal punishment
and the righteous to eternal life. Really when we think of eternal punishment,
our minds and imaginations are more developed around Dante’s inferno than the
scripture. Here it is enough to say that that punishment is the polar opposite
of eternal life, in God’s kingdom. Separation from God, darkness with no light,
it does challenge us to be aware that we do not want people to be in that
position.
How does this speak to us.
Firstly it may not
surprise you that this passage has been wrestled with because of the surprising
way in which the sheep are separated from the goats. When we look at it with
eyes that are definitely looking through a post reformation lens we are
concerned that it speaks of salvation by works, not by grace alone. Maybe that
speaks to our own nagging doubt that just somehow we need to earn God’s
approval and love. But that is not the case, the sheep seem genuinely surprised
that they have done anything to please God. Rather it is that just like with
the kingdom of God being planted in the good soil producing a harvest of 3o 50 100 fold, here the
kingdoms presence in a person’s life naturally will work its self out in care
for those in need. Salvation is an always has been by grace and faith in
Christ, but it is a faith that actually produces change. At the end of the
Sermon on the Mount Jesus had said that the difference between building your
life on a solid foundation or a foundation that would not stand was that we
heard the words of Jesus and obeyed them.
Here we see that put into action in the way in which we
treat the least of our brethren, and the least around us. James puts it very
succinctly when he says faith without works is dead. That does not mean the
upfront public ministry kind of things that count but the genuine love and care
shown to those in need. A REFELCTION OF Jesus humble service that bought our
salvation. The one who came for the lost and the sinner, the tax collector and
the outcast invokes in us a similar care as Michael Wilson puts it “We serve
because we a have been served, we love because we have been loved, we lift up
because we have been lifted up”, you can go on ‘receiving grace leads to
extending grace”, tasting mercy leads to offering mercy’. Love shown to the least is the sign of
genuine change and transformation… it is the hall mark of the kingdom.
Another surprising thing is how the kingdom of God seems to
be shown in such small events that have such big consequences. Chaos theory is
a branch of mathematics where people observe that extremely small variations in
a large data set or system can have far reaching effects. It was first
described by MIT mathematician Edward Lorenz in 1961. Fortunately he had the
sense to give this phenomenon a more poetic phrase, the butterfly effect, which
came from his famous paper ‘Does the flap
of a butterfly wing in brazil set off a tornado in Texas?. I don’t know it
can be argued that such small things can impact the weather conditions, however
in Jesus parable we see the Kingdom of God reaching down into our world in
small almost inconsequential ways that have eternal impact. A glass of water
given to a thirsty person, a meal given to the hungry, clothes given to the
person who has none, a visit, interest shown to a prisoner, caring for the
sick. Even the words we say, how we treat our neighbour. Stopping to help even
when it is inconvenient. Seeds of the kingdom that grow and have a harvest in
us and the world around us.
Lastly while in all the parables in the Olivet discourse, we
see that the Jesus figure has gone away and is coming back, here we are told
that Jesus is present in the world with us. Theologically we know that Christ
“Immanuel” God with us, is present with us as he promised, and lo I am with you
till the end of the age. We equate that with Jesus being present with his
people by the Holy Spirit with us and within us. We see Christ presence in the
lords table in communion, Christ meets us in that meal… in the elements which
represent for us the body and blood of Jesus. But here we see Jesus is also present
in the lives of the least, the people in need around us. In this world… When we
care for them we are caring for Jesus. Mother Theresa used to call her order of
nuns a contemplative order. Which surprised many people, she said they would
spend time contemplating the face of Jesus in prayer and the scriptures then
they would go out and see the face of Jesus in the poorest of the poor.” AS
Christians we have a great incentive to care for people for not only are they
people who are made in God’s image they are people who embody Christ. That if
we have experienced Jesus love we will humbly serve as if they are Jesus our
Lord and saviour.
Surprisingly sheep and goats are hard to tell apart, but
this summer we are going to be looking at the first letter to john and John has
a simply way of doing it. Because God first loved us and sent his son to die as
a sacrifice for our sins, let us love one another. Those who do not love have
not seen God… The kingdom of God seems to boil right down to that we are
invited in our brokenness and poverty to come to Jesus who welcomes us and
fills us up, and we are to fill up and welcome in those who are broken and poor
so they too may encounter and come to know the kingdom of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment