Matthew 25:31-46
Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
October 22, 2023
Earlier this week I saw a tweet that said something like, “I’m just out here doing the Lord’s work (judging).” [1] I snorted because I recognized myself immediately. Just earlier that same day one of the other participants at the dream work retreat I was attending asked me, kindly, “Would you say you like to compare things often?”
Boy, do I ever. I feel comfortable admitting this here because I know I’m not alone in these tendencies. I crave information. I want to analyze, dissect, put back together again. I DO want to compare. And, in fact, I am often judging. We all make judgments all day long - it’s absolutely, 100% only human. We sniff the milk to see if it’s still safe to drink. We check our rearview mirror to judge how much space we have to back up.
These are helpful ways of judging.
And probably not what the person meant when they referred to “the Lord’s work.”
I’m going to guess that when they referred to “the Lord’s work” they were referring to Jesus in today’s chapter from Matthew. Big, boss Christ, enthroned in all his glory, come to judge the quick and the dead and all that jazz. And he makes judging look so very EASY in this passage, doesn’t he? “Sheep to this side, please. Goats, you go over here. Eh, eh, eh! I see you little goat, trying to sneak in with the sheep. Nope! I told you, you’re on THIS side.”
This is one of those passages that I always think of when people try to blithely assert that the “Old Testament God” is filled with wrath and Jesus is only ever meek and mild. This Jesus does not seem particularly meek nor mild. He seems very clear about what he’s doing - which is comparing, judging. He’s sorting the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats. And the text tells us he’s doing it in order to determine who will be cast into eternal punishment.
I, for one, have a lot of feelings about this passage. Starting with: I don’t personally believe in hell. It’s not consistent with my understanding of God’s essence of love. I tend to think that we humans have obsessively worried about hell and eternal punishment because we worry about a lot of things. And we’ve told stories like this one to encourage other people to behave right and make good choices.
Making good choices is something I support. I’d just prefer to encourage it in ways that don’t involve the threat of eternal punishment and weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Regardless of how we may feel about hell, here’s this story of Jesus doing the Lord’s work (judging). And it feels particularly relevant right now because these past two weeks have been filled with judgment as we all try to grapple with the terror in Israel and Gaza.
We want to separate sheep from goats - these are the good guys and these are the bad guys. We want it to be clear cut. And, dare I say, we even want a righteous God to do some active judging. We want those who slaughter innocents to pause and see the humanity in the other. We want them to wake up and remember that violence isn’t the way, that children deserve to live free of fear, and that the work of peace-making is almost always harder than waging war.
If we’re being honest with ourselves, we’d probably love for the Human One to come in his majesty and bring all his angels with him. We’d love for him to sit on his majestic throne and press pause on this terror. We want all the nations to be gathered in front of him. And we want him to do the separating. We want him to put everyone in their corners and talk some sense into them. We want him to come and remind people of right and wrong.
We want someone - anyone - to FIX this heartbreaking, terrifying, seemingly intractable situation. And we want it done immediately, before any other precious lives are taken in Israel or Gaza. And we want peace and a sense of security for our Jewish and Muslim neighbors here, too. We don’t want them to live in fear of being harmed simply because so many are unable to separate people from their leaders and governments. And so many forget that great diversity exists within all religions - and that the government of Israel doesn’t speak for all Jews just as the leaders of Hamas don’t represent all Muslims.
Despite all the complexities, we sometimes find it easy to be armchair members of the UN security council from the safety of our own homes on this side of the globe. Pointing fingers and assigning blame can feel easy. It’s more difficult to take Jesus’s advice in Matthew 7:
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your neighbor’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
It seems to me that we need to spend some time grappling seriously with the log in our own eye over here in the U.S. How can we invite others to accountability for the atrocities they’ve committed when we’ve not yet taken accountability for our own actions? The ways we, too, have inflicted terror on innocents. The ways we, too, are caught up in legacies of colonialism and genocide.
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann explores some of the similarities between the ethos of the nation of Israel and the United States in his book Chosen? Reading the Bible Among the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. He notes that both nations have claimed an identity as God’s elect. Our faith ancestors, too, made theological claims about their divine right to inhabit a particular place. Our faith ancestors also committed acts of violence against the people who were already living here when they arrived. They did so while proclaiming they had a divine mandate.
We Christians have particular logs to deal with, too. We know that, historically, the Christian Church has committed great violence against Jewish and Muslim people. And that, even today, these attitudes persist in some parts of Christianity.
But looking at the log in our own eye isn’t as fun as assigning blame to others. Seeing the legacies of colonialism and terror at home and abroad is heartbreaking. Watching the horrors of hatred and violence based on ethnicity - again and again - can make us feel powerless and hopeless.
It would be so much simpler if Jesus would show up and unequivocally sort us all out. Tell us exactly who’s right and who’s wrong. Exert some authority and make people be kind to one other. Judge and judge us relentlessly in a refiner’s fire until we are free of the evils that plague us. Until we are, finally, kind, just, right, GOOD.
While we don’t have a living, breathing, Christ-in-all-his glory with us right now we do have these ancient texts that can illuminate truth. How is Christ dividing the sheep from the goats in this story? Christ says the sheep’s righteous behavior was quite simple, “I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.”
The sheep are surprised because they can’t remember doing any of these things. So Christ clarifies, “‘when you did these things for least among you, you did them to me.”
This part is quite simple, really. Every single person is imbued with the divine. The way we treat our neighbors is the way we treat Christ. And this story takes it one step further - Christ says that her spirit is ESPECIALLY within those who are the least among us. Once again, God makes it clear that: whoever is oppressed? That’s where her heart lies. And that’s where we should focus our energy, attention, advocacy, and care, too.
Treat others as if they are holy, sacred, divine, good. Especially those that the world dehumanizes and disparages. That’s what we’re supposed to do.
And since we don’t have Christ here with a megaphone, it is our job as followers of Jesus to bear witness to his teachings. It is our job to keep loving loudly and insisting others do the same - no matter how inconvenient it may be. It is our job to keep shining a light on injustice - even when all we have is a little pen light and the atrocities are so very overwhelming. It is our job to keep reminding everyone that we are ALL human. Full stop. Every single one of us. And that, as human beings we have a right to be free. We have a right to safety, love, food, water, self-determination, peace.
And we must do all of these things ever mindful of the giant log in our own eye. It is only when we deal with our own failures and recommit ourselves to seeking a more just peace that we’ll ever be able to call others to account.
We do all these things in the spirit of the one who is Love. The one who taught in parables and deeds. The one who answered questions with more questions. The one who committed himself so fully to seeking the ways of peace that he followed that path all the way to the executioner’s block. The one who is with us still, calling us into more abundant life, more justice and peace, and more love for one another. Every. Single. Other. May it be so.
NOTES:
[1] https://x.com/waxmittert/status/1579503758970859523?s=20
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