Serving Christ in a Changing World: Sheep, Goats and Geeps

Transcription

1 Serving Christ in a Changing World: Sheep, Goats and Geeps Matthew 25:31-46 November 20, 2011 This morning s Scripture reading is the least favorite passage of goat-keepers everywhere. Why pick on the goats, they ask? It may also be the least favorite passage of left-handers everywhere. Why pick on the lefties, they ask? What did we ever do? I do not keep animals of any kind and I am about as right-handed as it s possible to be, but this passage gets my goat, too. So to speak. It hooks me because the minute I hear it I start to wonder which I am: a sheep or a goat. I want to identify with the sheep; I hope I identify with the sheep. But I am afraid that I am more like the goats. I fear that I not only do not care (enough) for the poor, the sick, the stranger, the imprisoned, but that I am the kind of person who would neglect to do these things unless I knew that the person I was caring for was important. I worry that I am a spiritual opportunist. I do not think I am alone in this anxiety. Just like the rich young man who came to Jesus and asked Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? so many of us wonder on what side we will find ourselves the right or the left, the sheep or the goats? Maybe you think this, too. When I am truly honest about it, I have to admit that sometimes I am a goat, and sometimes I am a sheep. There are times when I fail to do the right thing, or fail to do it for the right reason. There are other times when I succeed. I am a goat and a sheep. What I really am is a geep. 1

2 It turns out there really is such an animal as a geep. It s real name is a sheep-goat chimera, but its popular name (if you can call it popular) is geep. It might have been called a shoat, but that name is already taken by baby pigs. A geep is an animal produced by combining the embryos of a goat and a sheep, so that the resulting animal has cells of both sheep and goat origin. A sheep-goat chimera should not be confused with a sheep-goat hybrid, which is the result of a romantic liaison, such as it is, between a sheep and a goat: the animal kingdom version of Romeo and Juliet. The first geep was bred in 1978 in a laboratory in Australia. The creature created there was a mosaic of goat and sheep: the parts that grew from the sheep embryo were woolly; the parts that grew from the goat embryo were hairy. I wish I could show you a picture; its cute in its own, odd, geep way. When we hear this passage from the Gospel according to Matthew we race to identify ourselves as sheep or goats, or we confess that we are both but in so doing we miss the point of Jesus story. Because the point of the whole thing, the focus of his story, the hinge on which it all hangs is not that some people are sheep and some people are goats, but that neither the sheep nor the goats know that that s what they are. The sheep don t know they are sheep! They never knew that the good things they were doing were being done for Jesus. When did we feed you, Jesus? When did we visit you? The goats don t know they are goats! They never knew it was Jesus who was thirsty or cold. Had they known, they would have done something to help. 2

3 It all boils down to this: if you think you re a sheep (if you think you ve done the right thing), then you re not a sheep. And if you worry that you re a goat (if you don t think you ve done the right thing), then you re not a goat. Which can lead to a bad case of existential angst if you think too hard about it. What gets the goats into trouble is that they re only willing to serve Christ, not other, less-worthy people. And they fail to see Christ in other people: the poor, the sick, the stranger, the imprisoned. And what gets the sheep their reward is that they make no judgments about who they re willing to serve. They just do it: they live out of their own sense of mercy. They do what they do because of who they are citizens of Christ s realm children of the Heavenly Father members of the body of Christ sheep. Let s be honest: sometimes we re sheep and sometimes we re goats. The problem with the way we read this passage is that we get stuck at the point of identifying ourselves, and others, in those two categories. We want to know what we have to do to count as sheep, when the whole point is that the sheep don t care whether or not they count as sheep! They live their lives on the basis of a constant attitude of mercy. Jesus wants us to do the same. The late Rev. Peter Gomes of Harvard University identified the problem when he said We are not driven by our virtues; we are driven by the fear of our vices. Gomes quoted Cyril Connolly, author of The Unquiet Grace (1944), who wrote Those of us who were brought up as Christians, and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action. 3

4 But I think this is equally true of those of us who haven t lost our faith: our focus on our failures keeps us from the joy of knowing ourselves as forgiven and redeemed people. Our obsession with measuring our actions prevents us from living lives of unmeasured generosity and mercy. Rev. Larry Woods, who lives now on the East Coast, but who used to be a United Methodist pastor in our Conference, writes of his friend Dennis: a longhaired wild man who loved his father. They often went hunting in the woods near home for squirrels, rabbits, and deer. In those days Dennis worked as a mechanic, still ran with some of his high school buddies, drank a little, and had his run-ins with the law. His father took most of it in stride, but from time to time he d say, You know, I m not hunting with you again until you cut your hair. And Dennis never did. As they tracked through the woods one day hunting rabbits, Dennis, stone sober, saw one moving through the brush, took careful aim, and fired. Right where he had aimed, his father cried out. Dennis found him on the ground, raked with shot, bubbles of blood forming on his nose and mouth. For a few stunned moments Dennis refused to leave him there but had no choice. He ran to the house, not knowing if his father would bleed to death before he got back, telephoned for help, waited twenty minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and painstakingly led the paramedics to the place in the woods. His father was still alive. Rabbit shot had lodged just millimeters from his heart. When the sheriff came and put cuffs on Dennis, his father roused to say, Take em off. You won t 4

5 need em. And to his son, he said, Whatever happens, remember this: I love you and forgive you. Even though his father survived, Dennis grieved. For years, Dennis didn t see much of his father just couldn t face him. He put his life in order. He threw himself into his faith and became a pastor. He counseled others to repair their family ties, never quite taking his own advice. Then his father was diagnosed with cancer. Dennis made regular trips home, taking days off from the parish where he had worked so hard to put the past behind him. He and his dad talked more and more. A relationship often blossoms when time is short which may be why family relationships are so bad, because we think we ll have them forever. In any event, as they reminisced about ball games and hunting trips, Dennis learned more about being a son and his father learned more about being a father. One last call brought Dennis home during Holy Week, and Easter hasn t been the same for Dennis since. It is inextricably bound up with the mix of feelings for his father with guilt and grief, as well as powerful love. At least Dennis is no longer crucifying himself. Rather, he can stand before his congregation and proclaim, This saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance: that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. It is true on Easter as it is on every Sunday, every little-easter: we are sinners and we are redeemed; we are guilty and we are wiped clean of our guilt; we are goats and we are sheep. Today is not Easter, but it is another holiday of the faith: it is Christ the King Sunday, the Sunday before Advent. It is the last Sunday of the Christian calendar, before we begin again the 5

6 cycle of Christ s life-- from his birth at Christmas through his ministry, death and resurrection at Easter and then the stories of his life lived through the church s life. Christ the King Sunday celebrates his reign, his enthronement as one with God the Creator, his role as judge at the end of days. Which is why we read this passage from Matthew: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Then the sheep will answer him, Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you? We read that passage to remind ourselves that the judgment of Christ the King is not based on an Excel-sheet accounting of the details of our good and bad deeds, but on the motivation from which they spring. Christ s judgment has more to do with mercy than it does with works. If we are goats, it is because we have spent too much time trying to get a peek at the spread sheet: worried about what counts and what doesn t count, what grade we ve gotten so far and whether there s going to be a make-up test. If we are sheep it is because we have lived joyfully in mercy without calculation. We are the citizens of Christ s kingdom when we leave the accounting to him, and focus our lives on doing the will of God out of gratitude for our own forgiven and redeemed lives. It would appear that the judgment we are all subject to is not one from on high but a judgment that is spoken through the need of our neighbor. 6

7 Christ the King Sunday: the last of the holy-days in the church s calendar before we start all over with Advent, which begins next Sunday. Of course, there is another big holiday between now and the first Sunday of Advent. Oh, there s Thanksgiving, of course. But that s not what I m talking about. I m talking about the official Opening Day of the Christmas Shopping Season, the day after we give thanks, the day known as Black Friday. Black Friday: the most pagan of all holidays. I suppose the folks who call themselves pagan would take offense at that. The most secular of all holidays, the most anti-sacred of all holidays. Please hear me: I am not telling you not to participate. I participate in too many secular activities myself to think I have any right to do that. But I am going to ask you to do this: before you get in your car at 4:00 AM in order to secure a place in line in front of your favorite box store, before you buy the ipad or the Kindle or the flatscreen TV for that low, low price, read today s passage from the Gospel of Matthew. Leave your Bible in the car the night before. Find it online, print it out and tape it to your steering wheel so you see it in the morning. And the king will answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. Read this passage not in order to beat yourself up because you are a goat, but to remind yourself what it means to live as a sheep. Remind yourself that living as a citizen of Christ s kingdom means living out of mercy without regard to where it gets you or what it does for you on Judgment Day. What does it look like to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the 7

8 imprisoned on Friday, November 25 and every other day of your forgiven, redeemed, geep life? 8

9 References Lawrence Wood, Good news to Me: Gospel Stories for the Real World. Westminster John Knox Press: Peter J Gomes, Strength for the Journey: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living. HarperSanFrancisco, Chris Higgins, Geep: Behold the Sheep-Goat Chimera, posted May 14, Geep in Hybrid Animals, posted November 11, Dirk G. Lange, Commentary on the Gospel, Christ the King Sunday. Sermon brainwave for