Final Sunday of Church Year 2020 Matthew 25:31–46
I’m going to get myself in a tangle over the words ‘eternal punishment’, I’ll get through that, in faith, we will reflect on where Jesus is found and how that is life-changing for us; and then we will finish up with a straight forward application of this text.
I find it fascinating that Jesus uses such a simple farming picture for the final judgement, although he also used everyday images in earlier parables in Matthew – separating weeds from wheat, good fish from bad fish. I’m sure some of you have farm memories of sorting out stock, working cattle into a yard, and then into the crush for tick treatment, or separating the ones to sell from the keepers, or the killers. When I was a country pastor in Esperance, the locals took great delight in telling us of 2 newly arrived ag exchange students from Scandinavia, who were terrified of stepping out of their cabin at night to come across to the house for a shower or a meal, because they’d been told that the killers were being kept in the little yard they had to cross. The killers – 2 quiet sheep that were soon to be eaten. I watched farmers at work and I know there’s a pride in looking after your stock and having them in as good a condition as you can with the feed that’s available. So Jesus uses an ordinary farming picture, to describe himself as the good shepherd, sorting out his fat-tailed middle Eastern sheep from the very similar looking goats. Incidentally it’s kids, young goats – does that mean anything? The stock he is sorting through is not individuals, actually the nations. It’s not just Christian groups – it’s all nations.
What tangles me up is the eternal punishment. That is not the God I know and am loved by and experience. Jesus is elsewhere portrayed in Matthew as the servant of God who does not break a reed that is already badly bruised, or quench a smouldering wick. He does prophetically challenge the powers of church and state, by calling it like it is, and in so doing he consigns himself to a sacrificial death on the cross, where the one who is rejected as useless, turns out to be the most important one ever. It’s about losing your life to save it. Reaching out for lost sheep, for little ones. It’s also about being transformed, about bearing good fruit. Jesus is found right there with those who are rejected, even seemingly rejected by God.
I also haven’t lived through the atrocities that still happen in places like the Middle East. I haven’t been massively abused or bullied. It’s easy for me to be non-violent. I also hear that it is a deep comfort for Christians, who are being faithful in those situations, that God knows about the injustices they have been hit with, that God does hear ‘the blood of murdered Abel’ calling out from the ground, and that there are consequences and judgement against such evil. Divine forbearance is not divine disregard. There are consequences for evil and God will sort that. I have the deepest respect for Christians who live out what Romans 12 tells us to do:
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. …
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
So I still believe in an utterly forgiving God of amazing love. We do set very high standards – there are vital rules to keep. That’s how sport works. That’s how schools and workplaces can safely function. That’s how we get on in society. But the eternal consequences we leave to God to sort out, and we live out forgiveness in Christ and not taking revenge.
Remember, this is about nations: the powers and entities opposed to Jesus and his reign do not last. They too will bow down and acknowledge Jesus as Lord. At the end those forces and powers that take away life and deny it themselves end up condemned and powerless. This is not about individual people going to hell.
The surprise for both sheep and goats in the parable was that neither were aware of what they had done or not done. The sheep are welcomed, not because they do the right things, but because they are family (they inherit). They just instinctively do what they have seen their parents do – they get this whole ‘serving others’, because they have seen it in Jesus. They just do it without even realizing – it’s part of their DNA. The goats did nothing – just did not see those in need around them, or ignored them.
I experience daily a God who invites us to a deeper life, to news ways of doing things, and does it in the very ordinary fabric of our lives. Who calls us to be faithful right where we are, and doesn’t pretend that our hurts are not real.
WE are family, and we do what we see our Christian family, Father, Son and Holy Spirit doing. Reaching out, including, finding the lost, carrying the hurts of others.
Our eldest son, Andreas, has just finished 2 years of Christian work on campus at UQ, with Evangelical Students. Their simple model for ministry is equipping Christians to read the Bible with other people. It works. There are people who say yes to the invitation: ‘Would you like me to read parts of the Bible with you?’
I’m going to explore that with any of you who are interested, next year. Do you have people who are ready to say yes to that question?
The simple model is start with a prayer. Read the section aloud. Have a conversation, ‘What do you think? What are you noticing?’ Then, apply the passage, carefully, in a gospel and helpful way that does not push me deeepr into God’s Law (it’s never ‘I’ve got to do more in order to have God love and accept me’, but rather ‘How does forgiveness and new life come through. What does this encourage me to do?’
How might we apply the passage simply this week? The Jesus who comes to sort everything out at the end, to put a final stop to all evil, is already here hidden in other people. A simple application might be, ‘Who is one person I can help this week in a practical way?’ We do that because we are part of God’s family, and that is simply what God does, so we do to. And maybe in that helping, evil – or at least its impact – is being stopped or addressed.
Andreas is taking the message at the service at Our Savior, Rochedale this evening. He asked me to check out his message, and I am going to pinch his ending. He likes the English Christian writer, Adrain Plass, for his understated humour and faith.
This is how he expects one of his friends, Liz, will be greeted when she gets to heaven, even though she’s nervous about it.
“I’m afraid I don’t deserve to be here at all,” she’ll say to Jesus.
“Quite right, but then nobody does, do they? That’s not a problem though, I’ve sorted that one out, remember?” Jesus replies.
“Ah, yes, but … I never really did anything,” Liz confesses.
“Oh?” Jesus says, puzzled, “What are all these then?” and shows her a giant bag full of cards of encouragement and condolence and celebration she sent to people over the years. “Some other person with the same name?” Jesus asks wryly.
Liz comes a few steps in and notices a wonderful garden of flowers.
“Every time you, say, gave a bunch of tulips to Fred in hospital, the same bunch came straight to me here,” Jesus explains. “And I’ve planted them all. Do you like the garden you gave me?”
And she’s a little overwhelmed, but when she looks up from the flowers Jesus is thumbing through a giant leather-bound book. “What’s this? Oh, just a record of all the chats you had with people when you visited them in hospital or met them on buses or all over the place. Thank you, you really cheered me up sometimes, and filled in gaps for a lot of people.”
Liz starts to tear up with it all, and Jesus simply says, “Welcome home.”
