Reading 39
The sheep and the goats
The reading
Matthew 25:31-46
"But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will tell those on his right hand, 'Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry, and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.'
"Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you; or thirsty, and give you a drink? When did we see you as a stranger, and take you in; or naked, and clothe you? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?' The King will answer them, 'Most certainly I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'
"Then he will say also to those on the left hand, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you didn't give me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and you didn't take me in; naked, and you didn't clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn't visit me.' Then they will also answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and didn't help you?' Then he will answer them, 'Most certainly I tell you, because you didn't do it to one of the least of these, you didn't do it to me.' These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
The companions
Psalm 72:12-14
For he will deliver the needy when he cries; the poor, who has no helper. He will have pity on the poor and needy. He will save the souls of the needy. He will redeem their soul from oppression and violence. Their blood will be precious in his sight.
Ezekiel 34:17-24 (selected)
"As for you, O my flock, thus says the Lord GOD: 'Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, the rams and the male goats. Does it seem a small thing to you to have fed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture?' Therefore thus says the Lord GOD to them: 'Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you thrust with side and with shoulder, and push all the diseased with your horns, until you have scattered them abroad; therefore will I save my flock, and they will no more be a prey. I will set up one shepherd over them, and he will feed them, even my servant David. I, the LORD, will be their God. I, the LORD, have spoken it.'"
A word for the week
Here is a question worth carrying into this scene: what if God has been standing in front of you the whole time, disguised as the people you were most likely to overlook? That is the claim at the center of it, the last great picture Jesus gives before his death, and it moves the whole search for God to a new address.
He describes the Son of Man coming in glory, and all the nations gathered before him, and he separates them as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. To the ones on his right he says: come, inherit the kingdom, for I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me, sick and in prison and you came to me. And then the strange part: the righteous are confused. Lord, they say, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger? When did we ever see you and help you? They have no memory of serving him, because they never knew it was him. They just fed hungry people, visited prisoners, took in strangers, because that is who they were. And the King answers: as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.
Let that settle, because it changes where you look for God. Jesus is saying he is hidden in the least, in the hungry person, the prisoner, the stranger, the sick and forgotten. When you knelt to help the person the world steps over, you were kneeling in front of Christ and did not know it. He was there, in disguise, the whole time. And the ones who missed him were ordinary, decent, even religious people, who were looking for God somewhere more impressive, and walked right past him in the ditch.
And notice what the judgment turns on. Not on what anyone believed, or claimed, or how religious they were. It turns entirely on what they did, specifically what they did for the people who could do nothing for them in return. This is one of the plainest things Jesus ever said about how a life is finally weighed: by whether love reached the least. What separated the sheep from the goats was the feeding of the hungry person in front of them, and only that.
Hold the ending too, without flinching, because Jesus does not soften it and neither will we. The scene closes in a real separation, a right hand and a left, and what decides it is nothing grander than food, water, welcome, clothes, a visit. We do not claim to know what lies on the far side of that judgment; no one living does, and we hold the far country loosely, trusting the love we met in Jesus. But we will not shrink the warning to make the story comfortable. He meant it to weigh. The person you are about to overlook matters that much to him, and missing him there is not a small miss.
So the question this scene presses on us is a concrete one: where is the hungry, the imprisoned, the stranger, the sick, in your life this week, and what will you do when you meet them? Because Jesus has told us, plainly, that this is where he is to be found, and that this is how we will be known: by whether we served him there, in the least, or walked past looking for him somewhere grander. He is in the ditch and the prison, behind the face you were about to overlook.
At the table
Who are the "least of these" in your life right now, and have you been walking past them looking for God somewhere more impressive? What would it mean to go and serve Christ there, starting now?
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain). The divine name is rendered "the LORD" and "the Lord GOD" in the companions.