Episode 26: Be Therefore Ready Part 4–The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats

Be Therefore Ready #4/Sheep and Goats—Character in Context Transcript—September 2019

This is a transcript of a radio broadcast, and so it is not polished like one of my regular blogposts. Please don’t email me or comment about spelling or grammar mistakes unless I accidentally said something nasty. Archives of all past broadcasts can be found and are available for download at the link below:

characterincontext.podbean.com

Ready 4—The Sheep and the Goats

Did you ever stop and ask yourself, “Why the heck did they decide to call it the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats when nothing in the parable has anything to do with sheep and goats after the first few sentences?” Like the Parable of the Sower, which was actually about the four different types of soil, or the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which was actually much more about the forgiving Father, parables are often named after something catchy. In the case of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, it would seem kind of silly to call it, “The Parable of the Good and Bad Disciples” especially since not everyone in the parable is a believer, but then the lines drawn have nothing to do with whether or not people believe in the Messiah, or even in God, but about how they lived their lives with respect to their neighbors and especially the least of these. But it is because of this that it fits in perfectly as the fourth in a series of four parables describing how we are to “be ready” for the Messiah being that we do not know the day or hour of His return and we have a Scriptural promise that we will be shocked when it happens.

Hi, I’m Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where we explore the historical context of Scripture and talk about how it bears on our own behavior and witness as image-bearers. You can find my teachings on my websites theancientbridge.com and contextforkids.com as well as on my youtube channels, accessible from my websites. You can also access past broadcasts on my podcast channel characterincontext.podbean.com, which also links to my itunes channel, and my context books for adults and families are available through amazon.com.

³¹“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. ³²Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. ³⁴Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? ³⁸And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?³⁹And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ ⁴⁰And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

⁴¹“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴²For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ⁴⁴Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ ⁴⁵Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ ⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Besides possibly the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the Parable of the Sower, I would have to say that this is the most famous parable in Scripture. It’s challenging, it’s heartbreaking, it is full of hope and love and contempt and rejection. We see the very best in people as well as the very worst, and we see people being either uplifted or ignored in their darkest circumstances. Of course, this is a continuation of the “therefore be ready” teachings, where Yeshua is preparing His disciples for life without Him as they (and everyone else) await the second coming and the ushering in of the World to Come, aka eternal life.

I started out the series with a teaching on the meaning of “outer darkness” and the weeping and gnashing of teeth and tied it to the concept of rejection within the ancient community based mindset, of separation and exile from one’s family being a fate far worse than death. This parable will incorporate that but it will go one step farther and I believe the reason it goes farther is because this parable is the lynchpin for understanding all the others that went before it. Anyone who wants to know how to be a faithful steward, how to keep that oil supply full and ready, and how to represent the interests of our master need look no further. It’s going to be spelled out in as obvious terms as possible—and it won’t be according to some popular theories that only make sense when we take the parables separately as opposed to part of the overall grouping as they were presented to us and the disciples. Including Judas.

I don’t know about you, but this parable hurts really bad to read for me because like nobody can read this and says, “Oh yeah, I am totally perfect.” Well, no one I know, anyway. Sometimes I think God gave us a special needs child just so that I wouldn’t be damned and would meet some of these requirements—and I will be talking a lot about special needs parenting after we get through with the general teaching because I want to encourage those of you who figure you have no time or energy to serve because you have to be a caregiver. We’re going to cover that so stick around.

First of all, this is very challenging. It is, but this parable is about being a community—something we don’t cherish anymore. This is a parable that should remind us that we are already, or are on the brink of being in incredible spiritual danger in our modern western technologically focused society. Yes, even people who read their Bibles daily, and who pray all the time, and who spend all their time listening to podcasts and Christian radio and watching videos and reading blogs. None of that sort of thing cuts it in any of the four parables and especially not this one. But let’s get to it, verse by verse:

³¹“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

Of course, right here Yeshua is identifying Himself in explicit terms as the Son of Man from Daniel 9

⁹“As I looked, “thrones** were set in place,
and the Ancient of Days took his** seat.
His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool.
His throne was flaming with fire,
and its wheels were all ablaze.
¹⁰A river of fire was flowing,
coming out from before him.
Thousands upon thousands attended him;
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
The court was seated, and the books** were opened.
skipping 11 and 12 because they have no relevance here:

¹³“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man,** coming with the clouds of heaven.** He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. ¹⁴He was given authority, glory and sovereign power;** (Matt 28) all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Rabbi Akiva was the first that we know of to remark upon the multiple thrones set up in the throneroom of God and he claimed that the second throne was the throne of Messiah. Now, he was promptly disagreed with, but what he said lines up with what Yeshua is saying here:

First of all, all the nations are gathered and in the Greek it is obvious that this includes Israel, this is not talking about the gathering of only the gentile nations. Everyone is included here. And if you look closely, He isn’t separating out the nations from one another, He is separating out the people from one another. That’s really important—it means that no one will be rejected according to race, nationality, etc. The nations are gathered, but the people are separated out individually, LIKE a shepherd does with the sheep and goats. I have wondered why they are being separated, as it would be needless to do when you are walking your flocks around, but I suppose when it came time for tithing the new lambs and goats, you would need to separate them in order to do it correctly. Certainly they were both valuable and it is arguable that the goats were far more valuable. Sheep gave wool and could be milked, but they generally got their milk from the goats, who also provided valuable hair. Probably it is more about following the general tendency of Scripture to describe Israel as sheep and nothing derogatory against goats in general, which were highly prized. And the Passover could be a goat as well as a sheep, at least after that first one.

Of course, right hand side is the favored side, however the left side of a monarch was not shameful. Remember that the mother of James and John wanted her sons to be on Yeshua’s right AND left. Left is good, but right is better, so we ought not read too much into this.

So the people are now all separated, called out of their nations, some on the right and some on the left and we will never hear about the sheep and goats again even though the parable is named after them. They were only there as a brief visual.

³⁴Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’

This is very similar to the language of the Parables we have been studying, “Enter in” “have an inheritance” “kingdom prepared for you”—and then the Son of Man gives them a list of worthy deeds they have performed for Him personally. He hits upon almost every single one of the “justice and righteousness” talking points. Hunger. Thirst. Foreigners. Basic necessities. Sickness. Oppressed (imprisoned). And, of course, they are shocked. How could the honored one have ever been so shamed among them? How could the one to whom Daniel said all authority had been given ever know that sort of deprivation? Who would dare imprison Him? Look at His royal robes, how could he need clothing?

’³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? ³⁸And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?³⁹And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

Aren’t the people on the right amazing? Instead of just nodding and taking credit for what He has told them they did, they are too humble to even take credit for it. “No,” they protest, “we never did anything for you! How could this be true??”

⁴⁰And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

In a stunning turn of events, the Son of Man tells them that every service performed on behalf the outcasts of society, caring for their needs, visiting them and bearing their shame of imprisonment, in effect embracing the lowliest and most vulnerable members of society—that they were performing a personal service for Him. And what’s more, He deigns to call the most vulnerable and shamed members of society members of His kinship group. They are His siblings. He is claiming more than an ownership over them, this is familial, not master-slave language as we saw in the parables. How God looks at the vulnerable is relationally different from how he looks at those who are not vulnerable.

But now the tone will change drastically:

All of the praise heaped upon the first group becomes condemnation upon the second group. They cared for themselves and not for others. They treated the vulnerable either with contempt or ignored them completely. They got no credit for Bible reading and prayer and reading Hebrew and Greek or knowing context or praying or attending services. Maybe they watched youtube teachings all day instead of serving others, and ate organic and even fed their pets organic food while some ate nothing at all, they homeschooled their kids while they looked down on the poor couple down the road who required two paychecks and sent their kids to public school, those who had the money and space to do prepping mocked the people who barely had enough money to take care of the basics, those with healthy children looked at the family with a severely disabled child and wondered what sin they had committed to be “cursed.” And as the mom of a disabled child who I would rather die than be without, I will come back to that one later.

You can’t be faithful to God if you aren’t faithful to people. Period. People need our assistance, not our judgment. Our current way of life often has more to do with our parents and the opportunities they provided us with than any virtue of our own, so we need to be really careful about who we look down on and decide not to help.

What happens when we abort or encourage someone to abort the least of these? What happens when the best reason we can come up with not to do foster care is that we won’t be able to go on vacations? What happens when we become the kind of people who are so concerned with out extras that we don’t care if people have the basics? Honestly, we really do act as though we don’t believe in the world to come because we sure act as though we have to get in our experiences and enjoyment here in this life. If we truly believed in the world to come, we could sacrifice on behalf of others and think nothing of the inconvenience or expense. Maybe people who can’t relax without essential oils or CBD or how about another slice of cake (that’s me on that last one there) would look on drug addicts with a bit more compassion and realize that we aren’t as different as we want to believe. We are very much a comfort oriented consumerist society, people who feel as though wants are actually needs.

How we treat the least of these is the measure of how ready we are for our King’s return, it’s that simple and that difficult. We just can’t afford to be complacent or uncaring about other people’s needs. The penalty of this parable isn’t simply rejection, it’s eternal punishment, perhaps meaning eternal rejection, according to the parable. No make ups, no do-overs, either we care for people or we don’t. No “if you go to enough Bible studies you can have a get out of jail free card.” We are so focused on knowledge and watching the news to try and line it up with the Book of Revelation and right here Yeshua just blatantly tells us that it won’t matter if we aren’t doing justice for the vulnerable. It’s all worthless without charitable lives. But then, it was the same in ancient Israel—and Sodom.

Ezekiel 16 talks about the sin of Sodom, which wasn’t homosexuality—no, their guilt hits closer to home and even now is knocking on our door, according to the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.

⁴⁹Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. “

WHOA! That’s not something you hear in most sermons about Sodom. No, we want it to be homosexuality because the overwhelming majority have never been tempted in that way, and so they feel pretty danged awesome about not doing it themselves—but, where is the virtue in not doing something you have never been tempted to do? Where is the righteousness in not murdering people when you don’t want to murder anyone? Where is the virtue in not gossiping when you haven’t heard anything damning about someone you hate? Why congratulate the man who has never known abject poverty for not stealing? We love to credit ourselves with a false sort of virtue when we don’t fall in those areas in which we have never even been pushed or tripped. But Sodom’s sin, we can all be guilty of that one while still feeling pretty good about ourselves.

But, I want to talk about being a Matthew 25 parent. I looked and looked for this old article I once read, that was such a blessing to me. I read it during some pretty dark days with my son Andrew. Just some background, if you haven’t heard our testimony of adopting our twins—we found out shortly after committing to the match that Andrew would have significant disabilities, physical and intellectual. But we didn’t care—well, of course we cared but you know what I mean—and we adopted them and I wouldn’t change it for the world but it can be really tough at times, and very lonely because of the way society is set up nowadays. It can be lonely being an adoptive mom because biological moms can be pretty dismissive in a lot of different ways, but then with a special needs child it does get worse because that is not only even more lonely, but exhausting and challenging.

I am going to retell the story that I heard, probably badly, but it needs to be told.

A couple had a child who was profoundly disabled, both physically and mentally, due to birth complications. It was hard, as the child got bigger and older, it became more and more difficult to care for him. There were no vacations, money was very tight, and the little things that most parents take for granted, the accomplishments and “regular” joys just weren’t there to sustain them and spur them on. No first steps, no first words, no potty training, no first day of kindergarten—you get the picture. He did smile, a lot, and that kept them going usually. He liked television, and being sang to, he liked being pushed around in his stroller, and then in his specialized wheelchair, but he was always going to be largely unresponsive and would never be on his own. One day, his mom, his full time caregiver, just broke down as special needs moms do from time to time (I sure did), and wept on the floor. Part of being a special needs mom is about allowing your dreams for your child to die in some ways, some small, and others very very big as she was experiencing. He would never marry, or have children of his own—he would just continue to grow. She was frightened because it was already hard to deal with and he would quickly be too heavy for her to move around. It was heartbreaking and monotonous dealing with diapers on a growing boy, and especially knowing that he would never be free of them. There was no silver lining to her life and she was just dead tired with little to sustain her except for one family from the church who would visit and help out when they could, and an overworked husband trying to pay the bills for things that insurance just didn’t cover.

This was one of the days when she received a visit from the couple, and the older woman took her aside, held her tightly, wiped her tears and said, “I want to read you something.” She got her Bible out of her bag and turned the pages to chapter 25 of the gospel of Matthew. One arm around the weary, discouraged mom and the other holding her bible open, she told her the story of the righteous at the right hand of the Son of Man:

She closed her Bible and held her friend tightly. “I know you are tired. I know this wasn’t the life you wanted for him or for you. I know it isn’t fair and I can’t give you any answers as to why this happened or what will happen in the future but I want you to know something. When I see you caring for your son, and I think of you having to bathe him and feed him and change his diapers everyday, slaving away just to keep him alive and healthy and comfortable—all I can think of is you changing Jesus’s diapers. I know it probably doesn’t seem like much of a privilege and I am not going to give you any empty platitudes, but when I see you all I can see is someone working day and night and expending all her heart and energy into caring for my Savior. And when I see His smile, all I can see is our Lord smiling at you through your son.”