It’s like eating an orange!
I finally figured it out. We’ve been reading the Gospel of Matthew for weeks now and dealing with all these parables about judgement and Jesus refusing to open a locked door and people being cast into the outer darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth and now today we have a group of people being called goats and being sent to the eternal fire that is prepared for the devil and his angels and I’ve finally figured it out. It’s like eating an orange. Reading a parable from Matthew is like eating orange. The eternal judgement stuff is the peel. You don’t eat that part! If you want to get to the good, sweet, juicy stuff in the parable you have to take off the peel. In the same way you have to remove the condemnation and punishment from Matthew’s parables.
You don’t throw the peel away. You can zest it for a little flavor in a recipe. You can boil it in a crock pot for a nice citrus smell in your home. I even found a recipe where you can coat orange peels with about 4 cups of sugar and bake them. In the same way, we take all this punishment and condemnation stuff from Matthew and we treat it as flavoring. It is not the main point. It is flavoring. We sweeten it up with some sugar. We zest it to bring out its essence. We boil it down to its core purpose.
And this judgement stuff does have a purpose. The purpose of this stuff is to say, “Pay attention to this! The content of this parable is really important. It matters!” Like an orange peel with its bright orange color that announces to the world that there is good stuff inside, so does “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” announce to us that there is really important stuff in the parable. But you don’t eat the peel.
The food, the sweet, juicy, nourishing center is the heart of the parable itself. “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was as 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 because whenever you did those things to the least of these, you did it to me.” Whenever we take care of the sick, visit the prisoner, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked and welcome the stranger we are doing that for Christ. That’s the part of the parable we can really sink our teeth into.
So let me make two observations about the juicy center. The first observation is that this parable doesn’t give any numbers. It doesn’t say how many goats there are. In other words, it doesn’t say how many fail to help those in need. It doesn’t say how many succeed and are put with the sheep. But, even more importantly, notice this: it doesn’t say how many times you need to help those in need to qualify to be with the sheep. For that matter it doesn’t say how many times you have to fail to care for those in need to qualify for the goats. We could fail once and be among the goats or we could succeed once and be among the sheep. It doesn’t say.
Let me pause here to say that if we are going to set aside the judgement stuff in order to get to the juicy center of the teaching we still need to to figure out what it means to be in one group or another. The two groups are a more integral part of the plot than a tag line at the end about eternal punishment. Here is how I interpret the groups. I interpret the two groups as two paths in life. One is a path to wholeness through connection and meaningful relationships with others and the world. That is the path of the sheep. The other is a path of disconnection and broken relationships. That is the path of the goats. One is the path to salvation through wholeness in this life and one is the path to estrangement through selfishness and disregard for the needs of others.
So then my first observation is still that the parable doesn’t give us any numbers. There are no hints as to either how many of us are on the path to greater wholeness or how many are on the path to greater brokenness. It also still does not say how many needs we have to meet in order to be whole or how many we have to disregard to be considered broken. Maybe there is a reason for that. Maybe it’s because it’s not really about numbers and there aren’t really two simple groups in which we are in or out. Instead there is a long continuum.
On one end of the continuum is someone like Mother Theresa who served Christ everyday for years by providing direct service to countless hurting and dying people. On the other end of the continuum is the most cold hearted billionaire capitalist who daily directs the suffering of millions with his unjust business practices and political influence. Yet, for all we know that billionaire may be as kind as a saint toward his aging mother, disabled child or a particular charity.
Which brings us to my second observation about this parable. In the parable there is only one criterion for getting in with the sheep. The path of wholeness has only one requirement: Help people in need. Think about what is not included in that requirement. Swearing. There is nothing about not swearing. Drinking or even even excessive drinking. Gambling. Sexual promiscuity. Nothing about any of that in this parable. The sheep could be tax evaders or committing welfare fraud. They could have anger management problems. This group could contain every kind of messed up, screwed up, gritty, raunchy, shady, repugnant bunch of people on earth but they could all qualify because they help people in need, maybe even just one person in need. Here at the end of Jesus’ ministry Matthew offers us this parable as the climax of his teachings. A parable that lifts up one behavior above all others, one behavior only: Help those in need.
The new movie out in theaters, St. Vincent is a great illustration of this. In the movie, Bill Murray plays Vincent, a cantankerous, alcoholic, Vietnam vet with a gambling addiction who uses prostitutes. Melissa McCarthy plays Maggie, a recently divorced single mom who makes the very questionable decision to hire Vincent who is her neighbor as a baby sitter for her school age son and then is so un-involved in her son’s life that she is oblivious to the trouble he is getting into at school and with Vincent. Naomi Watts plays a pregnant prostitute named Daka. Vincent is her regular client and may be the father of the unborn child. Finally there is the young boy, Oliver who though he is the most innocent of the bunch, has his own flaws. He is very timid and doesn’t know how to stand up for himself. Further he hides all of the trouble he gets into from his mother who only finds out at the worst possible moment. Every character in the movie has profound flaws. They are badly broken and yet by helping each other they all find healing, wholeness, recovery and yes, salvation. They don’t save the world. They don’t have a laundry list of people they help every day. They help each other. Broken, messed up people helping each other.
I imagine that all of them, Vincent, Maggie, Oliver and Daka would find themselves in our parable standing among the sheep. An angry old addict. A negligent single mom. A pregnant prostitute. A lying little boy. They all make the cut.
I also image there is a place among the sheep even for the likes of us. A middle class mom trying to balance work and family. A couple empty nesters trying to decide how much to give to the church this year and how much to keep. A middle school or high school youth cussing and smoking after school. A grandmother trying to keep up with her grand kid’s technology. A single guy trying to figure out what’s next. Whoever you are. Whatever your particular kind of brokenness. Whatever way you are messed up. There is a place among the sheep; a place on the path of wholeness and well being and salvation for all of us.
But, let’s not forget to add a little zest of the orange peel. There is a place on the path to wholeness only if we help those in need.
Govans Presbyterian Church 