Sermon – November 23, 2014 – Matthew 25:31-44

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.