Sheep and Goats

Professor Jim Childs says that when he was 10 years old, growing up in a town called Teaneck, NJ, there was a little street near his home named Catalpa Avenue. In those days Catalpa Avenue was not paved but simply covered with gravel. Since it connected his block to the blocks where most of his friends lived, he often rode his bike down Catalpa Avenue. On one particular morning when he set out, the town road crew had just laid down a fresh coating of new gravel. It was loose as the traffic hadn’t tamped it down. When his bike tires hit the loose gravel, his bike went out from under him and he fell into the gravel with his bike landing on top of him.

He was hurt and bleeding. As he lay there on Catalpa Avenue, crying and frightened, a woman who had witnessed the accident came walking by on the other side of the street. She called out to him, “Just pray, young man. Just pray.” And then, she kept right on walking by.

After all the church services, all the communion celebrations, listening to hours of sermons, why are Christians just as selfish as before? Why do we pass the children bleeding in our streets? Why do we let the income gap between rich and poor continue to grow? Why do we allow cigarettes, liquor, and opiates be the food of the lowest 1/3 of our communities and not bread? Why do disciples of the prince of peace allow funds for bombs to be built vs. being spent on the care and education of our kids?

When the Son of Man comes and sits on the throne of his glory, all nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep will go to the right and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right, “Come you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

It was common practice in those days to keep the sheep and goats together. Both were used for milk, meat, and fabrics. Sheep would provide wool, goats would provide hides for leather garments or wine skins. They mixed well together. Both animals mingle together in the same herd—just as righteous people and otherwise mingle together in the world—but the great Shepherd and king can easily tell the difference.

Yet both sheep and goats are surprised about their identities. “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison?” they both say. The sheep responded to Jesus’ need while the goats didn’t.

Jim Childs writes about his bicycle accident, “I’m sure that the unknown woman’s spirituality was genuine and sincere in urging me to pray, but the thirst for action was somehow missing… she simply passed by on the other side.” Isaiah 29:13 states, “They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
Many Christians throw this passage around to threaten others with hell. But the sheep don’t know they are sheep, and the goats don’t know they are goats. Someone once called me a goat, and I said, “You might be right, but I’m in the flock and training to be a sheep.”

I come to church each and every Sunday not just because I’m a pastor, but because I want to be a sheep. I want to be in God’s flock that feeds, dresses, welcomes, and visits the sick and imprisoned. I want to do that not because I want to get to heaven, God is in charge of that and I have no say in those matters, but I want to do that to help bring heaven here for my neighbor.

I may be a goat. I have goat-tendencies. Maybe because I was born a Capricorn… We all do. But I’m trying to be a sheep. I want to have the qualities that a sheep has; generous, helpful, giving, ready to listen and offer a shoulder to cry on. And I’m worried about passing children crying in the streets. I’m training myself to see them and listen to their stories.

Now this isn’t about works vs. grace. Jesus doesn’t talk about grace at all here, he talks strictly about action in this parable. And there’s a fundamental truth here. My son Sam is learning to read. Each and every night, we read these simple books. We have sight word flashcards. We are training him to read, we are coming alongside to help him out. Theologian Dallas Willard states, “You cannot learn to spell ‘cat’ by grace. If you don’t do the things that won’t bring you there, it won’t happen. Grace will not force you to become the type of person who easily and routinely blesses those who curse you, who feeds the hungry, who does the work of the kingdom.”

The church is the dojo, the training ground for the beloved community of God. Here we tell the stories of those who are out on the streets crying that others are passing by. Stories of those who have no stable housing. Stories of the working poor who can’t make ends meet who seem to live in a society where it’s easier to become addicted to pain killers than get a job with a living wage. We lift up stories of those who are persecuted because of who they are; those who are discriminated against because of their race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and creed and we stand firm on their basic human dignity in the face of those who would strip them of it.

I train because I want to live in Christ’s vision for our world. Where the meek, the mourning, the poor are blessed because others are blessing them. The Christian community is a community of character, the place where our moral vision and disposition are formed by the story of Jesus Christ. This common story and its effect on us precedes and underlies any reasoned analysis of our decision making and action.

So before we act, speak, vote, drive, or do anything, we ask ourselves if Christ would do this? Which is the sheep action and which is the goat attitude? Does this feed people, clothe the naked, help the imprisoned or the sick? This may seem very abstract, but let me break this down for you.

We’re coming to the holiday season. Next Sunday is the start of Advent where we will prepare for the birth of our Lord. Americans spend $450 Billion on Christmas. Billion with a B. Every year. Yet we live in a world where basic drinking water is a problem. People get sick and die. This is happening in our own country as Flint, MI, and much of Puerto Rico still do not have safe drinking water. The cost to solve this problem, world-wide? $20 billion.

We don’t have a money problem, we have a heart problem. How would the sheep, the righteous give? Does buying that gift give drink to the thirsty or food to the hungry? Could giving fewer but more meaningful gifts in the name of Jesus who gave us his all help heaven come to earth? Small actions lead to big results if all of us pitch in. Consumerism won’t save us. Stuff doesn’t make the memories, it’s the people gathered that matter. The best Christmas memories aren’t really about the gifts given, they’re about the people who gave them and what they mean to us. Those memories make us feel all warm and fuzzy, right? When we have those moments and memories, we can’t help but share. We want to give that feeling to someone else. That’s what love does. When it fills us up so much we can’t help but pass it on. It’s why we give gifts to one another, we want that warm fuzzy feeling to spread!

And you know what’s warm and fuzzy? Sheep! And it’s my hope that we will all be called such by our lord and to our surprise, we’ll hear the words, “Come you that are blessed by God, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

Works Cited

Facts from Advent Conspiracy, https://youtu.be/iuvAmknqiqQ

Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy #5: Salvation Confusion. https://youtu.be/Hd3A3AfmM5Q

James Childs, Ethics in the Community of Promise. Page 44-45

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *