“Sheep vs. Goats”
A sermon by Sid Burgess
for Edgewood Presbyterian Church, Birmingham, AL
Christ the King Sunday, November 23, 2008
Texts: Ezekiel 34:11-16, Matthew 25: 31-46
President-elect Barack Obama is hard at work organizing a new government. Word is that he has been inspired by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s TEAM OF RIVALS: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. This best-selling book tells the story of how President Lincoln brought his political competitors into his cabinet to create a strong government in a time of national crisis. “Team of Rivals” versus team of “yes” men and women could once again make an effective leadership model. But there is another model of leadership the President-elect should consider. And we find that ideal in our biblical texts for today. In Ezekiel and elsewhere the biblical model for leadership is the shepherd king, a leader who sees that the “sheep of his pasture” are fed, and have the means--pasture, in this case--of providing food for themselves. The shepherd king sees that the “scattered” and the “lost” sheep are safely returned to the fold, are provided rest at appropriate intervals, and medical care when needed. The shepherd king will end exploitation of the poor. This ruler will lift up the lowly, says the prophet Ezekiel, and send the fat cats packing.
The notion of president as “shepherd,” entrusted with the care of the citizen/sheep of the nation, may be a bit foreign to Mr. Obama, as it is to most of us. Few of us have ever met a shepherd, tending his sheep. But the analogy runs deep in the literature of the ancient world. In Mesopotamia, the region along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the model for kings was the shepherd. The king-as-shepherd was to “rule kindly, counsel and protect the people,” and “guide them through every difficulty.” Babylon’s Hammurabi, credited with the world’s first written law code, was described as a shepherd of his people. In ancient Egypt, the shepherd's crook was used "as an insignia of kings, princes, and chieftains." In the Iliad and the Odyssey from ancient Greece, ship captains are called "shepherds of ships." Plato uses the shepherd analogy to define justice in the Republic, and in the Statesman uses it to symbolize the work of a good ruler.1
Biblical heroes who were shepherds include Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Jacob’s sons, Moses, and David. In the Newer Testament, Jesus becomes the biblical ideal of the shepherd leader.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34
Note the criteria Jesus will use as he establishes divine rule. The “sheep” Jesus will draw to him will be those who have fed the hungry, given water to the thirsty, welcomed the immigrants, clothed the needy, provided medical care to the sick, and befriended the prisoners. Imagine the new administration using these standards to conduct foreign policy, and to establish priorities for domestic programs. But this cannot be, someone says. Don’t you know religion is a private matter? Government is not to be concerned with religious teaching! Tell that to Matthew 25. Come Judgment Day, our text argues, “all the nations” of the world-- not individuals but nations--“divided we fall, united we stand.”
Come Judgment Day, ‘all nations’ will be gathered together before the Son of Man. The scene is that of a world court with Jesus the chief justice stilling in judgment. Presumably Russia, China, Japan, (the European Union), and the United States are there alongside other nations great and small.2
Where will our own nation be? To which side will we be assigned? Sheep-nations to the right, goat-nations to the left.
The criteria Jesus will use is clear: “I was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, and sick and you gave me food and drink and welcomed me-- or you did nothing.” Surely we will say, ‘But Jesus, when did we see you in such a state? We were not there, back in Galilee in the first century. We were not there, there on the dusty road you took to Jerusalem. That was then, this is now. And the shepherd-king will reply, “As you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family--the human family--you did it to me.”
Now, imagine President-elect Obama using this criteria to fill out his cabinet. If so, many of you would be candidates. I’ve seen you doing these things. Living out these ideals. Through your tithes and offerings you are contributing to the care of the needy through your support of the church’s ministry. You are feeding the hungry through Angel Food and our monthly hunger offering. You are giving water--clean water--to the thirsty through our Presbytery’s support of Living Water for the World. You welcomed the immigrants in the Hispanic worship services here last spring. You are clothing the needy at First Light and the Firehouse Shelter. You are providing medical care for the sick through your careers as health care professionals. You are visiting those who are confined to home, nursing home, even prison. None of us doing all of the above all of the time, but all of us together, with Christian brothers and sisters here and around the world, doing some of this every day, day in and day out, week-by-week, month-by-month as we patiently await the Son of Man coming in glory.
Well, enough about sheep. Let’s talk about goats. Like milk and cookies, pie and ice cream sheep and goats seem to go together. But here is Jesus saying he will separate the two. What gives? What is the background?
The Jewish Heritage Online magazine reports: While goat’s milk was reported to have some medicinal benefits, goats were regarded as "armed robbers who would jump over people's fences and destroy their plants.” The ancient rabbis were said to have told this story:
There was once a certain pious person who suffered from heart trouble, and the physicians said the only hope for his recovery was for him to (drink) warm milk every morning. A cow was not available to this fellow but his family was able to come up with a goat. After some days the sick man’s colleagues came to visit him, but as soon as they noticed the goat they turned back and said: An armed robber is at the house of this man, how can we come to see him: They thereupon sat down and inquired into (their friend’s) conduct, but they did not find any fault in him except this sin of the goat.... 3
The sin of the goat! Who among us has not been guilty, at some point, in some time, of the sin of the goat. Some mild transgression, some missed opportunity, some blind eye to the suffering of others, some deaf ear the cry of needy children. To be sure, we condemn crime and greed, abuse and oppression, but we do little to stop them--at home or abroad. We are quick to condemn the rogue states, the dictatorship and the oligarchies, but we do little to demand that our government help feed the hungry masses around the world, welcome the strangers in our own land, expand access to health care, and make our prisons more humane.
When the Son of Man comes he will separate the sheep from the goats. Sheep to the right, goats to the left. The prospect of standing before the judgment seat of God would be terrifying were it not for our faith that our judge is also our redeemer, Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. In him God has given us assurance of both mercy and judgment beyond death.
The late theologian Shirley Guthrie of Columbia Seminary wrote:
The whole picture (of the final judgment) changes as soon as we remember who the Judge will be. Not a vengeful or even an unbiased ‘blind’ judge, but Christ himself! The one who will judge sinners is the very one who loved and gave his life for them. The triumphant Judge who stands at the end is none other than the dying Jesus on the cross who has already taken the judgment of God upon himself for the sake of whole world. 4
To Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his
blood
and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father,
to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Rev. 1: 5,6
1Holding, James Patrick, “Is Shepherd Imagery in the
Bible Offensive?” TEKTONICS, Apologetics Ministries,
http://www.tektonics.org/qt/sheepcompare.html.
2Breneman, James E., “Living the Word, THE CHRISTIAN
CENTURY, November 18, 2008, p. 20.
3http://www.jhom.com/topics/thieves/goat.htm (I have
adapted this story for modern ears. The original version has the
goat tied to the patient’s bed, presumably so that he could suck
directly from the animal. I thought such a notion would be
distracting to the faithful!)
4Guthrie, Shirley, CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, Revised edition,
p. 388.