The Woolly Ruminant Quadrupeds and The Capra aegagri

There’s this passage I read recently in Matthew that really shocked me. It’s one of those sections that I’ve read plenty of times before but I’d never really thought about the implications of what it was saying…or not saying. Perhaps you’ve run across some of those passages in your own reading and wondered why you’d never caught it before, and why others seem to have skimmed over it as well. I’ve been discussing this passage with some people recently and just as shocking to me as the passage, was their lack of shock by such scandalous words uttered by Jesus.

But before we get to the passage we should set up the back-story first.

Our story begins in Matthew 21 with Jesus entering Jerusalem. Jesus comes to town and upsets the religious establishment by causing a ruckus at the temple. Shortly thereafter, in the midst of being questioned by the religious authorities, Jesus quotes Psalm 8:2, “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise...”

Intriguingly, He stops midsentence, just short of quoting the rest of the verse which goes on to say, “…you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.” Now if you’ve got the Psalms memorized, as many of Jesus’ hearers would have, this is a not-so-subtle dig implying that the chief priests were God’s enemies and would be silenced. So the chief priests and teachers are mad to say the least.

The next day the chief priests and elders come and ask Jesus about his authority, his s’mikheh in Hebrew, which has to do with the type of teacher Jesus was and if he could do what he was doing. You see while a normal teacher or rabbi (also sometimes called a “Torah teacher” or “teacher of the law”) could teach only the accepted interpretations of other rabbis. A rabbi with s’mikheh, however, was able to teach new interpretations of the text. Notice Matthew 7:28-29 just after the famous sermon on the mount where, “the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.” (ref. http://www.followtherabbi.com for more information on this)

Then everything Jesus says from the second half of chapter 21 through the end of chapter 23 seems to be directed towards those religious authorities (priests, teachers, Pharisees, Sadducees, etc.) with the exception of 23:2-12 in which he specifically addresses the crowd, a small section which bears some mentioning.

Jesus’ address to the crowd comes just after having shared some parables with the Pharisee types and discussing taxes and marriage and the greatest commandment. Jesus turns to the crowd and tells them that while they must listen to the Pharisees, “do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” So apparently they are “preaching” good things, but weren’t doing them. An interesting critique you might want to hang on to for later.

He then goes on to condemn the Pharisees and teachers of the law for seven things. Let’s look at the fourth of those, in particular, because it will give us some more fuel for the coming fire. Jesus says that the Pharisees give a tenth of even their spices, but they “have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness.” (Matthew 23:23)

But all of these interactions with the Pharisees and teachers are but a backdrop to the more immediate context of the passage we’re going to get into, for after this Jesus goes off and speaks to his disciples alone about the end of the age. After a rather one-sided discussion of Jesus’ coming and the end of this age Jesus tells a couple parables, both basically saying, “keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour” (Matt 25:13).

And finally we get to our passage, which, although it’s often considered a parable, interestingly, doesn’t start out much like a parable at all and is really more of an analogy. Instead of beginning, “…the kingdom of heaven will be like…” or “again, it will be like…” instead Jesus starts off, “When the Son of Man comes…” (Matt 25:31 NIV). In the context of the disciples’ original question, “what will be the sign of your coming…” this begins to get quite interesting.

So it seems to me that the immediate context of the passage is the disciples asking what signs would accompany Jesus’ coming, which Jesus answers, and then goes on to warn them to stay ready, and finally comes the culmination of the discussion - the crescendo that Matthew has been leading up to for at least the past couple chapters or more.

Matthew 25:31-46 (the Message version)

The Sheep and the Goats [or The Woolly Ruminant Quadrupeds and The Capra aegagri]

"When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

[Allow me to interject here quickly as we’re getting to the crux of the matter.

Now earlier I claimed that what we’re about to read are, “scandalous words uttered by Jesus,” which is a pretty bold claim so let me justify my statement before we get to those words.

As you read what Jesus says, ask yourself, “is there anything in this passage that is glaringly absent?”

Let me put it like this (and perhaps tip my hand a bit) - here’s what I would expect Jesus to have said at this point in our passage,

“Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

You’ve heard the good news of my death and resurrection for your sins,
You’ve believed in the justification I’ve offered you,
You’ve repented of your sins and trespasses,
You’ve confessed those sins,
You’ve been baptized in my name.”

But he doesn’t say that. Let’s read on…]

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'

"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'

"Then he will turn to the 'goats,' the ones on his left, and say, 'Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—

I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'

"Then those 'goats' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?'

"He will answer them, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.'

"Then those 'goats' will be herded to their eternal doom, but the 'sheep' to their eternal reward."

Now you be the judge as to whether Jesus’ words were scandalous or not.

To summarize (because doubtlessly you’ve been naughty and didn’t read that whole section straight through), basically what’s going on is Jesus is saying that when He comes back he’s going to separate out two groups of people based on whether or not they gave needy people food, water, shelter, and clothes and visited prisoners and sick people.

Dan Berrigan, poet and peace activist, used to say, “all good things start small…

…and get smaller.”

That seems, to me to echo, what Jesus is talking about here. You don’t have to “save the world,” just feed the poor among you, give them something to drink, cloth them, etc.

Speaking of the poor among us, I think the problem with Jesus’ statement elsewhere about the poor always being among us (John 12:8) was that it assumed that we’d always be among them. Most of us have quite successfully removed ourselves from any situation in which we might be in danger of knowing a poor person, a person in need of food or clothes. And so whenever Jesus talks about the poor and oppressed we spiritualize it and think he’s actually talking about us.

But what then of faith?

To paraphrase Jesus’ own words, perhaps we should practice the latter, without neglecting the former (Matthew 23:23).

Perhaps, if we are to fear anything at all we should fear the idea of Jesus coming to us today and addressing the crowds of our day and saying that while they must listen to the Christian spiritual teachers, “do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” Or what’s more, maybe we must ask, “are we even bothering to preach it anymore?”