The Return of the King
In some versions of the Robin Hood legend, Robin, the outlaw who has been stealing from the rich to give to the poor, is pardoned at the return of the king, Richard the Lionheart, who had been fighting in the Third Crusade. Robin is deemed ‘righteous’ in the end, because he stood up for the cause of the poor, he defended the people of Richard’s land in the face of an unjust usurper, the King’s brother John. Robin Hood is vindicated, even though his means were not altogether lawful.
That story faintly echoes one told by Jesus. Jesus concludes his final discourse of Matthew’s account with a story about future judgement of the nations. He paints a picture of the king, the Son of Man, returning to carry out this judgement, separating people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The righteous, the sheep, go to his right, the unrighteous goats, on his left.
To the righteous, he says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…” (Matthew 25:34ff). They answer, ‘When? When did we do any of that?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me’” (Matthew 25:40).
And to those on the left, it’s the opposite. They are cursed, and are sent to “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…” (v. 41). Why? Because they did none of the above.
Goats in sheep’s clothing
Living in the UK, the image of separating sheep and goats used here by Jesus might be lost on us. After all, sheep and goats look quite different. Sheep have a slightly plump, woolly appearance; goats are rather scrawny, with horns. If you put a sheep and a goat side by side, it would be easy to tell them apart.
Unless the sheep and the goat are Palestinian. And Jesus is telling this story in Palestine. For his listeners, sheep and goats would look quite alike. The indigenous sheep of Palestine is the Awassi variety, which has floppy ears and a long face, not unlike a goat. So the shepherd’s task in separating them is not as straightforward as we might imagine. Of course, one would still expect the shepherd to be able to spot the difference.
But to the untrained eye, the sheep and the goats may be indistinguishable from one another, and goats could infiltrate the flock and pass themselves off as sheep. This image, of course, adds a sinister edge to goats which probably does not exist, but it is purely illustrative. The similarity could conceivably result in goats in sheep’s clothing.
And this point is worth some attention. Jesus is talking of the difference between the righteous and the unrighteous: the former are represented by the sheep, the latter by the goats. The term Jesus uses, translated as righteous, is dikaios, which means just or equitable, in character or act. I’d suggest it might be both: character and act. The righteous are people who do the right thing because of who they are. They are just. They are God’s kind of people.
It is, of course, possible to do the right things without being just. The unrighteous are identified in Jesus’ story by their failure to do the right things, to act justly or compassionately. They question when they failed to serve Jesus. And Jesus points out that if they didn’t do it for the least, they didn’t do it for him.
This exemplifies the point that it is possible to do the right things without being ‘right’. This is legalism. The unrighteous could well include Pharisees and scribes, who may have carried out their religious duties to the letter, but with no change in their character. For many such people, Torah was reduced to small print, a rulebook on divine etiquette. It became little more than a manual on how to win divine favour. It was hoops to jump through. Look at the story of the Good Samaritan. The expert in the law asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?” He knows he has to love his neighbour, but he wants to know the definition, the parameters. Who, and how, when and how often? He doesn’t get it. It’s not a thing to do. It’s a way of life. Jesus tells the story, and the punchline, in short, is: Look around. Who’s your neighbour? Whoever is nearby and needs help. You need to cultivate a loving disposition. Neighbourliness is not just about geography, it’s about generosity. In fact, Jesus turns the whole question on its head, by asking the lawyer, “Which one of the characters in the story was a neighbour to the wounded man?” We define the neighbour: am I a neighbour, or not?
Torah, the law, was designed as instruction, as an illustration of how life as God’s children should look. The legalistic starting point is wrong: Torah was given because God already favoured the people; they were already chosen, his children. Torah was the example of the kind of life which flows from the heart of God’s children.
Such a heart does the right thing – not always, but more and more, because it moves in the flow of its Father’s grace.
Acting the goat
When I was young, my mother would sometimes tell me to stop ‘acting the goat’… I never understood where this expression came from, so recently I looked it up. I think it comes from the idea that the devil is a goat. In Christianity, the devil came to be associated with the Greek god Pan, who was half-man, half-goat in form.
So the goat, even in Jesus’ own day, was possibly seen as evil, associated with the devil, or Pan. These unrighteous in Jesus’ story here might be seen as children of the devil as much as the righteous are children of God… Who knows? It’s pretty challenging stuff.
Kind
What is also challenging is that, in explaining the actions of the righteous, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). But this is not a completely new idea. As in other cases, Jesus is interpreting and illustrating kingdom life as presented in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament. In particular, this has resonance in the Proverb: “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and will be repaid in full” (Proverbs 19:17).
This proverb, from ancient scribal wisdom, would be well-known for Jesus’ hearers. The Hebrew Bible frequently presents God’s special concern for the poor. Social justice was a major part of Torah and of the Jewish religion.
But this verse seems to go beyond that. Here, scribal wisdom somehow identifies God with the poor, directly: it is as though kindness to the poor is kindness to God, and is counted by God as such.
And this is exactly what Jesus says. Any kindness to the poor is kindness to him. Because Jesus identifies with the poor. Jesus is on the side of the little people. The late, great Rob Lacey captures this brilliantly in his paraphrase of Matthew 25:31-46. When it comes to the reply of the goats, the unrighteous, Lacey puts it like this: “‘We wouldn’t be like that to you! With someone like you we’d be thoughtful, sensitive, inclusive, generous, caring. With someone like you we’d never make you feel forgotten.’” Jesus replies, “I’ll say, ‘Truth is, the lowest of the low issomeone like me…’”
He’s my brother
Jesus goes beyond even simply identifying himself with or taking the side of the poor, the hungry, the lonely, the naked, the sick, the prisoner; in answering the righteous, he says, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Jesus does not see himself so much as an advocate for the little people, perhaps as their local politician, or their lawyer; he calls them his brothers, and a brother has a much stronger tie. They are connected, their welfare is of mutual concern, there is a sense of interdependence. Brothers belong to one another. The local MP may change, a lawyer takes on a case, and then the next, but a brother is always a brother.
Particularly instructive at this point is the story of Cain and Abel, found in Genesis chapter 4. Cain is the first son of Adam and Eve, and Abel is the second. Cain works the soil, Abel keeps flocks. When Cain brings an offering to God, we are told it is “some of the fruits of the soil…” (Genesis 4:3). Abel, on the other hand, brings “fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock” (Genesis 4:4). God looks on Abel’s offering with favour – and there are various interpretations of why this is – but is not so pleased with Cain’s. Cain’s resultant anger prompts him to set Abel up and kill him.
When God asks Cain where Abel is, Cain replies: “I don’t know… Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).
Cain’s flippant response gives rise, ultimately, to Jesus’ point with this story. God’s revelation to his people through the pages and the unfolding story of the Hebrew Bible sounds a resounding ‘yes’ to Cain’s question. Cain ishis brother’s keeper. Cain had a responsibility to care for his brother, but neglected this; such neglect had fatal consequences.
God outlines two ways for people to relate to one another: to take seriously their responsibility to care for each other, or to abdicate this responsibility. The first way promotes life; the second, death. When one brother chooses not to care, he may as well wish his brother dead, as he is choosing to try to end the relationship of brotherhood. In Cain’s case, this was quite literal. In most cases, it is not literal, but nonetheless real.
Jesus is reminding his listeners that God expects brotherly love. And all those who would wish to claim brotherhood to Jesus must accept this brotherly responsibility for Jesus’ brothers.
The Hollies capture so much of Jesus’ thought here in their song He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother. The lyrics illustrate the sense of companionship on a journey, of mutual responsibility, of concern for one another’s welfare, and the recognition that “carrying” one another is not burdensome, but liberating for all involved.
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