The Least of These

A Sermon for Sunday, November 26, 2023. Emory Presbyterian Church. Christ the King Sunday. Matthew 25:31-46

Let’s talk about those Matthew 25 goats, shall we?

I realize that’s not where you expected me to begin, and to be honest, I surprised myself when I set out to write the sermon this weekend. 

The punishment the goats receive for their wrongdoing is uncomfortable to read, much less discern. Many Presbyterian ministers typically don’t mention the goats when they’re preaching sermons on Matthew 25 because it’s so awkward and troubling. In past sermons that I’ve preached on this famous parable of Jesus, I’ve definitely chosen to omit the goats, and focus only on the sheep. 

The goats’ fate doesn’t quite line up with our understanding of a sovereign triune God whose unconditional love and everlasting mercy liberates all people and heals all of creation from the brokenness that is caused by human callousness and cruelty.  The goat’s fate doesn’t square up with the underlying message, of both the Old and New Testaments, that God’s reign of love and mercy, God’s kingdom, surpasses all earthly realms of power, prestige and violence. 

So, then, what are we to make of the text’s declaration that the goats or numerous people will go into the eternal fire or eternal punishment? 

Well, let’s break it down.

The first thing to note is that Jesus uses allegory in his teachings. An allegory is a story, poem or picture that reveals a hidden meaning for the audience. However, Jesus’ parables aren’t strict allegory in the sense that each character directly represents someone or something in reality, and missing that aspect has led to numerous misunderstandings of stories like the sheep and the goats.

Perhaps, humanity has misunderstood what Jesus is saying in this parable because of society’s constant obsession with having winners and losers; 

those who are good and those who are bad; those who are in and those who are out. Which is fine for competitive sports and games, but is much messier and more complicated when applied to everyday living. Humans, after all,  are complex creations who have great capacity for doing good…and evil. As the late human rights activist, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, once said:

The quality of human life on our planet is nothing more than the sum total of our daily interactions with one another. Each time we help, and each time we harm, we have a dramatic impact on our world.

Yet, many people have concluded over the course of history that the goats represent a kind of person or a group of people whom they conveniently don’t like and whom they think are inherently bad: Christians of different denominations, people of other faiths, atheists, and those who are ostracized and oppressed. And that, unfortunately, is a gross misreading of Jesus’ parable.

Consider the context in which Jesus’ life and ministry occurs; it is during a time of Roman occupation. During Jesus’ days, the Roman Empire had conquered many areas in Europe, Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, Syria, North Africa, Egypt and Judea, a mountain region that is now part of Israel and Palestine. From those nations, the King splits up the people like a shepherd would separate the sheep from the goats, and the people on both sides of the King’s throne know their Lord—meaning this is not an issue about belief. The sheep and goats aren’t distinguished by those who believe in Christ, the incarnation of God, and those who don’t.  They are differentiated not by what they believe but by how they practice their beliefs. 

The second observation is the King’s words to the goats: “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. …Then they will go away to eternal punishment.” The King tells them to go, but the King doesn’t make them go. Nor does the King tell them that he, himself, will put them in the eternal fire. 

The third point to consider is the meaning of “eternal punishment” in the ancient Greek of which The New Testament was originally scribed: aion kolazo. The first word, “aion,” has several meanings and one is “age” or “period of time, ” while another refers to “intensity of experience.” The second word, “kolazo” is an agriculture term for the pruning and trimming of branches so a plant can flourish. So, depending on how you translate “aion” and “kolazo,” the phrase can mean “a period of pruning” or “an intense experience of correction.”  For whatever reason, many English versions translate the phrase as eternal punishment, but the ancient Greek definitions actually matches up better with the King’s usage of the phrase “eternal fire,” or aion pur. 

Again, a period or an intense experience of burning was familiar to the ancients because fire was an often-used pruning method for plants and also a way to remove the husk from a grain of wheat. So the King in this parable, Christ himself, is not telling the goats to burn in hell, but instead is telling them to go somewhere else for a long period to think about their wrongs and correct their behavior—to prune or remove the unkindness  from their hearts.

Now, if eternal fire and punishment is more preferable to some readers of the text, that’s ok. I simply caution that we do not attribute such horrific actions to Jesus or God. Because the God of unconditional love and mercy never desires to furiously punish others for their transgressions but seeks to redeem and transform people through grace.

It is human beings who punish, mistreat and harm others with great amounts of force. It is human beings who create their own life-long hells because they are unable to tolerate those who aren’t like them. That is the sin of the goats. They miss the mark of being faithful followers of Jesus because they don’t see Christ in “least of these”—the hungry and thirsty, the stranger, the poor, and the prisoner—all beloved and cherished creations of God. And since the goats don’t see Christ in the lowly and marginalized, the goats don’t provide help to those in need. 

The goats in Matthew 25 are seemingly the temple leaders—the Pharisees and Sadducees who were criticized by Jesus, earlier in Matthew’s gospel, for their religious hypocrisy and mistreatment of the suffering. They worship God and educate people in the faith, but they are blind to God’s presence in those whom they despise. They essentially reject the greatest commandments which Jesus shared with them three chapters ago: “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and “to love your neighbor as yourself.”

There are Christians—church leaders, lay people (several of whom are politicians and lawmakers) and denominations—who act like goats today. They proclaim belief in God, but they ignore their calling and responsibility to care for all of God’s people and they fail to recognize another’s inherent worth and, thus, they are unable to witness the image of Jesus dwelling within those they look down upon. 

And so this parable that Jesus tells two days before the Passover meal where he will be betrayed and arrested by the Roman Empire and religious authorities, serves as a warning to all of Christ’s followers. We can disregard God’s commandment to love God and neighbor, to care for the least of these with God’s love, and create hellish conditions for ourselves and the planet; or we can minister and keep ministering to the ones who are hurting because our purpose and Jesus’ desire is to live Matthew 25 lives that welcomes the most vulnerable into the beloved community, and brings healing and wholeness into their lives and ours. My friend, the Rev. Lyndsay Armstrong, a Presbyterian pastor in Atlanta, offers the following wisdom:^[1]

This passage provides a wellness check and possibly even a warning to those living in unhealthy, self-centered ways. Akin to measuring weight or blood pressure, Matthew 25:31–46’s emphasis, on freely sharing with strangers, prisoners, and all who are hungry, thirsty, naked, and/or sick, is a key diagnostic tool to help us assess our righteousness and health. If we cannot share freely and fully or if we do not make ourselves available to do so, this indicates that our relationship with God and the world is not as healthy and whole as Jesus’ triumph on the cross makes possible. Loving those for whom Jesus gave his life, particularly those who are undervalued, is a primary expression of our love of God and of our experience of God’s love for us.

This is the king whom we worship, adore, prepare for and follow as we enter next Sunday into the time of Advent—a season in which we celebrate the dawning reign of our Lord and Redeemer who was born among the least of these and whose love will change us all.

Amen.

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^[1] Bartlett, David L.; Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ) (Feasting on the Word: Year A volume) (p. 925). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.