Is our tendency toward selfishness and judgment by nature, or by design?
by Mike Stavlund
Gospel Reading: Matthew 25:31-46
For Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011: Year A—Christ the King Sunday
This passage brings up all kinds of hard questions:
- How “glorious” is this throne, if it is based on exclusion and judgment?
- Why are “the nations” unkindly compared to animals?
- On what are we judged? This seems uncomfortably like a meritocracy, inside a book which many of us have been encouraged to read as a treatise on grace.
- On what basis are the sick, the strangers, and the prisoners judged?
- Isn't Jesus, the shepherd, a bit harsh (contra Psalm 100)? Here, Jesus is no meek shepherd—he's separating, sequestering, punishing. So are we supposed to live in constant cowering and fear of his wrath unleashed?
- ... and why is Jesus so hard on goats? In the Passover passage in Exodus, goats and sheep get equal billing, but here the goats are b..a..a..a..d. If there is a goat lobby, they have probably traced all of their bad press back to Jesus.
But for me, the hardest question lurks at the back of the scene, like a hungry wolf:
Why am I so intent on deciding who's who?
I Must be a Sheep
Like many THQ’rs, I’ve been reading this passage my whole life. Since I started when I was just a kid, I’ve never once imagined that I might be a goat. I’ve always assumed that I’m on Jesus’s good side because, well, Jesus seems flush with goodness and mercy and kindness and all of that, especially given all of my cute foibles, endearing failures, and good intentions. And after being inundated with all of Jesus’s other lovely gospel sheep/shepherd metaphors, I’ve grown accustomed to imagining myself as a fluffy, cuddly sheep.
...Which Leaves You...
The goats, on the other hand (and is this passage, perhaps, why we use the expression “on the other hand?”), are “The Others.” They’re the people who don’t believe the right things, think the right way, vote the right ticket, read the right theology, or do the right stuff. As we might expect, they turn a blind eye to the kind of people who Jesus identifies with: the poor, the homeless, the sick, and the incarcerated. In other words, they’ve got it coming.
The Log in my Own Eye
Of course in all of this, I tend to exaggerate my own list of accomplishments, shining the light on the rare occasions when actually have fed the hungry, housed the stranger, cared for the sick, or visited the prisoner, while ignoring the many, many (many) times when I have not. So me and my tribe (whoever that might be) consider ourselves “safe” from Jesus’s rightful wrath, and shrug uncomfortably when it’s time for those folks on the other side to get theirs. We claim mercy for ourselves, and merit for “The Other.”
The Twist
Another thing I tend to pass over is the element of surprise in this passage. People who actually do what Jesus requires are pleasantly surprised to find out that they’ve done this great stuff. They apparently weren’t doing it with special insight or intention.
The Hardest Question
Why am I so intent on judging other people’s eternal state when in Matthew 25, Jesus is plainly (and repeatedly) telling folks not to worry about judgment, because he will handle it.
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Mike Stavlund writes from a 5-car pile-up at the intersection of his Christian faith and real life. A husband of over 15 years and a father of 4 children, he lives with his wife and 3 daughters in a small house outside Washington, DC. He’s a part of an innovative emergence Christian community called Common Table, a co-conspirator with the Relational Tithe, and a proud part of the collective called Emergent Village. He blogs at MikeStavlund.com, and his first book, "Force of Will", will be published by Baker in the Spring of 2013.
