Happy Lutheran

The Gospel text last Sunday was one of my absolute least-favorite parables of Jesus; sometimes it is called “The Judgement of the Nations,” sometimes it is called “The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.” It is from Matthew 25:

31 ‘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. ³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ³³and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. ³⁴Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” ³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” ⁴⁰And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” ⁴¹Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴²for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” ⁴⁴Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” ⁴⁵Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” ⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’

There are two reasons why I really don’t like this passage. First, is the way that it suggests that your eternal destination after death depends not on God’s mercy and grace, but on your own actions—heaven as a reward for your good works. Second, is the idea that there is a place of “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” where unwitting/lazy/mean-spirited people will spend eternity, separated from God’s love in Jesus Christ. Let me be clear: I don’t believe either one of those things is true: not because those ideas make me squirm, or because they aren’t politically-correct. I do not believe they are true because they simply do not make sense in the larger context of the biblical witness, which so clearly, vividly and repeatedly testifies to the radical, unconditional love-without-limits that fundamentally characterizes God’s relational nature and character, divine love that is the only source of our salvation. This interpretation simply doesn’t square with who God has revealed Godself to be in Jesus Christ, whose entire ministry was spent seeking out, healing, loving and forgiving no one as much as the outsider, the lost, the stranger, the criminal.  In other words, the goat.

And, if I am really honest, there is a third reason why I really don’t like this passage, and that is the arrogant, self-righteous judgment it fosters in Christians who take this passage and those implications as permission to turn down their noses and turn their backs on other people—including other Christians—whom they think aren’t “good enough;” and sometimes secretly, sometimes overtly, take great pleasure in other people’s damnation.

Because, let’s be clear, no one who interprets the parable this way, no Christian who confidently shares this view, thinks that she is one of the goats. No one thinks he is one of the ones who is going to be cast into eternal darkness. No one thinks they are one of the ones who is going to hell. Hell is for other people, for people worse than me, for sinners. And that is where the falsehood of this interpretation is revealed. Because no one, no Christian, is good enough to earn heaven on her own. All Christians, no matter how nice they are, how many good deeds they do, all Christians are sinners and deserving of judgment. All Christians deserve condemnation for our selfishness, greed, and frankly, our smug conceit that condemns others to hell while assuming we are safe. So, if you are so sure there is a hell, you need to reckon with the fact that you belong there, too. This interpretation falls when its straw man crumbles.

So, for me, then, the larger question is, “Why did Jesus tell this parable in the first place? Why did he threaten his listeners was such an awful fate?”

I don’t know, of course, but I have a couple ideas. Maybe Jesus himself didn’t know what God had in store after his death. Unless we think Jesus’ anguished cries on the cross were a sham, his desperate accusations that his own Father had abandoned him a ploy, I think it is very possible Jesus himself did not anticipate the harrowing of hell that his death accomplished, and the universal transformative effects of his resurrection. [I mean, there is some irony in the fact that Jesus prophesizes that certain people are going to be cast into eternal punishment just months before he himself is cast into that very same punishment, and ends up breaking the doors of that prison wide open, freeing everyone who was suffering there and destroying death and hell forever in the process.]

I also think it is possible that Jesus wanted to emphasize with his listeners how very, very important it is for his followers to care for the marginalized as part of their discipleship, their life of faith. Simply put, faith in Christ simply is manifest in love of God and love of neighbor and stranger. Jesus has so definitively aligned himself with the outcasts, he is emphasizing that any love and care that is shown to them also reflects the love and care the disciples have for Jesus himself. This love and care is not an aside or an add-on; this love for Jesus [through love for the least of these] is inherently related to and inseparable from their faith in him.

I don’t know; maybe neither of these things is right. But, in any case, I am not willing to simply accept the face value interpretation that says, “There are people who are going hell, and they are being sent there because they didn’t do enough.” God loves everyone, no exceptions. Christ came to save everyone, no exceptions. And nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus—even our own actions. So, I keep wondering, praying, and thinking: What might this parable mean? Where is the gospel in this story?