The Sheep and the Goats

The "Sunday of the Last Judgment", Lent, and Universal Salvation

The Orthodox Church places the Parable of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46) in the Pre-lenten services after two Sundays of “who’s in and who’s out” Gospel readings that flip the tables of our personal spiritual pious offerings in the Temple. The contexts of the readings are Jesus speaking to seriously religious people who already KNEW who was in and who was out. The Pharisee was “in”, but was really “out”. The Publican that the Pharisee judged to be out was in. The Elder brother was in and judged his younger brother to be out, but not because of the kinds of qualifications he believed it took to be in or out. This Sunday the Church gives us yet ANOTHER parable, but this one raises the ante and pushes ALL the chips to the center of the salvation table. The story Jesus tells affirms what some people believe: there’s going to be people who are going to be in and some who will be out. And (spoiler alert!): It’s going to be a surprise to EVERYONE who is in and who is out.

So why is the Parable of the Sheep and Goats and the Last Judgment part of the pre-Lenten lectionary, and how should we should interpret it in the context of preparing for Lent?

First, it is not to “scare the hell out of us” and motivate us to “do Lent right or else you’ll be a goat!” which, unfortunately, is kind of the reaction I think many people have. In the Gospels the parables were told to people who did all the fasting, prayers, attended all the services and had the theology right. The message of the parables across the board is “doing it right does not necessarily make righteous” and the Church tries to forewarn us of this Lenten error by making the week of the Publican and Pharisee a fast free week. Whatever the “hell” had to be scared out of the people Jesus was talking to, it wasn’t about being in the wrong religion and failing to do their ritual observances right.

So, the Pre-lenten services are speaking to the Church, to US… Orthodox Christians who are in the “right church” doing all the “right things”, or at least trying (more or less) to do it all right (with mixed motives and understandings thrown in). But with 2000 years of spiritual teaching at our disposal on the internet now, we probably have figured out that we are in the Gospel stories and parables as BOTH of the main characters: we are an amalgamation of both the Pharisaical self-canonized saints and the humble sinners. We’re a mixed bag and we don’t know ourselves well enough to know what’s in our bag and going to be dumped out on someone if you tip us over the edge. But our spiritual insecurity demands some certainty about where we stand with God compared to others who may be more or less pious or correct than us, which leads to overthinking and we end up in an endless loop of self-assessment, self-condemnation and judgment of others. This kind of summarizes my “inner conversation” Facebook post about the Publican and Pharisee:

“Oh dang... I'm being a Pharisee about being a Publican who knows he's being a Pharisee about being a Publican…. Welllll crap! So, if I'm a Publican about being a Pharisee about being Publican who knows I'm being a Pharisee about being a Publican am I really a Publican because I'm still comparing myself to Pharisees about being Publicans?”

And so it goes, our brain spins on a Mobius loop of self examination to determine whether we are doing the “humble chief of sinners thing” correctly on the one side AND piously doing all the fasting and praying and services right enough on the other because we know BOTH humility AND correctness are “required”. (And of course we all know (intellectually) that part of doing Lent “right” is finding out we really can’t do it right and if we think we’re doing it right we’re actually doing it wrong because of pride…but that’s another issue, or actually the same one as described in the Publican and Pharisee.)

So, back to the fear of judgment and hell… It drives a BIG double articulated bus full of a LOT of people. But if the parable is not intended to sell us a ticket to get ON that bus by telling us about Sheep and Goats and eternal damnation, then why is it here so near the beginning of the most demanding of all seasons of the Church and what is it trying to say to us that is an encouragement to engage the disciplines rather than a threat?

I think there’s a couple things we need to get about the parables in general that frames the message of The Sheep and the Goats. This parable begins like all the other parables: The default status of everyone at the start of all the parables is that they are “included”. The Publican and Pharisee were both in the Temple praying before God. The Elder Brother and Younger Brother were both sons of the Father in His household. The wheat and the tares grew up together in one field. "All manner of things" were drawn up from one lake in the Fisherman's net. The wise and un-wise virgins were both invited to the wedding feast. The faithful and bad stewards were all in the household of the Master and all were given gifts. The King’s friends and strangers and outcast beggars were all invited to the great banquet. The loitering, lazy, and diligent were all given jobs in the field and all were paid the same. The renters of the vineyard had complete control and access to the Landowner’s fields and property. ALL were "included" in whatever place the parables took place prior to the surprise separations at the ends of the parables.

So we see this parable is like all the others: The Sheep and the Goats were one flock: both shepherded by the same Good Shepherd. They both heard His voice and knew His face, and Jesus explains the meaning: “all the nations were brought before the King”. ALL the nations were under one King and citizens of one Kingdom just as there was one Shepherd and one flock.

So, of course your mind jumps immediately to “The Separation”… who gets booted and why?! But wait! Before we can know that, we HAVE to understand what Jesus is telling us about God: The default is, he includes EVERYONE. You are simply IN because you are God’s beloved creation.

Did you catch that? EVERYONE IS IN! Inclusion was NOT BASED ON GOODNESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS AND CORRECTNESS. You weren’t “out” then got in because he deemed you worthy somehow by your goodness, performance, or even your great humility and repentance. You are “in” simply because Christ "drew all men to himself" as he promised he would. There are no qualifications to be included except that you exist as a beloved child of God to be embraced by him, just as both Brothers were sons even though both of them had a wrong-headed understanding of being a son and who their Father was. (An important corollary to this is the intrinsic goodness of creation. ALL things are good, evil has no objective substance but is the deprivation and disfigurement of the good.)

Now comes the Judgment. If inclusion is the default and EVERYONE is already "IN", how and why does someone get excluded and what does that mean?

In the Parables, exclusion is based on "non-comformity" to being "IN". You are not included because you KNOW you are "IN", nor that you did the stuff that you think it takes to GET IN. The Wheat and Tares were both in the field and both did what came naturally: They grew in the same sunshine, rain and soil. The "stuff" caught up in the net all swam and floated in the same lake. ALL were "in the wedding parties". ALL could eat freely to their fill from the King’s banquet table. All were hired regardless of qualifications and all were given equal wages regardless of performance.

Special knowledge or performance was not required be included in the first place. But the kicker of the Sheep and the Goats is this: neither was “knowledge” the basis of being excluded. The Sheep were clueless about being “righteous” or doing righteous things (“when did we see you…?”). But so were the Goats (“when did we see you…?”). Neither were subjected to a dogmatic exam to test the precision of their theological knowledge and exactness. SURPRISE!!! The question was one that no one had even suspected would be on the final exam (because they weren’t really paying attention during the semester’s lectures nor had read the textbook carefully).

The “exclusion” in judgment, it turns out, is not so much getting an “F” on the dogmatics final as it is a pointing out a lack of identification with the Teacher. The “test” of creation is, do you look like your Creator? Do you act like a citizen of the King? Which servant acts like the Generous Master? Which flock follows the voice of the Shepherd? Which plant actually becomes the Wheat/Bread of Life? What is a real, live Fish and not just a piece of dead, rotting flotsam in the lake? Who does "naturally" what one does in a flock, in a field, in a lake, in a wedding party, at a banquet, as son? There is no “merit” or qualification for reward for just growing if you’re a plant, swimming if you’re a fish, rejoicing if you’re at a wedding, eating and drinking if you’re a guest at a banquet. You’re just “being” as you were created to be in the world created for you.

So, the separation is based on this: Who was paying attention to life itself? Who sees God in everything (after all, he is everywhere present and fills all things), including all your fellow human beings? Who was just “being human” and live intuitively in the image of God in which they are created (even if they don’t know his real name: the God who visits the prisoner, heals the sick, feeds the hungry, and clothes the naked, not because they were instructed by law but were constrained by their created nature?

For back-to-back Sundays we have heard the Gospel stories of two visions of God. The Pharisee “knew” God as judge who rewards correct devotion. The Elder Brother knew the Father as an employer who rewards hard work and duty. The irony is, the Publican and The Prodigal Son knew the same things: But the Publican is driven to humility by his failure to live up to the Law correctly, and the hungry Prodigal makes his father an employment offer He can’t refuse to get a meal because he “knew” his Father just might sign the contract and take him up on it. But the Publican and the Prodigal found a God they didn’t know and a relationship with Him that was beyond their understandings because they understood somewhere within themselves a spiritual hunger, thirst, nakedness, imprisonment and sickness, and stood before God in the corner of the Temple and in the dirt of the long driveway looking for hope beyond their personal failures and weaknesses.

So who is the “goat”? It is interesting that St. John Chrysostom notes that the word for "goats" indicates they were "kids", young goats: not fully matured, like children who are easily distracted and inattentive. The Sheep and the Goats both lived in the same flock, the same fields, just as we all live on the same earth in the same Kingdom. Both encountered the sick, the naked, the hungry, the poor, the imprisoned. The Sheep saw them. The Goats? Well… Perhaps they saw, but not with the eyes of the Shepherd/King. The Sheep saw what the King saw: “If you did this to the least of these, my brethren, you did it to Me.” Brothers bear the likeness of one another being of the same Father. As the St. John and the Fathers say, “if we see our brother clearly, we see God.”

And, we can only regard “the least of these” as our brothers if we regard OURSELVES (like the Publican and Prodigal) as naked, hungry, sick and imprisoned. We bear all of that in ourselves and thus identify ourselves with them, just like our King who bore it all in Himself in His incarnation and death.

But we can miss all that if we don’t pay attention. The Goats were distracted, inattentive, immature. They paid attention to all the “stuff” that Jesus preached about in His other parables: Legal exactitude, fastidious ritualism, scrupulous correctness, perfect performance: religiosity that mercilessly obscured the outrageous un-naturalness of human suffering, failure and need. They were distracted by everything that was “shiny” in the carnival of religion and paid attention to “the carney” who said the cheap rewards were easily attainable by trying to win a rigged ring toss. In their immaturity they loved the lights and sounds and smells (and even deprivations and fasts) and the self-aggrandizing rewards of religion instead of the holy image that exists in themselves and their brothers, the very image of their Shepherd and King and God.

The moral of the pre-Lenten Gospels (and all the Parables) is: We indeed have a Father and a Judge, but mercy triumphs over judgment. Listen to the still small voice in you that is your Shepherd speaking. Pay attention! Don't get distracted! Don't go running after self-affirming damnation! When we stand in judgment with love on our hands and not blood, even in our ignorance of the Name of who is “Our Image”, we will be told of, and know, our original inclusion in Him even if we counted ourselves as excluded, because we included his brothers and comforted them.

I pray that I stand before God in judgment, not in expectation of, but in surprise at my salvation.

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So, now… of course our mind goes down this rabbit hole so I may as well tack this on here and now: What does all this have to do with the hope for or possibility of universal salvation?

Let’s being with universal inclusion. That is God’s default setting. And let’s also begin with judgment, because all the Parables and doctrines of the Second Coming and the Kingdom to come DO say there will be a separation, an accounting for or revelation of our sins before the judgment seat of Christ. The issue is not whether there is inclusion or separation. The issue in a nutshell is this: Is the separation a willful, calculated torment by God as a retributive punishment on the sinner for his offenses, and is it eternal?

First, I would like to take “eternity” off the table before I address my specific issues with Matthew 25 and judgment. I will only say that the translation of “aiónios” as “eternal” is an interpretation, not necessarily a translation in certain contexts. It CAN refer to eternity, but it can also mean a specific period of time that is finite. I will simply give this link to Al Kimel’s excellent article HERE that covers that issue very well.

So what about the Judgment scene in Matthew 25? God condemns those who did not visit the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the captives or give drink to the thirsty because “if you did it to the least of these, my brethren, you did it to Me.” God eternally, infinitely and intimately, to the point of the Incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection identifies with “the least of these”. It is impossible for God to turn His back on or NOT identify with them. God cannot be separated from the sick, needy, hungry, naked and imprisoned.

Here is my question and issue: Are we to believe that God sends sick people into fiery captivity, stripped of their wedding garment, who will hunger and thirst after His righteousness eternally, and then He willfully does NOT, as punishment, ever visit them in prison, clothe them in His wedding garment, give them the Bread and Water of Life, and heal their infirmity and restore them to their original created health and wholeness? Am I to believe God is capable of doing that as God after He sends people TO hell for NOT doing those things in His image and Name to “the least of these”? If so, then it seems to me that God expects human beings to be a better God than He is capable of being.

So that’s my issue in a sentence. It’s not proof of the possibility of universal salvation, but if I have to choose between a hope for eternal hell for “the least of these” and the hope that God will eventually do what He demands of even us imperfect sinners to be saved, I’ll choose the latter.

And in the end (literally and figuratively) I suppose I have all eternity to hash that out with Him whether I end up in the eternal Sheep or Goat pen, and He has all eternity to make good on being the God who says He truly loves the least of these more than He demands that I do.