Narrow Love?
Preaching
Preaching the Parables
Series IV, Cycle A
Object:
Okay -- I confess. I watched the closing minutes of the finale of America's Got Talent in 2006. The show is a cross between The Ed Sullivan Show and The Gong Show. If you're too young to remember any of that, never mind!
In an attempt to heighten the suspense, host Regis Philbin had the eight or ten finalists come out on the stage, proceeded to divide them into two equal groups, made them sit in chairs on opposite sides of the stage, wait through a commercial break, and then declared one group potential winners, and the other group losers.
The panel of judges tried to mute the moment and make everyone feel good by declaring everyone who made it that far "winners," but everyone knew that only one of them would win a million dollars. I chuckled when the million-dollar winner, who not long before was belting out songs and being compared with Liza Minelli was so shocked by winning that Regis couldn't coax her to say a thing. All that hype came down to the blank, teary-eyed face of a little girl who suddenly looked very "eleven," and whose silence spoke volumes as Regis kept saying, "You all right? Bianca, how do you feel, darling? You okay?"1
Football coach, Vince Lombardi, is credited with saying that, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." I wonder. Do you have to "win" to be okay? Does "winning" make you okay? What about the "runners-up"?
The harmonica player won an automobile. Did he "win"? Does that count? And what about those people on the other side of the stage? They had to "win" to get there, but in the end what did they get? In vaudeville terms, they got "the hook." They had to leave the stage to the "winners."
I know a lot of life is like that. But is that really what Jesus wanted to tell us in the story I read? That the kingdom of heaven is like that, too? Winners and losers? Winners take all; losers take a hike? The prize is "heaven"? The "booby prize" is "hell"?
I looked up "booby prize." It's literally the "idiot's prize." In Spanish, the premio de consolación. The consolation prize. But is there really any consolation in losing? I'm asking more questions than I'm answering. The "parable" of the sheep and the goats does that, too -- raises more questions than it answers.
Over the years, when I've run into such questions in preaching I've consulted a little book titled The Difficult Sayings of Jesus by William Neil. The Reverend Doctor Neil is a Scot. So he would appreciate the fact that I bought his little book at a yard sale for $1. Or maybe he wouldn't! In any event I consulted him this week. His book has 34 chapters covering 34 difficult sayings of Jesus. But not a word about the sheep and goats -- about sheep who find themselves in the care of a loving shepherd. That's a big "win" if there ever was one. And what about goats who go to hell? Losers do, you know, or do they? I'm not sure if Neil thought that was easy -- or decided it was too hard to handle.
The simple, commonly accepted interpretation of this story is summarized well by another Scot, the theologian, William Barclay.
This is one of the most vivid parables Jesus ever spoke, and the lesson is crystal clear -- that God will judge us in accordance with our reaction to human need. His judgment does not depend on the knowledge we have amassed, or the fame that we have acquired, or the fortune that we have gained, but on the help that we have given ... God will judge us in accordance with ... the help that we have given.2
Well, won't he?
Douglas Hare, writing in his commentary on Matthew's gospel says:
It is customary to interpret this passage in universal terms: at the last judgment all will be judged on the basis of how they have treated the needy and distressed. This understanding has inspired generations of Christians to pay closer attention to their sins of omission instead of concentrating exclusively on sins of commission (adultery, dishonesty, bad temper, lying, etc.) This passage reminds us that what we don't do also gets us into trouble.3
Our prayer of confession says,
Merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
And so we have sinned against God -- both ways, "by what we have done and by what we have left undone."
I grew up in a form of Christianity that seemed to define faith with one word: "Don't!" In this passage Jesus seems to define it differently: "Do!" Not only that, but don't "do" and God help you!
My wife has a coffee mug, actually for her it's a tea mug, that I think she got from my former church secretary. On the side it says, "Damned if you do, Damned if you don't." Is that the gospel? Is that "good news"? Do we really need God to tell us that or could we figure that out for ourselves? Surely I am not the only person in the room for whom that is sometimes true -- "No matter what I do ... da-da, da-da, da-da." Does that mean that I "baa," or that I "bleat"? Does it mean that I am a sheep, or I am a goat, in the eyes of God?
In the Bible, "sheep" are those needing tending by a shepherd. And images of the "good shepherd" are found throughout. The psalmist says, "The Lord is my shepherd" (Psalm 23:1), not, "The Lord is my goatherd."
In the Jewish sacrificial rituals of Jesus day, goats carried the sins of the world, or at least the community, out into the desert where, with the goat, they died. That's where we get our term "scapegoat." The one who carries the sins, the faults, of others, away. In Leviticus God says that having sacrificed one goat as a "sin offering" (Leviticus 16:9), another goat "shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel [possibly a desert demon]" (Leviticus 16:10).
Then Aaron [who at this point in the story had taken over for Moses] shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.
-- Leviticus 16:21-22
A wilderness where, according to the Jewish Talmud, the goat was pushed over a cliff.
Goats get a bad deal in the Bible. What "gets my goat" is how readily you and I buy into imagery that suggests that in the end it is the same. The good get goodies, and the bad get theirs. The "bad" of course, being "them" or "those people."
But God's grace is more gracious than that. As one hymn writer puts it:
For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of man's mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.4
Whenever you read a text like the one this morning, and the news you hear isn't "good," or isn't "kind" read it again. I did this week. Lots of times.
If I were God I can think of a good number of goats I'd run off to their destruction. But I'm not God. And I need, when reading a text like this one, to remember that the one sitting on the throne is not me. I am before the throne, not on it! One reading of this text would suggest that "all the nations ... gathered before [the throne]" aren't me either. That you and I are not in this story at all. For reasons having to do with Matthew's choice of words, and other scholarly analysis, Douglas Hare, calls this segment of Matthew, "The Judgment of the Pagans."5
In his commentary, Hare argues that there is good reason to believe that this story is not about everyone but specifically about the ethne, the Greek word translated "nations," who are, in Hebrew the goyyim, which at the time of Jesus meant the "Gentiles." Those not of the Jewish faith, and in Matthew's context, not the new Christians either. Hare believes this passage, if it goes back to Jesus at all, is being used by Matthew to suggest that it is possible that God just might decide to save some who are not like us.
A number of ancient Jewish texts express concern for "righteous Gentiles." Jews living in contact with pagans were not slow to observe that, despite their idolatry, some pagans were genuinely good people. Was it fair for them to be eternally damned?6
I've had good Christians ask me privately whether their good Jewish, or good Buddhist, or good Hindu, or for that matter good atheist friends, were automatically damned to eternal destruction because they did not "accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior." Given that some of the best people, most honest people, most generous people, most pleasant people I know are not Christians; and some of the worst people, most dishonest people, stingiest people, downright obnoxious people I know are -- card carrying, baptized Christians, Hare's take on this is helpful.
The church for which Matthew was writing lived in the midst of a non-Christian world just like us. To read Paul's letters, Christians then were just like Christians now. The question of the salvation of their non-Christian neighbors was bound to come up. It's just possible that this is Matthew's answer. That God is God, and the good we do in this life may engender or reflect the grace of God in the next. That while we debate endlessly who's in and who's out, Jesus finally found it necessary to say in another setting that "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:17). "The world" in John 3 is kosmos -- the whole of life, the whole world, all of God's creation.
God is not Regis Philbin! (And not Dick Sheffield, either.) God does not need losers to make some of us winners. God, in Jesus Christ, can make "winners" of us all. In the end, is the issue that we have "accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior," or is it that in Jesus Christ God has accepted us? This story doesn't settle that perennial Christian debate, but it ought to make us wary of settling it too quickly.
One source I read suggested that this seemingly simple, yet curiously complex, story is not actually a parable at all. A parable is an earthly story that contains within it a heavenly truth. This is a heavenly story, or, I guess, depending on your perspective, a hellish story, that contains within it an earthly truth. It matters how we treat one another. It matters how we build hells for one another; or how, by what we build, we give one another a glimpse of heaven. Whatever else this story is, it is not our "go ahead" to sit in judgment of one another. Instead, it judges you and me.
In the story the king judges between those who were guilty of what they had left undone and those favored for what they had done. But it's more subtle than that. It's more than a quid pro quo; something for something; good for good; evil for evil; what you need to do to win, in this life or the next. The Reformation, of which we are heirs, rejected the notion that we can "earn" our way into heaven. The most interesting feature of the story, I think, is the surprise of both groups when judgment was rendered. You can almost hear it: "Who?" "Me?" "I did?" "I didn't?"
At weddings, as part of the "Statement on the Gift of Marriage," I read: "In marriage, husband and wife are called to a new way of life, created, ordered and blessed by God. This way of life must not be entered into carelessly, or from selfish motives, but responsibly and prayerfully." What's true for marriage is true for all of life, says this story. It isn't just what we do, but why we do it. What our motives are. Whether we serve or we are just self-serving.
The story does not suggest that if the "goats" had just done more good deeds they would have been accounted "sheep." Like in the way the harmonica player could have won the other night if he had played better. But that the sheep -- sheep by virtue of their living life out of the love of God -- shared that love with others without expecting a reward, and were then surprised with life worth living forever.
That applies now, never mind later. As someone once said, "Love God and do as you please, for if you truly love God, what you do will please God."
We all know someone who lives like that. I've known many. Among them a woman named Esther Hirsch. I will always remember Esther Hirsch, and give thanks to God for people like her.
I can still see the counter in the store which she ran, along with Mr. Hirsch, in the neighborhood where I lived as a child. I can see her smile. I can hear the pride she took in kids like me in her voice. A few years ago, Esther died. Her obituary read, " 'Nickel lady' Hirsch dies at 93."
Generations received a reward for A's brought to Esther Hirsch's store ... For every A a child earned at ... school, Hirsch would pay a nickel. All they had to do was bring their report card to Hirsch's Department Store, just a few blocks from the ... school and only a block away from the sprawling textile mill(s) where most of the folks made their living.7
That's where I lived. Where I went to school. I got a lot of nickels. I got good grades. I've got proof. I've got those old report cards. Mama saved them. There were six grading periods, and six classes in each, for six years of grade school. I got $10.80 in nickels from Mrs. Hirsch. I suspect she gave away thousands of dollars to thousands of children over too many years to remember. But what mattered to me was those nickles and knowing I mattered. I didn't know much about the larger world around me then. I didn't know much about Mrs. Hirsch. I just knew what she did without expecting anything from kids like me. I didn't know Mrs. Hirsch was Jewish. I didn't know that some would say she would go to hell -- not for what she did, but for what she didn't do. Become a Christian like me.
Either Martin Luther or Will Rogers said, "If there is no laughter in heaven, I don't want to go there!" If people like Mrs. Hirsch aren't going to be there, I don't either. Matthew seems to be suggesting there will be.
Frederick Faber wrote, "There's A Wideness In God's Mercy," a familiar hymn that originally ended with these words we no longer sing.
But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.
Was there ever kinder shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet,
As the Savior who would have us
Come and gather at His feet?8
Sounds to me like a good hymn for sheep and goats to sing together.
____________
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR200608....
2. William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2 (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), p. 325.
3. Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew -- Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), p. 288 (emphasis added).
4. "There's A Wideness In God's Mercy," words by Frederick W. Faber, 1854; music by Lizzie S. Tourjee, 1877.
5. Op cit, Douglas R. A. Hare, pp. 288-291.
6. Ibid.
7. The Ledger-Enquirer, Columbus, Georgia.
8. http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/t/h/e/therwide.htm.
In an attempt to heighten the suspense, host Regis Philbin had the eight or ten finalists come out on the stage, proceeded to divide them into two equal groups, made them sit in chairs on opposite sides of the stage, wait through a commercial break, and then declared one group potential winners, and the other group losers.
The panel of judges tried to mute the moment and make everyone feel good by declaring everyone who made it that far "winners," but everyone knew that only one of them would win a million dollars. I chuckled when the million-dollar winner, who not long before was belting out songs and being compared with Liza Minelli was so shocked by winning that Regis couldn't coax her to say a thing. All that hype came down to the blank, teary-eyed face of a little girl who suddenly looked very "eleven," and whose silence spoke volumes as Regis kept saying, "You all right? Bianca, how do you feel, darling? You okay?"1
Football coach, Vince Lombardi, is credited with saying that, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." I wonder. Do you have to "win" to be okay? Does "winning" make you okay? What about the "runners-up"?
The harmonica player won an automobile. Did he "win"? Does that count? And what about those people on the other side of the stage? They had to "win" to get there, but in the end what did they get? In vaudeville terms, they got "the hook." They had to leave the stage to the "winners."
I know a lot of life is like that. But is that really what Jesus wanted to tell us in the story I read? That the kingdom of heaven is like that, too? Winners and losers? Winners take all; losers take a hike? The prize is "heaven"? The "booby prize" is "hell"?
I looked up "booby prize." It's literally the "idiot's prize." In Spanish, the premio de consolación. The consolation prize. But is there really any consolation in losing? I'm asking more questions than I'm answering. The "parable" of the sheep and the goats does that, too -- raises more questions than it answers.
Over the years, when I've run into such questions in preaching I've consulted a little book titled The Difficult Sayings of Jesus by William Neil. The Reverend Doctor Neil is a Scot. So he would appreciate the fact that I bought his little book at a yard sale for $1. Or maybe he wouldn't! In any event I consulted him this week. His book has 34 chapters covering 34 difficult sayings of Jesus. But not a word about the sheep and goats -- about sheep who find themselves in the care of a loving shepherd. That's a big "win" if there ever was one. And what about goats who go to hell? Losers do, you know, or do they? I'm not sure if Neil thought that was easy -- or decided it was too hard to handle.
The simple, commonly accepted interpretation of this story is summarized well by another Scot, the theologian, William Barclay.
This is one of the most vivid parables Jesus ever spoke, and the lesson is crystal clear -- that God will judge us in accordance with our reaction to human need. His judgment does not depend on the knowledge we have amassed, or the fame that we have acquired, or the fortune that we have gained, but on the help that we have given ... God will judge us in accordance with ... the help that we have given.2
Well, won't he?
Douglas Hare, writing in his commentary on Matthew's gospel says:
It is customary to interpret this passage in universal terms: at the last judgment all will be judged on the basis of how they have treated the needy and distressed. This understanding has inspired generations of Christians to pay closer attention to their sins of omission instead of concentrating exclusively on sins of commission (adultery, dishonesty, bad temper, lying, etc.) This passage reminds us that what we don't do also gets us into trouble.3
Our prayer of confession says,
Merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
And so we have sinned against God -- both ways, "by what we have done and by what we have left undone."
I grew up in a form of Christianity that seemed to define faith with one word: "Don't!" In this passage Jesus seems to define it differently: "Do!" Not only that, but don't "do" and God help you!
My wife has a coffee mug, actually for her it's a tea mug, that I think she got from my former church secretary. On the side it says, "Damned if you do, Damned if you don't." Is that the gospel? Is that "good news"? Do we really need God to tell us that or could we figure that out for ourselves? Surely I am not the only person in the room for whom that is sometimes true -- "No matter what I do ... da-da, da-da, da-da." Does that mean that I "baa," or that I "bleat"? Does it mean that I am a sheep, or I am a goat, in the eyes of God?
In the Bible, "sheep" are those needing tending by a shepherd. And images of the "good shepherd" are found throughout. The psalmist says, "The Lord is my shepherd" (Psalm 23:1), not, "The Lord is my goatherd."
In the Jewish sacrificial rituals of Jesus day, goats carried the sins of the world, or at least the community, out into the desert where, with the goat, they died. That's where we get our term "scapegoat." The one who carries the sins, the faults, of others, away. In Leviticus God says that having sacrificed one goat as a "sin offering" (Leviticus 16:9), another goat "shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel [possibly a desert demon]" (Leviticus 16:10).
Then Aaron [who at this point in the story had taken over for Moses] shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.
-- Leviticus 16:21-22
A wilderness where, according to the Jewish Talmud, the goat was pushed over a cliff.
Goats get a bad deal in the Bible. What "gets my goat" is how readily you and I buy into imagery that suggests that in the end it is the same. The good get goodies, and the bad get theirs. The "bad" of course, being "them" or "those people."
But God's grace is more gracious than that. As one hymn writer puts it:
For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of man's mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.4
Whenever you read a text like the one this morning, and the news you hear isn't "good," or isn't "kind" read it again. I did this week. Lots of times.
If I were God I can think of a good number of goats I'd run off to their destruction. But I'm not God. And I need, when reading a text like this one, to remember that the one sitting on the throne is not me. I am before the throne, not on it! One reading of this text would suggest that "all the nations ... gathered before [the throne]" aren't me either. That you and I are not in this story at all. For reasons having to do with Matthew's choice of words, and other scholarly analysis, Douglas Hare, calls this segment of Matthew, "The Judgment of the Pagans."5
In his commentary, Hare argues that there is good reason to believe that this story is not about everyone but specifically about the ethne, the Greek word translated "nations," who are, in Hebrew the goyyim, which at the time of Jesus meant the "Gentiles." Those not of the Jewish faith, and in Matthew's context, not the new Christians either. Hare believes this passage, if it goes back to Jesus at all, is being used by Matthew to suggest that it is possible that God just might decide to save some who are not like us.
A number of ancient Jewish texts express concern for "righteous Gentiles." Jews living in contact with pagans were not slow to observe that, despite their idolatry, some pagans were genuinely good people. Was it fair for them to be eternally damned?6
I've had good Christians ask me privately whether their good Jewish, or good Buddhist, or good Hindu, or for that matter good atheist friends, were automatically damned to eternal destruction because they did not "accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior." Given that some of the best people, most honest people, most generous people, most pleasant people I know are not Christians; and some of the worst people, most dishonest people, stingiest people, downright obnoxious people I know are -- card carrying, baptized Christians, Hare's take on this is helpful.
The church for which Matthew was writing lived in the midst of a non-Christian world just like us. To read Paul's letters, Christians then were just like Christians now. The question of the salvation of their non-Christian neighbors was bound to come up. It's just possible that this is Matthew's answer. That God is God, and the good we do in this life may engender or reflect the grace of God in the next. That while we debate endlessly who's in and who's out, Jesus finally found it necessary to say in another setting that "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:17). "The world" in John 3 is kosmos -- the whole of life, the whole world, all of God's creation.
God is not Regis Philbin! (And not Dick Sheffield, either.) God does not need losers to make some of us winners. God, in Jesus Christ, can make "winners" of us all. In the end, is the issue that we have "accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior," or is it that in Jesus Christ God has accepted us? This story doesn't settle that perennial Christian debate, but it ought to make us wary of settling it too quickly.
One source I read suggested that this seemingly simple, yet curiously complex, story is not actually a parable at all. A parable is an earthly story that contains within it a heavenly truth. This is a heavenly story, or, I guess, depending on your perspective, a hellish story, that contains within it an earthly truth. It matters how we treat one another. It matters how we build hells for one another; or how, by what we build, we give one another a glimpse of heaven. Whatever else this story is, it is not our "go ahead" to sit in judgment of one another. Instead, it judges you and me.
In the story the king judges between those who were guilty of what they had left undone and those favored for what they had done. But it's more subtle than that. It's more than a quid pro quo; something for something; good for good; evil for evil; what you need to do to win, in this life or the next. The Reformation, of which we are heirs, rejected the notion that we can "earn" our way into heaven. The most interesting feature of the story, I think, is the surprise of both groups when judgment was rendered. You can almost hear it: "Who?" "Me?" "I did?" "I didn't?"
At weddings, as part of the "Statement on the Gift of Marriage," I read: "In marriage, husband and wife are called to a new way of life, created, ordered and blessed by God. This way of life must not be entered into carelessly, or from selfish motives, but responsibly and prayerfully." What's true for marriage is true for all of life, says this story. It isn't just what we do, but why we do it. What our motives are. Whether we serve or we are just self-serving.
The story does not suggest that if the "goats" had just done more good deeds they would have been accounted "sheep." Like in the way the harmonica player could have won the other night if he had played better. But that the sheep -- sheep by virtue of their living life out of the love of God -- shared that love with others without expecting a reward, and were then surprised with life worth living forever.
That applies now, never mind later. As someone once said, "Love God and do as you please, for if you truly love God, what you do will please God."
We all know someone who lives like that. I've known many. Among them a woman named Esther Hirsch. I will always remember Esther Hirsch, and give thanks to God for people like her.
I can still see the counter in the store which she ran, along with Mr. Hirsch, in the neighborhood where I lived as a child. I can see her smile. I can hear the pride she took in kids like me in her voice. A few years ago, Esther died. Her obituary read, " 'Nickel lady' Hirsch dies at 93."
Generations received a reward for A's brought to Esther Hirsch's store ... For every A a child earned at ... school, Hirsch would pay a nickel. All they had to do was bring their report card to Hirsch's Department Store, just a few blocks from the ... school and only a block away from the sprawling textile mill(s) where most of the folks made their living.7
That's where I lived. Where I went to school. I got a lot of nickels. I got good grades. I've got proof. I've got those old report cards. Mama saved them. There were six grading periods, and six classes in each, for six years of grade school. I got $10.80 in nickels from Mrs. Hirsch. I suspect she gave away thousands of dollars to thousands of children over too many years to remember. But what mattered to me was those nickles and knowing I mattered. I didn't know much about the larger world around me then. I didn't know much about Mrs. Hirsch. I just knew what she did without expecting anything from kids like me. I didn't know Mrs. Hirsch was Jewish. I didn't know that some would say she would go to hell -- not for what she did, but for what she didn't do. Become a Christian like me.
Either Martin Luther or Will Rogers said, "If there is no laughter in heaven, I don't want to go there!" If people like Mrs. Hirsch aren't going to be there, I don't either. Matthew seems to be suggesting there will be.
Frederick Faber wrote, "There's A Wideness In God's Mercy," a familiar hymn that originally ended with these words we no longer sing.
But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.
Was there ever kinder shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet,
As the Savior who would have us
Come and gather at His feet?8
Sounds to me like a good hymn for sheep and goats to sing together.
____________
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR200608....
2. William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2 (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), p. 325.
3. Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew -- Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), p. 288 (emphasis added).
4. "There's A Wideness In God's Mercy," words by Frederick W. Faber, 1854; music by Lizzie S. Tourjee, 1877.
5. Op cit, Douglas R. A. Hare, pp. 288-291.
6. Ibid.
7. The Ledger-Enquirer, Columbus, Georgia.
8. http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/t/h/e/therwide.htm.
