Drawing Lines Between // “The Other”
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.
I appreciate the apocalyptic vision – that we need not judge now because Jesus will take care of that later. Yet, I wonder where that leaves us now. What is the ethic being described for our times?
Is the good life lived by feeding anyone and everyone who utters that they are hungry? If so, then could our feeding actually enable bad behavior to continue (e.g., addicts), or create dependency instead of mutuality? Do we have any obligation to discern? Or do we just feed, clothe, visit and care, regarding only the want and ignoring the need?
Maybe that is the key – discernment. Why do we make snap decisions to feed with food when the person may be hungry for something else. We are quick to prescribe the antidote of visiting and caring without diagnosing the illness or problem (spiritual malpractice).
Discernment takes time. Do we take the time? Or do we want to be sheep so badly that we react in hopes of saving ourselves without regard to actually being with the other: Seeing them only as other, and not as Mary, Harry, Larry and Terri (their names with real identities)? Do we fall into the habit of wanting to build up our heavenly favor bank (building bigger barns for our souls) without discerning whether we are really doing anyone a favor.
Just sayin’
November 15th, 2011 at 8:14 amSheep and goats are not as different as I always thought. I went to the Sandwich (IL) Fair where I learned how wonderful and useful goats are! Meat, wool (cashmere comes from goats), milk…not to mention most sacrifices in Leviticus call for a goat or a sheep.
Have some fun showing pictures of sheep and goats to your congregation to test them. Be sure to include a bighorn sheep and a cashmere goat.
It’s not so easy to tell which is which. Truth is, goats aren’t inherently bad and sheep aren’t inherently good. Have some fun with this!
November 15th, 2011 at 3:01 pmMore questions: If Grace falls on blinded eyes, deafened ears, and a closed mind, does Grace exist? Or,if we do not respond to Grace, does it matter whether it exists or not? Or, is the Kingdom of God one in which we enter here and now by our decision to respond to the least of these? Lastly, do we not judge our own selves by the decisions and responses we make to such abundant Grace?
November 16th, 2011 at 8:36 amBill, I love these thoughts. Some of my social justice fans are fond of saying, “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. But I want to know who is poisoning the river!”
Trudy, on behalf of goats everywhere, I appreciate your kind defense. It seems like a good way to get us out of our rutted thinking and to identify with the Other.
And I love that someone named ‘Charis’ is bringing us back to grace. Great and illuminating questions about a passage that can seem devoid of grace.
November 16th, 2011 at 10:12 amI’m just grateful that you sowed some seeds of discomfort with what has long seemed to me to be every Christian’s (and especially every “progressive” Christian’s) favorite self-congratulatory parable.
November 19th, 2011 at 2:11 pmMr. Croghan, they don’t call it “The Hardest Question” for nothing. We are an equal-opportunity prosecutor of privileged thinking.
November 19th, 2011 at 6:50 pmPeople seem to be naturally inclined to want answers. We resent Cicero’s notion that, “it is better to let a crime go unpunished than imprison an innocent man.” It makes us feel better about ourselves when we can distinguish black from white, especially when we are in the white. We observe injustices across humanity – sins, crimes, and the state of New Jersey – and the last person we want to blame is ourself.
I am reminded of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, in which the church sees its purpose to take away the free will that Jesus came to give. In judging someone, we are limiting their free will by overtaking their identity, saying, “this is who you are, and this is what you deserve.” Are we fully able to do this, though? Can we gaze into the innermost areas of their identity and compare it to Truth? It would be impossible! Our human faculties are too weak.
Jesus realized this, and told us to not even bother. The secret to not judging others lies in 1) Realizing our own shortcomings, and 2) Knowing that Jesus will take care of the rest. Then we will begin to cultivate true humility, and weep with our sisters and brothers in their brokenness, instead of resent them for it. Therein we find hope, rest, and redemption.
November 20th, 2011 at 8:12 am[...] by Mike Stavlundat found online at http://thehardestquestion.org/yeara/christhekinggospel/ [...]
December 19th, 2011 at 6:03 pm