Holy Cross Episcopal Church

Matthew 25:31-46                                                             

[Come With Joy Sunday]                                                 

Over the doorways of many medieval churches are painted or carved scenes of the Last Judgment. They’re a little like the bulletin cover this morning, only the medieval Jesus does not look as mellow as he does in the cover clip art. He’s the judge, and a fierce one. At his left hand are the goats, and often also human souls plunging down to the fires of hell with devils and their pitchforks skewering them as they fall. At his right hand are the sheep, and human souls wafting up to heaven where angels await them. The scene was designed to strike terror into the hearts of worshipers and, not coincidentally, make them more dependent on the Church.

So, let’s begin by setting that scene to one side—at least the manipulative part of it. But let’s not get rid of the notion of Judgment entirely. It’s an important part of Christian belief. Let me rather try to outline a way in which we can see God’s judgment in a more constructive light—a way that I think better accords with Holy Scripture and Anglican belief.

First of all, if you read the Bible—how shall I put it, generously, rather than taking just separate little snippets like this morning’s gospel—you will see that the most important way in which judgment features in it is in reinforcing the truth that judgment belongs to God, not to us. Think about the familiar words of Jesus, “Judge not, lest you be not judged.” We are to stick to our own knitting rather than being judgmental about others. We are to let God deal with the goats of life rather than taking vengeance into our own hands. Jesus was big on this theme; think of his criticism of the judgmental Pharisees. If people left the judging to God, life would be a lot more peaceful and pleasant.

Second, God’s judgment is always tempered by God’s mercy. This is another big theme of Jesus’s. Judgment and mercy are not really opposites in Scripture; they are both functions of God’s love for us. Think about parents and children. The worst thing a parent can do is not to set limits for children, not to enforce these limits with clear and reasonable discipline. Once when I was a teenager I sassed my father—who was a mild and gentle man. I must have been really out of line, for to my amazement he grabbed me and beat me. I was bigger than he was and he didn’t really hurt me, but afterwards I felt oddly grateful that he’d cared enough—for me and for himself—to discipline me like this. Life without Judgment would be life without meaning, life without a God who cares for us, a God who loves us. Judgment is a piece of love.

The third point to remember is that God’s judgment is about what we do, not who we are. An important distinction here is between guilt and shame. Guilt is what we feel when we act or fail to act in a sinful way. Guilt is helpful; it keeps us on track morally. Shame is what we feel about things over which we have no control: the color of our skin, our gender, our sexual orientation, our economic position in a wealth-oriented society. That’s the point of the gospel story about the sheep and the goats. Jesus is there in the other people we deal with in life, especially the poor, the hungry, the needy, those in prison. We do not have to be perfect within ourselves—psychologically, that is. We are judged by how we treat the Jesus in others, especially those more needy than ourselves.

I hope these thoughts are helpful as you sort out the sheep parts and the goat parts of your own life. When I first sat down with Caroline Fairless and Jim Sims to create the liturgy this morning, my thought was that we’d have two sheets of paper: a sheep sheet and a goat sheet. People would sort out their bad and their good and put the bad in a basket to the left of the Altar and the good in a basket to the right. (I can give you some background on this right/good, left/bad tradition after the service if you want. It’s a little “barnyard” for a family setting.) Maybe after the service we’d go outside and set the goat sheets on fire. A little fire always lights up a liturgy with children!

But Caroline and Jim came back to me with a very good point. We really need to offer both our sheep parts and our goat parts on the Altar, they said. We can only let go of the goat parts with the help of God, gently as it were. It reminds me of one of the greatest sermons I’ve ever heard, preached by Bishop Tom Shaw. Its title was, “So You Want to Do Away with Sin.” Bishop Shaw’s point was that the devil loves self-help projects, especially those taken on with teeth-gritting determination like crash diets. Be gentle with yourself, as God is gentle. But don’t fool yourself either—for none of us can fool God.