Generosity in God’s Kingdom: A Reflection on Matthew 25:31-46

Last week, in reflecting on the Parable of the Talents, we saw how it’s important not to take the master figure’s callous, ‘The rich get richer,’ attitude as Jesus’ stance on economics, as though he’s advocating a ‘trickle down’ economy or a ‘prosperity gospel’, in which wealth is a sign of God’s favour and poverty simply a lack of faith. Today, in the verses that directly follow, we see why this is the case. The passage has traditionally been called the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, but it’s not a parable, strictly speaking. It isn’t a story in which the Kingdom of God is is compared in some way to this world; rather, it’s talking about the future in relationship to the message of the previous parables, about accepting God’s gracious invitation, about being ready, and not living in fear. And, in doing so, it calls us to participate in God’s Economy of grace and generosity.

Jesus begins here by envisioning the Judgement, with the apocalyptic Son of Man figure glorified, separating the people of the world, just as a pastoralist separates goats and sheep:

Then 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; for 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, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then 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? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And 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.’ (Matthew 25.34-40)

These criteria are enough to give anyone who calls themself a Christian pause. Christ’s judgement makes no reference to any of the marks most commonly associated with piety: an active prayer life, or church attendance, or far less any markers of personal righteousness or rejecting those who don’t live up to particular standards. All it makes reference to here is mercy, love, and compassion, expressed in tangible, practical ways: feeding the hungry, offering water to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, nursing the sick, and visiting prisoners.

Just to make his point clear, he then goes on to repeat the list from the opposite side, those ‘goats’ who do none of these things and find themselves on the outside looking in.

Again, this mini-Apocalypse uttered by Jesus comes right on the heels of his Kingdom parables, and acts to complete the thought: The “way the world works” may leave the rich richer and the poor poorer, but that world and its ways are passing away, and God’s Kingdom has very different ways of being. For those of us who align ourselves with God’s Kingdom and its King, the time to start living that new way is now. We are citizens of that new world, ‘resident aliens’ in this one, living in this world the way of that one, that is to say, the way of Christ.

If we want to put this in Paul’s language, we see that this is nothing less than his participatory understanding of salvation, not Christ in our place, but us with him in his place:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. (Romans 6.3-8)

Once again we come to the point of that ancient Christian dictum: We become by grace all that Christ is by nature. This is a wonderful, rich, and exciting teaching. But, as today’s Gospel reminds us, it’s also a challenge. Being ‘in Christ’ also means being ‘like Christ’. And that means living as he lived, loving as he loved, and serving as he served, in the here and now.