The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats

The final parable Jesus utters in Matthew is not actually much of a parable. We call it the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, but other than referring to them in passing, the sheep and the goats have nothing to do with it and he’s almost entirely devoted to explaining it. It’s as though as he nears the end of this discourse on the collision between this age and the age to come, his rhetoric gets away from him. But, since it caps off not only this teaching on the end, but the parables of judgment as a whole, it’s still worth exploring here.

Text

Directly following the Parable of the Talents, it goes like this:

[25.31] When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. [32] All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, [33] and he will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. [34] Then the king will say to those at his right hand: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. [35] For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, [36] I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you visited me.” [37] Then the righteous will answer him: “Lord, when did we see you hungry and give you food, or thirsty and give you drink? [38] And when did we see you as a stranger and welcome you, or naked and give you clothing? [39] And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” [40] And the king will say to them in response: “Indeed, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” [41] Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, go from my presence into the age of fire that has been prepared by the devil and his angels. [42] For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, [43] I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” [44] And they also will answer: “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” [45] Then he will answer them: “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” [46] And these will go away into the punishment of the age to come, but the righteous into the life of the age to come.

Experience

This text always gives me pause. It makes me reconsider my life and question how committed I actually am to living out Jesus’ teachings and passing on the grace I have received to others. I’m also always taken aback by the vivid apocalyptic details.

Encounter

This story concludes Jesus’ discussion with his disciples about the end of this age.

In the parable we have a pastoralist separating sheep from goats, but he immediately disappears in favour of a more literal apocalyptic story of ‘the Son of Man’ figure as he enacts a final separation of the righteous and unrighteous. Both groups — those declared righteous and those declared evil — are given voice, but in a highly stylized way, and both are surprised by where they stand.

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Literary Context

This story concludes Jesus’ discourse on the ‘last days’. As such it continues on from where the last two parables left off and acts as a further explication of what it looks like to be prepared for the coming of the bridegroom (Wilson 321).* But, like that parable, this too calls back to the rest of Jesus’ teaching throughout Matthew. It particularly references:

• the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)
• the Parables Discourse of Matthew 13 with its talk of a final sorting as God’s ultimate justice is established, and
• the shepherd motif from such verses as Matthew 2.6, 9.36, and 18.10-14. This shepherd imagery is ultimately taken from Ezekiel 34, in which God is imagined as a shepherd who protects the small and vulnerable in the flock from the oppression of the powerful.

Sheep and Goats

As noted above, the shepherd/sheep imagery is common in the Scriptures. While goats are less common, it was common for Ancient Near Eastern pastoralists to have mixed herds of both goats and sheep (Case-Winters 278; Capon). A goat kid could even serve as a Passover lamb (Exodus 12.5). That said, sheep were widely thought to be less stubborn and easier to manage than goats, a stereotype that fits this analogy well.

Apocalyptic Imagery

This passage is Apocalyptic through and through. To remind ourselves, this genre of literature used vivid and often violent imagery to express the longings of oppressed people for their ultimate vindication and the establishment of God’s just reign on earth. As we’ve seen throughout the series, Jesus often used its language and imagery, while also undermining many of its more violent and retributive urges elsewhere in his teaching.

The apocalyptic term most relevant for today’s post is “the Son of Man.” This term is so important because Jesus used it often to refer to himself in the Gospels (”30 times in Matthew, 14 in Mark, 25 in Luke” (Nuechterlein^)). While a ‘son of man’ simply meant ‘a human person’ (see Ezekiel), it took on apocalyptic significance in Second Temple Judaism through the description of a mysterious heavenly figure in Daniel 7 as “one like a son of man:”

As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14)

The term was later simplified as “the Son of Man” (Nuechterlein; but see also pretty much any book by N.T. Wright for a fuller discussion). As Nuechterlein points out, in late Second Temple Judaism, Daniel held a place similar to that of Revelation for many Evangelical Christians today, for all the good and bad reasons. But ultimately, the Son of Man figure was not about divine violence to one’s enemies, but hope in a reign of peace and justice: “In designating himself as the “Son of Man,” Jesus was expressing confidence that he represented the coming of God’s way to reign in the world, a way that is truly human, a way that God the Creator designed for us from the beginning” (Nuechterlein; cf. Case-Winters 277).

While the apocalyptic language is generally expressed towards a future time, and Christians have always expected this reign to come in a final lasting way, it is more nuanced in the New Testament. For there are strong hints that Jesus understood his immanent betrayal and execution (and subsequent resurrection) to represent the coming of God’s kingdom in power: “From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power” (Matthew 26.64). These hints were picked up on by his disciples after his resurrection, ascension, and the events of Pentecost (e.g., Acts 2). This leads to the ‘inaugurated eschatology’ of Christianity, in which ‘the kingdoms of this world’ overlap and exist in conflict with the Kingdom of God, which we believe is here present in all its power, even as it has not replaced its rivals (Nuechterlein).

As we’ve seen, the idea of God’s ultimate justice, and therefore a final judgment, goes hand-in-hand with Apocalyptic. Here Jesus describes the final act of ‘sorting’ previously mentioned in the Parables of the Weeds and the Wheat and the Net. The people are sorted at last into those who are at home in the Kingdom and those who are not. Here, these last are tossed into an ‘eternal’ fire, but a few words of comment are needed lest we jump to unhelpful conclusions. First, while we tend to read the word ‘eternal’ (aionios) in a Greek sense of meaning ‘ageless, throughout all time’, most biblical scholars agree that this would not have been how it would have been understood by first-century Jews, and that we should think of it instead in terms of ‘of the age to come, of the Day of the LORD’. So, when Jesus talks about ‘eternal life’, he’s not primarily thinking of ‘life that goes on for ever’, but of ‘life that that belongs to the Kingdom of God’ (Nuechterlein, but again see NT Wright’s extensive works on the theme). So here, it’s likely talking less about a never-ending fiery torment than about the apocalyptic fire of the LORD’s justice. There’s also an ambiguity in how this fire is described. It’s often translated “prepared for the devil…” but it can just as easily be “prepared by the devil…”, which I think makes more sense when we think of Jesus’ teaching and how the devil is presented in the Gospels: God isn’t the one who is interested in confusing or distracting us from our created purpose, the devil is; and God’s ultimate aim is in the reconciliation of all things (even if some among us will stubbornly refuse to enter the party).

Another apocalyptic detail that is often lost on us (and our Bible translations) is that it is the judgment of the nations, not individuals that is in mind here (Capon; Case-Winters 277). Many translations add a “people” there following “separate,” but this is not grammatically correct; it refers back to “the nations” gathered around the judge. But while in Daniel, ‘one like a son of man’ faces off against nations represented by fearsome predators, here the nations of the world are de-fanged as sheep and goats.

While this collective sensibility is important for us to remember,  especially in our highly individualistic society here in North America, we also have to recognize that the New Testament speaks of the creation of a new people in Christ, with members from “every tongue and tribe and nation.” The fact that neither the sheep nor the goats are aware of their classification calls back to the message of the Parables of the Weeds and the Wheat and the Net and their insistence that it’s not for us to judge who will ultimately be ‘in’ and who will be ‘out’.

The criterion upon which the sheep and goats are separated has nothing to do with identity (Jew or Gentile, self-identified disciple or not), but is simply whether they have shown compassion (Case-Winters 278). This has parallels in rabbinic writings on the subject; for example in a Midrash on Psalm 118, at the judgment a person is asked: “What has your work been?” and the righteous respond by listing acts of mercy similar to what Jesus provides here (Wilson 322). These acts are nothing more or less than a living out of the Sermon on the Mount: The only question that matters is: “Do they practice the love of neighbor, which is the heart of the law as Jesus has taught?” (Case-Winters 278).

Challenge

Subversion of First-Century Expectation

Since Apocalyptic was all about the oppressed righteous getting their final vindication from their unjust oppressors, the language of surprise and reversal in this text would probably subvert its original hearers’ expectations. There is some conversation in contemporary commentaries about whether the ‘nations’ here could refer to the judgment of the Gentiles, in which case the inclusion of some Gentiles as ‘sheep’ could have also been surprising. But this is unnecessary and reading it as a story about the rise and fall of nations, Gentile and Jewish alike, makes more sense (Nuechterlein).

Contemporary Challenges

This passage offers a two-pronged challenge to us today. The first prong is theological, in terms of how it connects to belief in salvation by grace — as is the clear message of other Parables. Once again, we run into the pay-it-forward nature of God’s economy of grace: Inasmuch as we have received and embody God’s grace, we will by nature extend that grace to others, in just the ways described by this parable: whether we think of it in terms of ourselves as individuals or as national or religious collectives (in the fractal nature of our faith, it amounts to the same), we will be judged on how we extend — or not — grace, love, and mercy to “the poor, the sick, the immigrant, and the prisoner” (Nuectherlein). And this is the second, socio-political prong of the challenge: This text demands that our faith be lived out in practical ways to those around us, and specifically to those who are “the lost, the least, and the small” among us (Capon; cf., Case-Winters 280). We don’t need postmodern critiques from the margins to challenge us here: Jesus’ own words are challenge enough.

None of this is contrary to the teachings of the parables of grace, for just like this, those parables encouraged us to be, not just the lost sheep or prodigal son, but also the shepherd out desperately looking for the lost sheep, and the father who runs out to greet his lost son, and to join the rejoicing when the lost are found. It’s all the same thing. And it’s all one big celebration of grace grounded entirely in our relationship with Christ, since he expresses his solidarity with those very people we are also called to help (cf., “May they all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us” (John 17.21)). To give Anna Case-Winters the last word here:

We need not worry about the timing of the “second coming.” Christ is already in our midst now and comes to us again and again—unexpectedly—in the form of the person in need. Our response to “the least of these” is our response to the judge of all the nations. (Case-Winters 280f)

Expand

The interpretation that has emerged in this study encourages us to grow in love and in faith by reminding us that genuine faith is lived out in real-life relationships in the here and now. If we are in a faith relationship with Jesus, we are also in faith relationships with all those with whom he expresses solidarity: the lost, the least, the small, and the dead among us.

Summary & Conclusions

As he winds down his teaching on the clash of ages, Jesus tells his disciples stories: First, one that urges them to stay vigilant and be ready; second, one that explains that readiness looks like actively investing our time, energy, resources and the grace we have received; and now third, one that explains that that investment is for the benefit of others, especially those who are marginalized for one reason or another.

Next time, we’ll see how these final parables act to summarize and reinforce the message of all the rest.

 

* For full references, please see the series bibliography.

^ All references to Nuechterlein in this post are to his post for Reign of Christ Sunday, Year A.