No Goats Here
Here is a parable Jesus did not speak – at least not in the Gospels. But which he could have spoken. I came upon it in a book I’ve had in the back of a bookshelf for over 30 years, The Song of the Bird by Anthony de Mello.
The kingdom of God is like two brothers who were called by God to give up all they had and serve humanity. The older brother responded to the call generously, though he had to wrench his heart from his family and the girl he loved and dreamed of marrying. He eventually went off to a distant land where he spent himself in the service of the poorest of the poor. A persecution arose in that country and he was arrested, falsely accused, tortured, and put to death. And the Lord said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You gave me a thousand talents’ worth of service. I shall now give you a billion, billion talents’ worth of reward. Enter into the joy of your Lord.” The younger boy’s response to the call was less than generous. He decided to ignore it and go ahead and marry the girl he loved. He enjoyed a happy married life, his business prospered, and he became rich and famous. Occasionally he gave to charity.
Wait a minute you might be thinking. This sounds a bit like last week’s parable of the Prodigal Son. It does sound like it so far, but it has a different ending.
When it was the younger son’s turn to die, the Lord said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have given me ten talents’ worth of service. I shall now give you a billion, billion talents’ worth of reward. Enter into the joy of your Lord!” The older brother was surprised when he heard that his brother will get the same reward as he.
Did he protest, like the older brother last week in the Parable of the Prodigal Son? No,
he was pleased. And he said, “Lord, knowing this how you treated me and my brother, if I were to be born and live my life again, I would still do exactly what I did for you.”
When you hear those final words by the older brother – “Lord, knowing this how you treated me and my brother, if I were to be born and live my life again, I would still do exactly what I did for you.” – do you not hear the voice of the sheep in today’s parable of the Last Judgment? What they did was not for the sake of reward, it was purely out of love of Christ and the people that God planted on this planet, when he created everything and said “it was good; very good!” The sheep did not act in a transactional manner. They weren’t making deals with God. They didn’t do things in order to be noticed or to score points with God. That’s the real point of today’s Parable of the Last Judgment. It’s not so much about what we do or don’t do, but our intention!!
Yes that’s what sets the sheep apart from the goats. The sheep acted in purity of intention and in purity of love. The older brother in de Mello’s parable is one of the sheep. Seeing his younger brother get the same reward, he made it clear that he would have lived his life exactly the same way, because what he did he did not do for a reward. He did it because God asked him to do it. And as he started obeying the call of God, he just kept going deeper and deeper into God’s love for people.
Most of us are incapable of doing what the older brother did. But also we are not like the goats, either. We are somewhere in between. And that in between is not a bad place to be. Because we are learning. With every little act of listening to God’s call and doing it we grow in love and in purity of thought and intention. But there is another lesson. Don’t judge others if they are falling short of what you think is the Christian ideal. You see someone complaining while working the food line at the Festival? It’s okay, maybe he is spoiling your good feelings, but she is there! Let’s be thankful for each other, and encourage each other. That way we increase the number of sheep. And I pray that there will be no goats at the Last Judgment. Because that really is the intention Jesus had in telling the parable of the sheep and goats.