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The Very Hardest Parables - Matthew 25:31-46
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
This is the final week in our Jesus on judgment series where we have been exploring some of the very hardest parables of Jesus. And so some people have asked me if I have just tried to scare people away with these series titles. In the first year that we planted the commons, we spent a couple months in the book of Revelation, then we spent twelve weeks with the minor prophets. Now we have a series called Jesus on judgment. I mean, what is next?
Speaker 1:Ten weeks in Leviticus, somebody asked. What are you trying to do? And actually, you should be careful because that sounds like kind of a fun challenge. So maybe we'll get to it at some point. Who knows?
Speaker 1:But no. I'm not trying to scare people away. I do think, however, that part of what makes Commons unique is that we have this freedom and this capacity as a community to do hard work together. Because there is a place where I believe that judgment can become more than just an idea, and it actually becomes transformational for us if we engage with it. And so I hope that these conversations, we have started to recognize that Jesus is not interested in sitting on his cloud and tossing lightning bolts at our feet to make us dance.
Speaker 1:That was never what God was about. Instead, he was always about inviting us into some kind of dialogue with him. And I think that's what we saw in the parable of the talents last week, or perhaps as it might better be called the parable of the hard man. Because I tried to give us two different ways to look at what's happening in Jesus' story. And this for me is really the beauty of parables.
Speaker 1:If Jesus had wanted a singular simplistic interpretation of his words, he could very easily have spoken in clear didactic terms. And yet what he does instead is he chooses to tell stories. And that is not an accident because it forces us to think, to wrestle, and engage, to wonder about what it might be that he is trying to say. And so in this famous parable last week, there is a very traditional interpretation that probably most of us have heard. If you have been given five bags of gold, five talents, your job is to turn that into 10.
Speaker 1:And that works. It actually lines up with what Jesus has said previously in Luke chapter 12. To whom much has been given, much will be expected. And truthfully, for those of us here in the West with resources and influence and voice at our disposal, that is a good lesson to learn. But at the same time, if we take that same parable and we realize that very uncharacteristically Jesus does not actually say it's a parable about the kingdom at all.
Speaker 1:And we go to the first time that Jesus told that parable on his way to Jerusalem in Luke 19, we get a very different perspective. Because there Jesus meets with a man named Zacchaeus, a tax collector who has been driven by profit and wealth and gain for most of his career. And Zacchaeus promises to Jesus that he will change his life. He will give to the poor. He will make right all the people he has defrauded in the past.
Speaker 1:And Jesus turns to him with everyone still listening and he tells a story about an employee who is fired from his job, who is kicked out of his master's house because he doesn't return with a big fat investment return. Now, you can check out the details on our podcast or our YouTube channel from last Sunday, but in that context, it really does sound like Jesus is saying, listen, Zacchaeus, this is great. And what I hear you say is beautiful. But do you really know what it will cost you if you follow through on your promise? And all of a sudden, it's not the employee who comes home with the biggest return that's the hero.
Speaker 1:It's actually the employee who pays the price to follow his conscience. It's the disgraced employee who becomes the hero of our story. And for me, this is why Jesus' parables have endured for so long. Because both of those interpretations can work depending on who is listening. Good judgment, divine justice is not one size fits all.
Speaker 1:So do you need to be reminded that you have been given much and that God expects you. He wants you to do your best with it. Do you need to be reminded that sometimes the right thing comes with a cost? It may hurt you, but God is with you. Because this is what God's judgment is about.
Speaker 1:He doesn't want to squash or belittle or diminish you. He wants to help you become who he imagines you to be. This is for you. Now, we have one more parable this week and we will be staying in Matthew 25. But first let's pray and invite God to be with us, to help us.
Speaker 1:Almighty and merciful God who creates and sustains and judges the cosmos. Would you help us to see your judgment today? Not through fear tainted by the vindictive use of power we see in the world around us. But instead informed by the loving guidance of a parent who wants us to grow into everything we could ever become. Would we understand that your words are not one size fits all, But instead, a personal invitation to enter into dialogue and conversation and ultimately transformation.
Speaker 1:Where our image of you has been corrupted by broken images of cruel or spiteful judgment. Would you speak to us? Healing images of the God who would go to absurd lengths to draw near to us. Images of the God who cares so deeply for us that he would deign to speak, to guide us back when we go off course. And in that, would we come to know you as the God who longs to be known?
Speaker 1:A God who wants to see us bigger, more complete, more whole than he found us. And so we may we sense your spirit speaking and guiding and even judging us with grace. So that we might experience the life that flows naturally from being connected deeply to you. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Alright. We are picking up exactly where we left off last week in Matthew 25 verse 31 today. But we are about to hit one of Jesus' most famous parables. And probably, even if you have not been around church for a long time or you didn't grow up around the community, it's still very possible that you are familiar with this story at least in passing. Because this is the parable of the sheep and the goats.
Speaker 1:And it is the context for one of Jesus' most iconic phrases, whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me. So verse 31. Let's read. When the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels are with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. Now before we go any farther, let me make a couple comments here.
Speaker 1:This is a throwback to the start of Matthew 24. Remember there, the disciples have asked Jesus about the end of the age. So this whole section in chapters twenty four and twenty five is what we call the Olivet Discourse. That's because it happens on the Mount Of Olives, and we like to have fancy names for these types of things. But these two chapters, including this trio of parables that we have been looking at over the past few weeks, are all part of Jesus' answer to that question.
Speaker 1:When will you return? How will we know? And so far, Jesus has said, you won't, but you will know the kingdom is near when you see that people are willing to pay the cost to do what is right. Now he begins to speak in much more grandiose, more prophetic style of language here. He says, when the son of man comes, there will be angels and a glorious throne.
Speaker 1:And this seems to be language inspired by Daniel chapter seven, specifically verses thirteen and fourteen if you wanna go read them later. So Jesus has been tapping into the language of the Hebrew prophets here and it's a very different type of parable than we have been reading so far in this series. He says, all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people. One from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Speaker 1:And the king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed by my father. Take your inheritance. The kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.
Speaker 1:I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. But the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?
Speaker 1:Or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in? Or needing clothes and clothed you, when did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? That is a good question. Because I would imagine that you would certainly remember if you had stumbled across the king of the universe on the side the road and helped him one day.
Speaker 1:But the king will reply, truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in.
Speaker 1:I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. And they will also answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and not help you? And he will reply, truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
Speaker 1:When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, as you know, the Passover is two days away and the son of man will be handed over to be crucified. And that is the story that we will enter into next week. As we join in Palm Sunday and we prepare for a Good Friday until ultimately we celebrate resurrection on Easter Sunday. But we do still have this one last hard parable to discuss today. And this is, for my money, one of the most intriguing parables of Jesus.
Speaker 1:As I noted earlier, it is also a very different type of parable. Now, this is clearly not your average ordinary slice of life type story from Jesus. It veers into some fairly abstract territory. I mean, we are talking here about eternal fire and punishment. This is some highly evocative metaphorical language Jesus pulls out.
Speaker 1:And I don't wanna get too sidetracked on the question of hell. Not saying that's not important. I just don't think it's Jesus' central point here. But I don't want to gloss over it either, so I will say this however. When Jesus says eternal punishment, I think that he means eternal punishment.
Speaker 1:Now the question we have to ask is, what does eternal mean in that context? Because eternal can be everlasting in the sense of ongoing. Eternal can also be everlasting in the sense of final or complete or irreversible. So it's eternal. It's forever.
Speaker 1:It cannot be undone. So eternal punishment, if you think punishment is instructive or redemptive in God, Could be an eternal punishment that reforms and fixes and finally sets things right. The word punishment here, kolasses in Greek, actually has roots in the idea of cutting off or pruning something. Eternal punishment, if you agree with Paul that the wages of sin are death, could be death. The punishment is you cease to exist.
Speaker 1:You are now eternally gone. There is no coming back. In fact, in second Thessalonians, Paul says that those who reject God will receive eternal destruction. Well, the only thing that is not eternal destruction is the idea of being eternally burned forever in some kind of metaphysical fire. You are literally never destroyed in that scenario, which is the one thing Paul says will happen.
Speaker 1:So I think we need to take Jesus' hard words seriously here. I don't think we necessarily need to come out of this parable with a sense that Jesus is convinced God is going to keep people alive forever just so he can torture them. That doesn't necessarily flow from his words. It's not his central point. It may be a good discussion, but perhaps for another time.
Speaker 1:Because I'm convinced there is something even bigger, more central going on in this parable. Now, the sheep and the goats part, that is of course very much drawn from real life. And it would not be strange at all for a shepherd to have a mixed flock of both sheep and goats together. In fact, the Torah, it gives rules for the Paschal lamb that was eaten at the Passover. And Exodus 12 actually says that it should be a spotless animal taken from the sheep or the goats.
Speaker 1:So not a big deal. They're all mixed in together. No worries. It doesn't matter. And this is a theme for Jesus.
Speaker 1:In Matthew 13, he tells a parable about a man who has a field. And he sows some seed, some wheat that he wants to harvest later. But while he's asleep, an enemy, maybe a rival farmer. I don't know what farming was like back then. Apparently, of gang signs and blood feuds with bad seeds.
Speaker 1:Who knows? But an enemy farmer comes along, sneaks into his field at night and sow bad seed, weeds all throughout the man's field. And so later, when the seeds begin to poke up through the ground, the workers realize what has happened, and they come to their boss and they say, listen. Somebody put weeds all through your field. Do you want us to tear them out?
Speaker 1:And what the master says is, no. Because when you are pulling up the weeds, you may also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. Jesus seems to want to be very clear that you and I, we simply do not have the necessary technology to know the difference between wheat and weeds and sheep and goats. Now there is a difference and God knows that difference, but the field is God's and the flock is God's and the judgment that happens at the end of the age, this too belongs only to God.
Speaker 1:In fact, the parable from Matthew 13 seems to say that the damage you and I cause when we take judgment into our own hands and we try to decide who is in and who is out. That is actually worse than what the weeds could ever do on their own anyway. And so even as we begin to unfold this parable, we have to keep in mind. We are not here to divide between sheep and goats. That is above your pay grade.
Speaker 1:And if you tried, you would probably get it wrong anyway. Now, some of us, if not most of us, have probably at some point in our journey had someone try to label us that way. And probably it hurt. And in some way it limited you. And it made the way forward toward God harder.
Speaker 1:But my hope is that if you are here, or if you are listening to this, then somehow that label didn't end your journey. It didn't uproot you from the soil within which you were trying to sink your roots. It didn't finish you. And so somehow you found the strength to keep moving, to keep learning, to keep growing forward toward God in your story, and that's good. Sometimes what makes us or what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but sometimes what doesn't kill us still hurts very, very deeply.
Speaker 1:And if you have found yourself able to overcome those labels, or to become more than the category that someone else tried to put you in at some point, then my prayer is that we'll give you the context to ensure that you would never write somebody else off that way. That's not our job in this story. Because Jesus seems to think that he is the shepherd of both the sheep and the goats here. And he seems to want to give each of us every possible opportunity to reveal our true selves to him. And really, that's the big twist in the parable, isn't it?
Speaker 1:The king separates the sheep onto his right, and he says, thank you for all these nice things that you did for me. And they say, well, you're welcome, I guess. But honestly, I think you have the wrong person. Because we never did any of those things. I mean, we would love to to take credit, but you are the son of man coming glory and this is the end of the age.
Speaker 1:Perhaps now is not the time for us to accept undue praise. I remember when I first moved to Calgary. This was about twelve years ago now. So I'm 38 right now. And yes, I know I look like I'm in my early twenties.
Speaker 1:But if you can imagine, when I was in my early twenties without a beard, I looked a whole lot younger than this right now. Anyway, was at a restaurant here in town, and this young girl came up to me and she asked me for my autograph. And some people think pastors are a big deal. We're not, but that's nice. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:That was clearly not why she wanted my autograph. And so I said, sure. I can sign your napkin, but who do you think I am? And she replied, you're the guy from the Moffitts. Now, for those of you who have no idea who the Moffitts are, because I didn't either.
Speaker 1:They were a Canadian teeny bopper boy band from the late nineties, and they looked like this. Now, truthfully, probably I could have passed for any single one of those. But apparently, she thought this was me. No. I get it.
Speaker 1:I get it. I could probably still pass for that kid if I needed to. Fair enough. But no, ego bruised. I did not take credit, and neither do the sheep here.
Speaker 1:They say, listen, God, that's great. But sadly, it is not us. We didn't do it. You've got the wrong people. And so Jesus responds with what I think is one of his most iconic phrases.
Speaker 1:He says, whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me. We have to recognize that this is not just a gimmick of the parable. Because Jesus' identification with the poor goes deep in his story. In fact, the first thing that Jesus does when he arrives on the scene, he inaugurates his public ministry, is he goes to the synagogue in Luke four and he takes the scroll of Isaiah and he reads, the spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. To proclaim freedom for the prisoner and recovery of sight for the blind.
Speaker 1:To set the oppressed free. I'm here to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. That is his mission statement. So everything we read here at the end of the story, at the end of the age, it was all set up for us back at the beginning of the story. In fact, you can go back even farther than that.
Speaker 1:I mean, Jesus is quoting from Isaiah after all. But even back in Jeremiah, there is this remarkable passage in the Hebrew scriptures where God is speaking to the king Jehoiakim about his father, Josiah. And God says, he did what was right and just and so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and the needy so all went well. And then listen to this.
Speaker 1:This is what God says. Is this not what it means to know me? Declares the Lord. That to know God according to God is to do what is right and just to defend the cause of the poor. Not theology, mercy.
Speaker 1:And this is where I think a lot of us sometimes seem to misunderstand Jesus. Because sometimes we talk about him as if there was this duality in him between this servant heart and this kingly nature that he has. As if Jesus was a servant when he came the first time, but he will be a king when he comes back for the second round. And part of what this parable says is no. The king was the king when he was lying in the ditch needing our help.
Speaker 1:And the king was the king when he was down on his knees washing his friend's feet. The king was the king when he was carrying his own cross to the place where he would be executed. You see the incarnation, this idea that God became human, it wasn't about hiding the fact that Jesus was the king of the universe from us. This was God showing us what a king with nothing to prove looks like. This past fall, in a series called Like Jesus, I said it this way.
Speaker 1:There is a difference between being so powerful that you are driven to prove it, and being infinitely powerful. Where the only thing left is to give it all away. The reason Jesus doesn't look like a king the way we expect him to look like a king Is because the gaudiness of a God who needs to wear a crown around is observed to him. Listen, Jesus is not less of a king when he identifies with the poor. He is God showing us what a king was always meant to look like.
Speaker 1:And so if you like the Jesus of the gospels, but somehow you have fallen in love with an imagination of Jesus who will come back someday looking like something very different, then you have missed the plot. And this is why the key in this parable is all of this misplaced identity that we keep reading about. The sheep say, what are you talking about? And the goats say, what are you talking about? And nobody seems to know what the king is on about.
Speaker 1:And yes, it's because Jesus is talking about the least of these but it's also because we just fundamentally don't know what to look for in a king. We want him to be in his glory on his throne surrounded by angels with neon lights and probably a smoke machine somewhere in the back. Like a deaf leopard concert on steroids because somehow that's what our idea of glory looks like. And yet when Jesus uses that language, it's really just to say that if you only notice me now, then you already missed me. Because this is not really a parable about identifying sheep and goats.
Speaker 1:This is a parable about identifying God. Do you know what he looks like? Do you know where he hangs out? Do you know the kinds of people that God spends his time with and he invests himself in? And the great paradox of this story is that if you do, then it won't even matter whether you noticed him there at all.
Speaker 1:That's the brilliance of this parable because this is a parable about works. And you have to do the right thing to get in, but you can't do the right thing by trying to do the right thing. Effort isn't effective in the kingdom. In fact, you can only do the right thing by becoming the right thing, by being transformed by the right thing. By becoming so deeply in sync with this unexpected King that you begin to live and to act and to move unconsciously to the rhythms of his grace.
Speaker 1:It doesn't start that way. In fact it takes a lot of work to start down any new path. Anytime you want to make changes in your life, anytime you recognize the path that you're on is not the path that you want to be on, that is going to take work and effort and concentration to make that switch. Human beings, we are like trains in that sense. Once we are on a track, and we can barrel along in the same direction without much effort.
Speaker 1:Even when we know we are going the wrong way, inertia is easy. But stopping and switching and turning and changing, getting off the ride road and going out through the narrow gate. That's what's hard for us. But the beauty of the Jesus life is that because this life is the life that we were ultimately created for, The more we choose it, the easier, the more natural, the less conscious it actually becomes for us. Until one day, we find ourselves standing before the king of the universe being praised for things we don't even remember doing.
Speaker 1:Because at the end of the age, it will not be a list of deeds that we've done that will earn God's praise or our seat at his table. It will only ever be a life that flowed naturally and freely from the character we allowed God to cultivate in his grace. So the end of the age. When you stand before the king of all that is, may you come to notice the divine in retrospect. As you look back on a lifetime of moments where God offered himself to your care.
Speaker 1:And you responded not out of obligation or duty, but because it was the person God was forming you into. It became natural and unconscious. It was simply you being shaped into the likeness of Christ. Let's pray. God, help us to take seriously this incredible paradox that you present in this parable.
Speaker 1:That there is a life that demonstrates our connection with you. That grace, humility, mercy, generosity. A life that flows unconsciously and naturally from the rhythms of grace that we learn to step into. Life that flows from the character we allow you to cultivate in us. A life that comes when we step off that wide road and we go through the narrow gate, but slowly we just give ourselves over to you.
Speaker 1:And yet at the same time, to recognize that is not the list of our accomplishments, the things that we've done, the deeds that we can check off that earn your praise. It is only ever the invitation to become the people you imagine us to be. The human beings that you had in mind when you formed us, when you created us. God help us to head down that path. To make good choices where we can.
Speaker 1:To be diligent and committed and to grow. But then slowly to trust more and more in your spirit that guides and walks and teaches us how to dance to your rhythm. May we slowly and unconsciously become the people you imagine us to be. And may we step into that final, perfect, eternal life that you have created for us. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen. Alright. Next week, we begin Holy Week. Palm Sunday next Sunday. Stations of the Cross on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Speaker 1:Good Friday at 10AM, and then four services at Easter Sunday. And so we invite you to join us for as much of that as you can. But we will end here as we always do with this. Love God. Love people.
Speaker 1:Tell the story.