Matthew 25:31-46
“God is Sovereign”
November 24, 2002 - Christ the King

         In our high school gymnasium, I sat in the bleachers straining to hear my name. The basketball coach was standing on the floor with his head down, reading a list. Those whose names he read aloud had made the team. They would get to play that year. The rest of us would get up, tread slowly down those bleachers one by one, toss our jerseys in a pile, and head for the showers. There was no appeal, no grace. The decision was final. We hadn’t made the cut.

         Reading today’s text always gives me feelings like I experienced there in the gym that day. When our Lord sits down to separate the sheep from the goats, I worry if I will make the cut. This is not three years of high school basketball at stake. Verse 34 promises an inherited kingdom “prepared since the creation of the world.” Verse 41 threatens “the eternal fire.” More than anything else I’ve ever wanted, I hope and pray to be on the right side of that final decision. I want to make the sovereign cut of Jesus my King.

         As I come to the end of this fall’s sermons on providence, it is Christ the King Sunday. It is the Sunday at the end of the church year when we have the opportunity to focus on the doctrine known as the “sovereignty of God.” God is King, absolute sovereign over us and our world. This is the Sunday to bow and acknowledge His rule over us.

         Much of time, however, discussion of the sovereignty of God focuses on His present rule of events. Just as we studied the last few months, He governs all our lives as creator, sustainer and active participant in everything that happens. His world is held in His hands so that He has absolute control. That, we think, is what it means for God to be sovereign, to be our king. As true as it is, it is not the whole story.

         This Sunday is marked as Christ the King because we believe that only in Jesus Christ did the kingdom of God truly enter our world. God was always sovereign in the providential way, governing all events. But His kingdom did not arrive until Jesus came. At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus began His preaching with the announcement that the kingdom of God was then appearing. God’s true sovereignty became reality only then.

         We also recognize that Jesus taught us God’s kingdom is not quite here yet. On Christ the King Sunday we acknowledge Jesus as our King, but we also look forward. We wait for the day He will return to rule completely. This world continues to deny and reject His kingship. We wait for the moment described in verse 31, when Jesus the Son of Man will come again and set up His kingdom in all its glory and power. We hope for the time when God will truly rule our world.

         You see, God is a king, but not a tyrant. In all His sovereign power, He has no wish to force His will upon anyone. Even in directing the events of history and guiding our individual lives, He leaves our wills free. Our Lord desires to be King over people who freely bow to Him and offer their allegiance by their own choice.

         So the day pictured in our text has been waiting for centuries. God wants everyone to have a chance to choose His side, to enter into eternal life, the blessed inheritance of those who are designated “sheep.” Yet the choice must finally be made, the day must at last come, when our choosing is done and the King distributes justice.

         Justice is pictured as separating the flocks. Sheep were more valuable because of their wool. So they are divided from the goats. Jesus took up a theme from the Old Testament as we read this morning in Ezekiel 34. The king is shepherd of the people, and God is the Great Shepherd. In Ezekiel He divides the lean, hungry, oppressed sheep from the fat sheep who butt their way to the fodder and take it all for themselves.

         Here Jesus pictures the sheep as those who have shared what they had with the needy. The goats are the greedy grazers, the ones who have taken too much. The blessed are those who fed the hungry, housed the stranger, clothed the naked, and visited those in prison. The cursed are those who failed to do such things.

         The worry which naturally arises is that this passage implies what theology calls “works righteousness.” It suggests that, contrary to good Christian doctrine, we will be saved by good works. Jesus seems to be saying that it is what we do, rather than undeserved grace, which gives us a place in His eternal kingdom. That is what makes the sheep and the goats so vexing to those of us who fear we will not make the cut. We know very well that we have not faithfully done these things. I may a generous sheep once or twice a year on special occasions like today, but the rest of the time I may be very much a goat.

         Some Bible scholars attempt to circumvent the works theology here by narrowing the application of the text. Since in verse 40 Jesus refers to those in need as His “brothers,” they argue that He meant giving only to His disciples, or to Christian pastors and missionaries, or at most to other fellow Christians. He was not concerned with how we treat the rest of the world, just those who are also believers.

         Other interpreters believe that this scene of judgment applies only to a very narrow time during the Tribulation at the end of the world. The “brothers” of Jesus are converted Jews who preach the Gospel during a seven-year time of great trouble. Those who care for them, then, are the Gentiles who will be saved out of the Tribulation. The rest of us are not even present at this particular judgment scene.

         All these attempts to get us off the hook leave me still worried. It scares me to dilute what Jesus says in order to free myself of worries about my own behavior. In my mind I see the faces of beggars I’ve passed by and I wonder if someday in a new world I will see them again and realize that the eyes of Jesus had been looking out at me. No matter how much I would like to, I cannot escape from the conviction that these verses describe a judgment held in store for me, and for us all.

         Yet I also believe with all my heart that God is not playing a double game with us. His Word does not invite us to trust in grace only to find that in the end we need good works in order to be saved. In Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9 still say that it is by grace through faith that we are saved – not by works. Placing your trust in Jesus Christ is the way to heaven. You cannot get there just by dropping coins in the Salvation Army kettle.

         The works are still crucial, however. The very next verse in Ephesians 2 says that we were saved in Christ Jesus to do good works. Faith becomes a visible reality when we become active in showing Christlike love to those around us. One of the evidences that we have genuinely trusted in Christ is our willingness to care for others like He did.

         How much evidence is enough? How much Christian love do you and I need to demonstrate that we belong with the sheep and not with the goats? How many acts of charity are required for the Lord to know that our faith in Him is sincere? Perhaps not many.

         In all the fear and judgment found in this text, please do not miss the blessing Jesus offers us when we care for others. God our King wants with all His heart to bless us, not to condemn us. You can see that just in the nature of the judgments handed out. The kingdom given to the sheep in verse 34 has been “prepared for you since the creation of the world.” God was planning to bless those who love Him since the beginning. His kingdom has always been made for us. But in verse 41, the “eternal fire” for the goats was “prepared for the devil and his angels.” God never meant that punishment for humans, for you and me. If it were possible, the King would like to save everyone from the fire.

         So the blessing is given for the smallest act of kindness. They are so small that those who did them are surprised in verses 37 through 39. “When did we do all these things for you?” they ask. They don’t even remember what they have done. Jesus answer is “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Whatever. In Matthew 10 Jesus suggests that even a cup of cold water is enough. Whatever kindness you do for others can be enough to show your faith.

         In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky tells this fable:

Once upon a time there was a woman, and she was wicked as wicked could be, and she died. And not one good deed was left behind her. The devils took her and threw her into the lake of fire. And her guardian angel stood thinking: what good deed of hers can I remember to tell God? Then he remembered and said to God: “Once she pulled up an onion and gave it to a beggar woman.” And God said: “Now take that same onion, hold it out to her in the lake, let her take hold of it, and pull, and if you pull her out of the lake, she can go to paradise…”

This story is all about grace, not works. It was just an onion, and the story suggests that the wicked woman probably threw it at the beggar more than she gave it to her. But God wants to save the wicked woman. He allows an onion to be enough. So the story continues:

The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her: “Here, woman, he said, take hold of it and I’ll pull.” And he began pulling carefully, and had almost pulled her all the way out, when other sinners in the lake saw her being pulled out and all began holding on to her so as to be pulled out with her. But the woman was wicked as wicked could be, and she began to kick them with her feet: “It’s me who’s getting pulled out, not you; it’s my onion, not yours.” No sooner did she say it than the onion broke. And the woman fell back into the lake and is burning there to this day. The angel wept and went away.[1]

Both the grace and the warning are there in Dostoevsky’s fable, just as they are in Jesus’ words. Coupled with genuine faith, even a thrown onion can save. But let a cruel and selfish spirit demonstrate a complete lack of true faith, then nothing can save us.

         That is why we help each other to demonstrate faith by giving as we have this morning. A shoe box of toys, a little bank of small change, or a can of beans is an act of trust and commitment to the Savior in whose name we give them. We know that such offerings can never buy us salvation. But as we give them to others, Jesus receives them as gifts to Himself, and assures us once again that we are His own, the sheep of His right hand.

         How then could we not want to do all we can to be sheep rather than goats? Who among us does not want to grow more and more into the Christ life of giving? What reasons could we have for not looking for Jesus in the eyes of everyone we meet? Don’t we all want to hear our Lord say, “you did it for me”?

         Of course, such a life is not simple. Shall I give something to that man with the cardboard sign whom I pass everyday as I get on the freeway? Should I be sponsoring a child in some foreign country? Rather than stuffing my face with turkey at home, would it be better to spend Thanksgiving volunteering at the Whittaker community dinner? How and where can I best find Jesus in my neighbor? These are none of them simple or easy questions. Dorothy Day often quoted another line from Dostoevsky: “Love in practice is a hard and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”

         I believe, though, that the best approach to being a sheep is not to be too anxious about it. You are not trying to earn your salvation. What you are after is a soul which gives because it has been saved. You want to be generous because you are thankful, not because you are scared about eternity. So you want to cultivate a spirit of thankfulness, out of which you can give whenever God sends opportunity. By thanking God and giving as you can, you develop the soul of a true sheep.

         Friday some of you gathered here in the church library to watch “Divided We Fall,” a Czech film about a couple who sheltered a Jewish man from the Nazis. It is a story repeated many times during the Holocaust. While Jewish men, women and children were being slaughtered in the Nazi death camps, Christians saw the suffering of their neighbors and aided Jews at great personal risk.

         At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Israel, there is a street known as the Avenue of the Righteous. It is surrounded with trees, each of them planted to commemorate a righteous gentile who risked freedom and life to save Jewish people from the Nazis. A virtual forest represents the many people of Poland who rescued Jews. There are over a thousand from the Czech Republic. The Queen of Belgium is remembered, along with Oskar Schindler who was made famous by Spielberg’s film. Over 19,000 in all now have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.

         A whole town in southern France is also commemorated at Yad Vashem. The little Protestant community of Le Chambon is remembered for a daring rescue project led by the minister Andre Trocme and his wife. They and members of their church brought in and sheltered Jews from all over Europe. When Magda Trocme was praised for her goodness after the war she responded, “How can you call us good? We were doing what had to be done. Who else could help them? And what has this to do with goodness? Things had to be done, that’s all, and we happened to be there to do them. You must understand that it was the most natural thing in the world to help these people.”

         I remember sitting in a seminar discussion with philosopher Eleonore Stump as she related the story of Le Chambon and the Trocmes and mentioned the trees at Yad Vashem. Eleonore reflected a moment and then said that in her view, there could not be a higher moral goal for a Christian than to become a person like Magda Trocme, the sort of person who by nature does the kind of thing which would cause a tree to be planted for you at Yad Vashem. The goal is not the tree, not the recognition. The goal is having a soul which would, without a second thought, earn the tree if called upon. May God grant us each to grow a soul like that.

         “You did it for me,” says the King. You will hear those words someday for the gifts you have offered here this morning. May you and I strive with all our hearts never to miss the opportunity to hear those words from our Lord and Savior. In His sovereign judgment, He gives us the opportunity to choose, to place ourselves with the sheep or with the goats. By the grace He offered in giving His own life on the Cross, He made it possible for us to give and by giving become true sheep, His true people.

         Jesus did what He did for us. The Cross is our first, last and best reason to do what we do for Him, to choose in the end to be sheep, to reign forever with Him our King.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2002 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj