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Help! Preacher seeks sermon

I should have known better.  I was given a whole chapter of Matthew from which to choose a text, so like a fool, I chose one of my favourite stories in the New Testament.  It's also possibly the most terrifying of Jesus' many teachings.  I joyfully picked up my extremely heavy three volume commentary on Matthew (buying a three-volume commentary on one book seemed like a good idea at the time)... and discovered, to my dismay, that the story may not mean what I always thought it did.

It's the last judgement, and the Son of Man separates the sheep from the goats.  To the sheep he says, "when I was hungry, you fed me; when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink..." And the sheep say, "when did we ever see you hungry, Lord, and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?"  And the Lord says "whenever you did it for the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me."  Then he turns to the goats and says "I was hungry, and you did not feed me; I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink..." And the goats say "when did we ever see you hungry, Lord, and not feed you?  When did we see you thirsty, and gave you nothing to drink?"  And the Lord replies "whenever you did not do it for the least of these brothers, you did not do it for me."  The sheep receive eternal life, and the goats are sent away to an uncertain but probably not very pleasant fate. (Matthew chapter 25)

It was the liberation theologians' interpretation of this story which blew my mind at college: the idea that to show love to those in need was to know Christ; that one could not claim truly to be a Christian without practising social justice.  The idea that we meet Christ in the poor, the marginalised, the downtrodden.  But I find myself very convinced by the author of my enormous commentary who points out that a little earlier, in Matthew 10, Jesus sends his followers out in mission, telling them "whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me."  Oh yeah.  Good point.  So it appears that "the least of these" in the story of the sheep and the goats is actually more likely to refer to Christian missionaries than to the poor more generally.  And if that's true, Jesus isn't saying that our salvation rests on our treatment of the marginalised, but on our treatment of those who bring his message.  Huh.

So I wonder what the message of the story of the sheep and the goats is for us today.  Any thoughts welcome.  And note to self: avoid preaching on well loved passages if you know what's good for you.

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