In today’s reading, Jesus likens his job as heavenly Judge to that of a shepherd, sorting through his flock and separating the sheep from the goats. When two animals are so anatomically alike, one of the easiest ways to tell them apart is their behaviour. It’s how they act that’s the giveaway.
So it is with the two groups that Jesus describes. The righteous and the cursed can look remarkably similar to the untrained eye. It is their behaviour that distinguishes them. Jesus is specific: the righteous are those that have helped people in crisis. They fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick and befriended the prisoners.
Surely this makes things simple for us as Christians? We know just what we should do in order to be counted righteous by Jesus. In fact, we can create ourselves a handy tick list: Wrote a letter to a prisoner. Tick. Volunteered at the local food bank. Tick. Donated to a homeless shelter. Tick.
Of course, to do this would be to miss the point entirely. After all, when Jesus rewards the sheep, they do not stand smugly, clutching completed checklists and congratulating themselves on having met the requirements. Instead, as The Message translation puts it, they turn to Jesus and ask, ‘What are you talking about?’ They are oblivious to the moments in which they have done the very things Jesus views as most important.
It is the same for the goats. ‘When, Lord?,’ they ask. ‘When did we fail to act as you wanted us to?’ As C.S. Lewis comments, the heaviest charge against them is not the things they have done, but those they never dreamed of doing.
When it comes to the crunch, neither group is aware of what it was they were doing right or wrong. The most important decision points have entirely passed them by. The troubling message of Jesus’ story, then, is this: it is our unconscious actions that reveal our deepest character. He’s not just watching when we’re on our best behaviour. He sees the forgotten moments too. And there’s no pulling the wool over his eyes.
But this is more than just a story about being a Good Samaritan. Notice that Jesus does not simply applaud the sheep for helping the needy. He tells them that in doing so, they have ministered directly to him. “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” You will inherit the kingdom, he says, not because you served them, but because you served me.
So this is not just a story about what we do. It is a story about why we do it. We choose obedience to him not because we want to convince him that we are worthy of inheriting eternal life, but because he is worthy of that obedience. And as we learn through repeatedly putting his priorities into practice, he is also changing our hearts to be more like his. C.S. Lewis puts it like this: ‘We do not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because he loves us.’
So when we choose to act selflessly, it is not just in response to a crisis. In fact, quite the opposite. We act from a place of security, as grateful recipients of the greatest love of all.
Our very first job, then, does not concern our treatment of others at all. It is to fix our eyes on Jesus, the shepherd on the throne. This is the greatest commandment (Matthew 22.35–40). Loving our neighbour is crucial. But it comes second, because it flows from our loving relationship with God, powered by his Spirit in us. Just as faith without works is dead (James 2.17), so works without faith are lifeless. It is the two together that make a sheep a sheep, rather than a goat.
Father God
We love you. Help us to love you with all our hearts. We desire to love our neighbours as ourselves. Will you open our eyes to see the needs of those around us and inspire us to meet those needs with reckless generosity and kindness. We want to live as sheep who follow your son Jesus, our shepherd King. Empower us by your Spirit to be obedient to your call.
Amen.