Matthew 25:31-46
The Sheep and the Goats
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 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. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then 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. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 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.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “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.’
41 “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. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “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.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
We cannot talk about Christianity without talking about Hell. In today’s scripture Jesus reminds us of that.
What do we make of Hell? Is it a real place? Is it a place of eternal punishment? Is it a place of eternal fire?Another important question to ask about hell is, “What do I need to do to make it to heaven?”
These are all tough questions that are impossible to pin down to one answer. Don’t let any tradition fool you. No one knows the answer. We have all been shaped by culture and tradition within the church and outside of the church. The idea of heaven and hell have also been shaped by pop culture and great literature books like Dante’s Inferno.
Today what I want to focus on is the requirements Jesus uses to allow some people into hell and some people into the kingdom of God. Notice what the scripture points to. For Jesus (in this scripture) it’s about your actions to the least of these that determines whether or not you enter heaven. It’s not the faith of the goats or the sheeps in this story. It’s their action towards the poor.
It reminds me again of Jon Sobrinos book “No Salvation outside the poor,” where he argues that the only way to salvation is to help the poor. He uses the story of Lazarus but you can even use today’s scripture as another affirmation of that theology. I have some more thoughts on this scripture. You can stop reading here if you’d like and just focus on the idea “If my entrance into heaven is dependent on my actions to the least of these, will I enter heaven?”
To be continued…