On November 22nd, Sarah Fuller engaged the lectionary passages of Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 and Matthew 25: 31-46. In these passages, it seems that there are some responsibilities that belong to sheep|people and some that belong to God|the shepherd. How do we work for good, in obedience — while leaving judgement to God?
Please note: we had some recording glitches in this recording that impacted a sentence in a few places. We’ll try to make sure they show in the following notes. This won’t be the full text, but phrases or sentences italicized and colored below will be ones that are missed in the recording.
Sarah notes that “although sheep aren’t a huge part of my current daily life, sheep were a huge part of the economy and daily life of Ezekiel and Matthew’s worlds. And, sheep are a huge part of the economy now. Over a billion domesticated sheep are farmed in the world today…Sheep have been domesticated by humans probably for about 7000 years. We’ve been together for a long time.”
So sheep were old news even in the BC 500’s, when the book of Ezekiel is written and/or set. 2500 years ago, the nation of Israel has been militarily defeated and its people are exiled and vulnerable in Babylon. It’s a dark time, and the prophet Ezekiel addresses this. There are prophecies against Israel and other nations in the early chapters, and then the prophet turns more to messages of hope. This “hope” section is where we find Ezekiel 34. God’s sheep are scattered in a dangerous land, and God will find them, rescue them, feed them, heal them, and bring them to good pasture. God also says that God will judge between the sheep in the flock, between the fat strong sheep who harass the other sheep, and the weak sheep who are scattered by them. “I myself will search for my sheep,” says God, “and I will judge between sheep and sheep.”
The passage in Matthew 25 is also rich in sheep imagery, even though we’re now 500 or so years on from Ezekiel’s time. Jesus is talking to his disciples, and he tells them this story where all of humanity is standing before the “Human One,” the “Son of Man,” and like a shepherd this one separates a mixed flock of sheep and goats (a common agricultural practice), so the “Human One” separates people, in judgment, the righteous from “those who are cursed.” And, further, we learn in this chapter that the criteria for this separation is people who provided for the concrete physical needs of their neighbors and people in vulnerable situations. This is the passage from which we get the list of the “Works of Mercy”: Feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and visit the imprisoned. Some people did these things, not realizing they were really in doing that, doing them for God, and some people neglected to do these things, not realizing that, in neglecting to do them, they were refusing to do them for God. This passage swiftly undoes any disembodied, spiritualized ideas of Christianity or salvation that you or I may have picked up here or there, grounding a relationship with Christ in concrete acts of care for the people around us. I really only have one sermon in life, and it’s trying to understand this passage, so I thought it was kind of interesting that it turned out to be one of the readings this weekend in the lectionary.
When I was reading both the Ezekiel passage and the passage in Matthew 25, I was struck by the fact that God does all the judging. It is a responsibility of the shepherd.
Sheep are a herd animal of limited intelligence. They are famous for being docile and vulnerable. I don’t hang out with them much, as I said before, and even I know that.
It’s possible that God feels an empathy and a tenderness towards our limitations in spite of an acute understanding of everything we don’t or can’t yet know.
Both the Ezekiel and the Matthew passage outline some responsibilities for sheep, some clear things that we can know about and follow, even in the face of our limitations. We are told what God’s judgment criteria are for these passages, for example. In the first, the shepherd gathers the sheep, and judges between sheep and sheep based on whether a strong sheep is taking advantage of a weak one. We know that the shepherd doesn’t want the sheep to take advantage of each other. We read between the lines and imagine that there are some troubles along these lines in the community to which the prophecies of Ezekiel are addressed. We don’t have to stretch our imaginations too far because we have seen troubles like this in our nations, our workplaces, our families, the structuring of our economy, in all the venues where people interact with each other and there is the temptation for the strong to lord it over the weak, and to make them even weaker while the strong prosper. The shepherd judges against this, rescuing the sheep not only from the hazards of their environment but even from the hazards of each other.
In the passage in Matthew 25, God/the shepherd doesn’t judge between sheep and sheep but between sheep and goats, which represent a total flock of humanity. Some people are praised for taking taking care of others — feeding and clothing them, giving them water, taking care of them when they are sick and in prison — and it turns out, in an apocalyptic revelation, they were doing this for God the whole time!. Some others didn’t do these things for other people, and thus — it turns out! — didn’t do these things for God.
We the scripture audience learn what the shepherd is about. We learn how we should treat our fellows, and what the shepherd’s priorities are. We might not be geniuses, but we are smart enough to understand our responsibilities based on these examples.
Now, I know that the idea of God as judge has not always been a comforting concept in the history of Christianity, theology, some of our interactions with Christians and churches, and even our personal thoughts, feelings and relationships with God. So, let me try to explain why I found the idea of God the shepherd as judge comforting in this instance.
First, it was clear that the sheep (and goats) were not the judges of each other. The livestock had responsibilities — to help each other and take care of each other, not to oppress each other. Maybe the sheep could organize to protect themselves from exploitative herd members. Maybe the sheep could form mutual aid societies and better help each other. Maybe the sheep could form networks of support and publicly hold dangerous sheep or dangerous sheep ideas accountable, but at the end of the day it is not their assignment to pass judgment on the core being or sheep-manity of other sheep.
If we don’t judge other people, it frees up a lot of energy and time. This is practical. It’s very difficult. We can spend more time understanding the world. We can remember to pray for answers beyond our understanding. We can remember that we are not in control. We can take advice and work and take care of each other which involves working to change exploitative structures and our own ideas, but we can also trust in an unseen future and make room for the Holy Spirit.
I don’t know how all God’s judgment works. We learn some things about God’s heart and priorities in the scripture tradition, in the Psalms, in stories.
Matthew 7:1 says “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” In Ezekiel, God promises to gather God’s people and put green pasture in front of them. Our job is to open our mouths and to eat the grass, and take care of each other. There are a lot of things we don’t know. But we do know how we are supposed to treat each other.
Questions for Discussion:
- Is there a difference between prophetic witness, personal responsibility and judging others? If so, what are the differences?
- What kinds of things do these passages imply that we can trust God to do? What responsibilities do we have as followers of Christ in light of those things?
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