For this 2nd last Sunday of the church year, we hear that at the last there will be a separation and separating. We actually separate things all the time. In baking and cooking sometimes we have to separate things like the yolk from the white in an egg and as we approach Thanksgiving some you may even tasked with doing this very thing. While doing laundry, we separate clothes according to color or by fabric. Also, Farmers have to separate the seeds of the grain from the rest of the plant or chaff while harvesting. This is very biblical: the wheat and the chaff. Fisherman using nets separate the desirable or legal fish from those that are not legal, or desirable, or big enough. And here in today’s Gospel we have the separation of the sheep and the goats.
This simile that Jesus uses, He uses to illustrate the reality that on the last day there will be a separation. A separation between people who otherwise may appear similar. They are separated even as sheep and goats are separated. As they are separated, we learn that some will be separated also from the presence of the Son of Man and sent away to eternal punishment, but the righteous on the other hand will be gathered and ushered into eternal life.
Yet in Romans 8 St. Paul asks the question: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” and then he answers it: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Who or what can separate people from Jesus Christ? It isn’t hardship or trouble. It’s unbelief. But also those things which can lead to unbelief: earthly success, pride, and laziness just to name a few.
Quite often earthly hardship drives believers ever closer to faith and reliance upon the grace of God and His generosity. Instead of these troubles separating people from the Lord, they are drawn ever closer to Him. Leaning on Him, receiving from Him His generous grace upon Grace, forgiveness, hope, and strength in Jesus Christ. Therefore, in response to God’s grace, by faith they are generous in their lives. Generous in offerings, generous to their families, neighbors, and coworkers as their faith grows in Christ.
Today’s text is a gut check. It is a warning. As we talk about the end of time and the judgement of the world. We have to ask, “Am I a sheep or a goat”. What will I hear proclaimed at the last day?
We Lutherans and all Orthodox Christians proclaim that salvation cannot be earned. That good works cannot redeem us. That we are saved by grace through faith alone. As we believe so shall we be saved.
But here is the problem: the human flesh. You and I in our fallenness have a tendency to abuse either the Law on the one hand: thinking that we can earn salvation by our goodness ‘or having heard the Gospel we tend to abuse the Grace and gift of God.
People are saved by faith alone, but faith is never alone. We cannot say that we have faith and willfully go on sinning. We cannot say that we believe and willfully stay away from God’s Word. We cannot say that we love God and then be cruel and merciless even to our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is a dangerous thing to challenge God in His patience. And to challenge the strength of one’s belief in God by going on sinning to see how long that connection of faith can sustain itself until it snaps and one is fully separated from Jesus already in this life by their unbelief. Faith does not disappear all at once. It can be squeezed out day by day, week by week, year by year. Until there is none left. If in the public realm one is living their life no differently from the pagan unbelievers, they should ask: am I even a believer anymore?
The ancient church as they looked at this text from Matthew, believed that the people being separated in this passage did not represent believers and those of the world. The group from which these people, these sheep and goats are being separated represented the visible church here on earth. For there are many now and many throughout the ages who said they were believers, who may have been baptized in the church, who may have attended every Sunday, but did not believe. And because they did not believe, really, they had had no fruits of faith. They were not loving to Christ’s brothers and sisters meaning fellow members of the church. It is easy enough to adopt a child in Africa, but how difficult is it to listen to the needs and concerns of those within one’s own congregation and communion and then help? At the last day our hearts and thought will be revealed, but even now our lives today give an indication of the status and health of our faith and salvation. Martin Luther in a sermon on this very text once said: “In this way the distinction between sheep and goats is already made in this life, so that everyone can perceive it in himself and must also let it be noticed outwardly. Those who do not have faith will certainly do neither of these things: they will not take comfort in the grace of Christ, nor will they plan to practice mercy.”
So, have you as a baptized child of God, shown the love and mercy to your brothers and sisters that you could and should? Are you generous and good stewards of your time and talents? Have you planned and followed through in doing this good to the glory of God and to the good of your neighbor? Or have you been wasteful? Have you joined yourself in the wickedness of this world and the desires of your flesh? Have you been separating yourself from Christ Jesus and His Word? Have you known someone absenting themselves from this congregation, or caught up in a sin of any kind separating themselves from God and yet haven’t for the love of them exhorted them in humility to repent?
It is good to examine ourselves and our shortcomings. How can we ever know where by God’s grace we can improve unless we do this? How can we not but become lazy in our faith, or become proud in ourselves unless we take the time to examine ourselves.
Then we find, that we have failed, we have been more goatish in our witness and in our voice than sheepish. So, let us repent of our sin. Let us confess unto the Lord our points of weakness, our cold and selfish ways. And pray by God’s Grace not to deliver us according to our sin, but to forgive us for the sake of that same Son of Man who will come to judge the living and the dead. Though we have separated ourselves, it is God who through Jesus Christ gathers us again. And so, we are here, and I as your pastor announce that Jesus Christ died for those sins. That you are forgiven for His sake. That by His Holy Spirit you can indeed make plans to serve Him and glorify Him, to amend your ways, to show mercy to others in His name and succeed by His strength. But first, receive His love and mercy and strength.
Be reconciled to God and to each other, and be strengthened by Christ’s body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. You receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ here and so you are declared righteous. You receive His mercy. Then go with joy from this place rejoicing in the treasure of salvation that is yours now for the sake of Jesus Christ. Make plans to do good, and follow through, and it will become a habit propelled by the Holy Spirit working through the Gospel. Then showing love and mercy may become part of who you are so that you might no longer even realize that you are doing it. Living by faith. Living in His joy having drunk deeply from His well of grace streaming from the side of Jesus Christ crucified and raised. God will give you this strength and faith to live for Him, until that day, when you shall stand before Jesus Christ, and He will say: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” And indeed, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord forevermore. Amen.
Pr. Aaron Kangas