Steve-o's Devos: R U Good, or Baaaaaaaaaad?

You might have noticed, but we have been looking at the Gospel of Matthew off and on this year. Matthew's Gospel is often filled with the stories about Jesus that are often most difficult because they seem to find Jesus really confronting us at every level of our being. Things get turned upside down, and yet even Jesus has moments when he understands the importance of the widening grace he is here to bring to everyone.

Jesus comes to us with a reminder (click on title above to go to Matthew 25) that we are to keep our eyes open. We are to reach out to everyone making sure that they have food, clothing, shelter, and signs of grace that they are still important to God. The people who get this message and do this are the "sheep" Jesus speaks about in this passage.

Now there are some goats too--you have to love this rural analagoy Jesus gives us. They get a bit confused that they don't remember ever seeing Jesus poor, thirsty, hungry, homeless, etc. After all, as Jesus walked the countryside, didn't some of them offer to help him out and his disciples? But there is a deeper question here about humanity that Jesus is trying to get at.

We walk a thin line between being a sheep or a goat. It takes a change in our own circumstances sometimes when we realize the importance of sharing resources. Lose your home and suddenly your perspective about shelters and living on the street changes. Have your hours reduced, and suddenly going without food and having no where to turn becomes very real.

And so here in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus is reminding those who wish to follow him that it is their duty to always be on the lookout for those who need an extra bit of help. In so helping them, we get a glimpse of God's kingdom, a place of equality for all where the least of these and the richest of these are considered all on the same level. The economic and social strata must disappear and we are encouraged to live in harmony with one another. Jesus obviously knew that such a message would be confusing to people without something very stark to get their attention. In this story, he starts by inviting us in to an awareness of human needs and then reminds us that we all forget sometimes to reach out to our neighbor.

He states that the sheep get to come in to God's pasture, while the goats have a quite different fate. You might say that if we can have a burning desire to follow and see Jesus in our world, and in one another, that we will never have to worry about getting burned. But we also need to consider how graceful our God is too. There are going to be times when we are "the least of these" and there are going to be times when we will have it all together. The reality is that we should be the same person in all circumstances if we follow Jesus. The question is are you a sheep or a goat, or perhaps, how baaaad are you going to be?

Or maybe the real question is, do you think God's grace is big enough to let the goats come along anyway?........Amen.