Matthew 25:31-45
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
April 26, 2026
An old Jewish fable tells of a saintly rabbi in a tiny village who’d disappear, early each Friday morning, for hours. No one knew where he went, but all his students claimed he went up to heaven and talked with God.
A newcomer arrived and was skeptical. So he decided to fact-check the story. One early Friday he hid near the rabbi’s home and kept watch. He observed the rabbi’s arising, saying his prayers and then dressing, not like a rabbi but like a common laborer. The holy man then left his home with an axe in hand and walked deep into the forest, where he cut firewood. He then stealthily hauled a bundle of it to a shack on the outskirts of the village where an elderly woman and her sick son lived. He quietly deposited the wood outside their door, enough for a week, and snuck back home unnoticed.
The newcomer was so moved by the rabbi’s conduct that he became a student of his; and if ever he heard someone remark, “On Friday our rabbi ascends all the way to heaven,” he’d murmur, “If not higher.”
In today’s scripture, Jesus tells a parable that once scared me. For I heard it say that my destiny in eternity hinged on my taking compassionate, ethical action to help the needy. That requirement’s open-ended nature left me wondering if I could ever do enough.
Jesus tells this parable at the end of the fifth and final major discourse Matthew records in his Gospel. Jesus tells it, while alone with the disciples on the Mount of Olives on Tuesday or Wednesday of Holy Week. This parable concludes His long teaching on the End Times.
Jesus taught that when He returns, He will set everything right. Setting everything right includes making a clear distinction between the “sheep” and the “goats” – that is, between those who love as Jesus loves and those who live indifferent and inactive before the plight of the needy – and making sure the sheep receive their just judgment; and the goats, theirs.
At first hearing, the parable seems to suggest that our destiny is decided by what we have, or have not, done in concrete, practical action to serve others. It seems to suggest that our future – whether it be the eternal paradise prepared for the faithful or the eternal fire prepared for those like the devil – is determined by whether or not we fulfill God’s standard of righteousness – feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, taking care of the sick and visiting the imprisoned.
It initially sounded to me like a dauntingly high demand for righteousness so as to be saved – and that left me unsure of how I stood with God. But I came to see that, to interpret this parable correctly, we must recall to whom Jesus is speaking. He’s saying all this in a private session with His disciples, those unremarkable men who, though experiencing Jesus’ full grace, show no capacity for any impressive level of righteousness, and who will just a few days later, as if to prove the point, fail Him and desert Him at His arrest and execution.
Jesus can’t then be here telling us how to win His favor, but how to continue in it and to deepen our experience of it. To be a faithful friend of Jesus is to stay close to His side, and to stay close to His side is to follow Him as He in the Spirit keeps reaching out to serve the needy. It’s not a matter of measuring up, but of moving on with the One who’s ever on the move to help people.
Jesus, the greatest Helper that has ever existed, identifies here as the One who is helped when we help people. That’s because He’s the empathetic God whose heart is on the line with how it goes with every human being and who thus takes it personally when we, for example, feed the hungry or visit the lonely. For His distress is alleviated when we alleviate theirs and He is blessed when we bless them.
Our works of love and justice are not the root of our salvation, but they are the fruit of our salvation. They are the way we accompany the loving Lord who never stops seeking to help everyone. Our ethical action is the means, not by which we come to merit His friendship, but by which we maintain our friendship with Him.
We love Jesus because He first loved us. We love Him best when we love people. We take in His kindness and live it out to others.
The distinction that demarcates Jesus’ sheep turns, not on the degree of our virtue, but on the degree of our fidelity in a friendship with Him.
Sometimes faithfully following Jesus involves our doing something heroically great. More often, it involves our doing some small thing that makes a big difference for someone – because, typically, people need very little, but just need it very much.
Several years ago, in a reflection in her blog entitled “Soul Nudges and Heart Tingles”, Heather Burke-Cody related an experience she had while shopping in a thrift store. She wrote, “The cashier appeared to be one of the most unhappy, irritable people ever. I was six people deep in the line, and it seemed like she got more and more exasperated with each passing customer.
“She was especially infuriated when one of my unmarked items needed a price check…But as she [groused], I felt a…soul nudge. I tried to bargain with Jesus and tell him the little bit of cash in my wallet was not meant for her. It surely should go to someone sweeter and kinder…not top someone so undeserving and downright mean. But God did not budge [on His nudge]…So, when I paid my bill, I slipped her some her some cash as she handed me the receipt.
“She was caught off guard. She gripped the cash and paused. Then she slipped her mask down…and [with a voice that was no longer loud and stern but quiet and soft] she whispered ‘Why?’ To which I answered in two words: “soul nudge”. There was another pause…Then she grabbed my hand and held on, and I was the one caught off guard. ‘Today’s my 75th birthday and nobody called me. Not my sister, not my kids, not my co-workers. Nobody…remembers my birthday anymore.’”
To be a faithful friend of Jesus is to take care of those He’s given us the opportunity, the means and the “soul nudge” to serve. It is to enact His love to others – whether that action be conversational, financial, political, prayerful or any combination thereof. But, whatever is ours to do, our doing it is the one distinction that counts.
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