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| Christ separating the sheep from the goats |
Goats were the
sin-bearers in early Jewish tradition. The animal had the sins of the community
symbolically heaped upon it and was then driven out of the town into the
wilderness, from which we get the term ‘scapegoat’.
The scapegoat story from the old testament has left us with some top-heavy theologies
of atonement which derive from a deep need to blame someone else for what is
wrong with our lives, our relationships and our world. In the old testament, the
scapegoat represents a collective need for a retribution which purges rather than
forgives. This old covenant theological inheritance was transposed to the cross
and remained unquestioned by the Churches for centuries, so contributing to a
great deal of psycho-religious illness. [1]
Such a view of Christ’s atoning action on the cross also
skews the way we think about ultimate judgment and the reward or condemnation
which is to follow. In the story of the sheep being separated from the goats,
we are being shown two classes of human beings, and two qualities which pertain
in greater or lesser measure to every person on earth.
Jesus puts it quite simply. There are those who love and
who live out their lives, to the best of their ability, in love. They may not
think of themselves as Christian. Indeed, as it is told in the story, they are
not aware of ever having met Christ. In other words, they make no particular
connection between compassionate actions, including compassionate politics, and
loving God. In the moment of judgment they are told not to be too concerned
about this because their attitude of heart has effectively done all the ‘faith’
work that could ever be needed. They are already in paradise. They are ‘in
their element’, which is the element of Love itself.
Ironically, the ‘goats’ who are, figuratively speaking, in
the same element, suffer and ‘burn’. This interpretation of the story suggests
that the burning fires of hell are not those of hatred, but of love. If you are
a person who, for whatever reason, refuses to love, you quite literally ‘burn’.
You burn when the pure refining fire of love starts to make itself felt, first
as shame, then as what used to be called ‘compunction’ and, finally, as the
capitulation of love to Love. So the sheep and goat story is an allegory for the
ultimate and eternal judgment which awaits us all with respect to our attitude
to refugees.
At present, we as a nation, and the government which we
have elected to represent us, should be starting to feel the ‘burning’ of this
refining fire of God’s love in regard to our refusal to accept our fair share
of refugees and asylum seekers. This, of course, entails obvious risks. Might they
not deprive us of our livelihoods – ‘burn’ them perhaps? Become a burden to our
social services and health care – ‘burn’ them also? Threaten our ‘way of life’
by ‘burning’ and completely consuming all that is selfish, hypocritical and
destructive of life and the human spirit in the love which they will bring? The
answer may be ‘yes’ in a small measure to all of these fears because their very
presence will ‘judge’, or ‘interrogate’, our common life, so providing the
political sifting which this nation, in its shame, so badly needs.
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