Good Morning!
We’re going to begin this morning with an imagination exercise. If you’ll humor me and close your eyes, I’ll guide you through a scene.
You open your eyes, and observe the room you are in. You notice that you’re sitting on a couch, you look down and see that it is pure white. Your eyes scan the room from left to right. You look around, find yourself in a plain waiting room about the size of your childhood bedroom. You aren’t really sure where you are, but you feel safe. Your eyes focus on a big green sign on the wall in front of you declaring “Welcome! Everything is fine!”. You breathe a sigh of relief, when the door of the room opens to your left, and Ted Danson emerges, telling you to “come on in”.
Who knows what scene I am describing?
This is the opening scene to NBC’s comedy The Good Place, a comedy series that focuses on a proposed afterlife where humans, after death, are divided into two groups. Some are sent to the “Good Place”, while others are sent to the “Bad Place”. In the show, all humans are assigned a numerical score based on the good or the bad things they have done throughout their lives. The story follows lead character Eleanor Shellstrop, a recently deceased young woman learning about the afterlife from afterlife concierge Michael, played by Ted Danson.
Eleanor soon learns about the scoring system, the positive things you’ve done in your life will earn you positive points, and the bad things you’ve done will earn you negative points.
Examples? “Purify a village water source” will give you 295.98 points, remembering your sister’s birthday gives you 15.02 points. Remaining loyal to the Cleveland Browns wins you 53.83 points, and stepping carefully over flower beds wins you 2.09 points. Similarly, “bad” actions earn you negative points. Failing to disclose a camel illness when selling a camel, for example, will lose you 22.22 points. Ruining an opera with boorish behavior will result in a loss of 90.90 points.Stealing copper wire from a decommissioned military base? Lose 824.55 points. You get the idea.
At the end of a persons’ life, these points are totaled. People with very high scores are sent to the Good Place, where they enjoy eternal happiness with their every wish granted, guided by an artificial intelligence computer in human form named Janet. Those who do not reach a high score experience an eternity of torture in the Bad Place.
Today’s Gospel lesson poses a similar scenario – minus the artificial intelligence named Janet. Just like the sorting that occurs on the show that determines if a person will enter the Good Place or the Bad Place, Jesus is speaking about separating people into two separate places, as well. In today’s story, Jesus speaks about a separation of the sheep from the goats, the sheep will be directed towards his right hand and the goats to his left.
He invites those at the right side, the sheep, to come and join him in eternal glory, sending them to the Good Place, citing all the good things they have done in this life to Jesus.
The people on the right are confused. They don’t know when they fed Jesus or visited him when he was sick or clothed him when he was naked. Jesus reminds them that what they have done for the least of these, they have done also to Him.
In the same manner, he casts out those on his left, sending them to the Bad Place, because of the things they lacked to do to those in need. They ask the same question, wondering when they didn’t feed Jesus or visit him when he was sick or clothed him when he was naked. Jesus responds in a similar manner, reminding them that what they have not done to the least of these, they have also done to Him.
A first glance brings a good argument for works righteousness. You do good things, you go to the Good place. You fail to do good things, you go to the Bad place. End of story.
But for those of us who are cradle Lutherans, who hold fast to the belief that we are saved by grace, this text is difficult and raises some questions. We know that we do not live in the world of the Good Place TV show; we cannot earn our way into Heaven. We do not believe that we get brownie points from God based on the good things we do in life.
Yes, this text provides an argument for the idea that we can earn our way into Heaven. But I think at its core is a story about authenticity. Of living into who we are called to be.
Pastor Jonathan Meyer from Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Oklahoma reminds us of this authenticity. In a commentary I read this week, he reminded us that In this parable, Jesus is not telling us HOW to be saved, but rather WHO will be saved. He does not have a list of good and bad things we’ve done and hold it up and determine who is a sheep and who is a goat based on those actions. He claims the sheep as sheep and the goats as goats before he describes what they have done in their lives.
God claims the sheep and blesses them, as he claims and blesses us.
The sheep, the blessed, are the same ones that we hear of in the Sermon on the Mount, in Jesus’ sermon on the Beatitudes.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,.
4Blessed are those who mourn,
5Blessed are the meek,
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
7Blessed are the merciful,
f8Blessed are the pure in heart,
9Blessed are the peacemakers
10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
11Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
That description of the blessed – the pure of heart, the peacemakers, the poor in spirit, the meek, the ones who hunger and thirst for a right world- they are the sheep. They are us.
We all are sheep, made so through the water and the word of Baptism. We were goats, but we have been transformed into sheep through the faith we have in Christ, brought into his flock through the sacrifice He made for us on the cross.
So what do we do as sheep of God?
God calls us to live into the authenticity of the sheep that we are.
Today’s parable reminds us that both groups (sheep and the goats) were confused about where Jesus was present in their lives. Both groups asked God the same question, essentially, “when did we serve (or not serve) you? The people, like Eleanor in the Good Place, did not live lives based on accumulating as many good points or doing as many good things as possible. They lived authentic lives – good or bad ones. They gave to others because they wanted to, not because they had to. They fed the hungry or didn’t because that’s who they were. They didn’t know that their actions towards others were a reflection of their love for Christ.
As beloved people of God, we too are sheep. Not because of what we have done or have not done in our lives, but because we too are saved by God’s great grace. And because of that, we are called to live authentic lives as the people we are meant to be, knowing that when we serve our neighbor, we are serving Jesus.
We may not feel worthy of that salvation. Eleanor, in season one, realizes that she is in the Good Place- even though she lived a life that wasn’t exactly morally up to par. She lied to her friends, stole from others, and was overall not a very good person. But she is sent to the Good place anyway. She is confused, and skeptical. How can she be here, in the same place as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and the Saints? There must be some mistake.
Just like Eleanor, we are saved through no merit of our own. Eleanor may have thought that there was some clerical error in the great Beyond, but we know that we are saved because God sees us, and God loves us.
And because of that good grace, we are called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked- not because we have to do so to earn salvation, but because we are reminded on this Christ the King Sunday that we serve a King who is gracious, loving, and thoughtful and we want to thank him for his graciousness.
So this Holiday season, buy some gifts from a local business. Support those in our communities. Spend some nights as a CARES volunteer, and let to know those in our community that are struggling with homelessness. Pick up an extra toy at the store for Holiday Family Outreach. Pick up a brown paper bag at Kennie’s for $10 or $15 to donate food to a hungry family this Christmas.
Give what you can, out of the kindness of your hearts. Not because we can earn points towards the Good Place- but because we are living authentic, ovine lives as God’s sheep. And that, my friends, is the good news.
Sermons at St. James Gettysburg 