Reflection

In the Gospel reading Jesus, as usual, uses both an illustration from everyday life and a reference to the Holy Scriptures that his disciples would be familiar with. The Jewish nation was descended from a wandering tribe of shepherds and it was still a rural economy in Jesus' day. It was a common practice for large flocks of sheep and goats to graze together, but when it came to shearing time the sheep had to be separated from the goats, hence the simile.

Both readings are referring to the common Jewish belief that there would be a Day of Reckoning, a Judgement Day, at the end of the world when the Messiah would come and the Jewish nation would rule the world. But each reading has a different emphasis.

In Ezekiel the emphasis is on the sheep, the nation of Israel, especially the rulers, who have misused the good gifts that God has given them. They have mistreating the poor and the sick and they are greedy and wasting God's good gifts. On Judgement Day the sick and the poor will be looked after by the Messiah, but those who were greedy and wasteful - the goats who had butted the sheep to one side - will be left behind.

In Matthew the emphasis is on the actions taken by individuals when faced by the disadvantaged of society. Did they help them or did they ignore them? As a direct result of this passage Christians throughout the ages have seen it as their Christian duty to care for the sick, feed the hungry, offer hospitality to the strangers and visit people in prison. They founded hospitals, opened shelters for the homeless or the traveller, and worked tirelessly to care for the prisoners.
Now-a-days many of these tasks have been taken over by the state, but this work still carries on through the various charities which fill in the gaps, such as Mind, the Air Ambulances and the food banks. Many of the charities were started by Christians and many of them have Christians working in them, but not always.
They say that war brings out the best and the worst in men and women and so it is with the Covid 19 pandemic. There have been many instances of kindness and community action of people pulling together to help their neighbours, but there are also many instances where people have been selfish in breaking the rules like the goats from the reading in Ezekiel.

So, what about us, what are we doing to follow the teachings of Jesus?
Each of us will have to answer that question for ourselves but here are some of my thoughts.

Although Jesus mentioned specific things in his teaching, these were there to illustrate the broad principle which he consistently preached - Love God and Love your neighbour as yourself. In Songs of Praise last Sunday Aled Jones was talking to a composer friend about a phrase they were using in a new song, it was 'Loving Kindness.' And I thought that this sums up what we as Christians should be doing. Whatever we do to help people, it should be done in a spirit of loving kindness, so that the recipient of our help does not feel demeaned by accepting it.

We are called to show God's love to everyone we meet, people in the street, the bus driver, the shop assistant, the waiter in the restaurant.etc. Say hello and thank you. It's not hard to do, but people do appreciate it.

We are all under restrictions at the moment so we can't invite people into our homes or visit them. But we can telephone them, email them or write to them. It's amazing what a difference a telephone call can make to a house bound or isolating person and if you can do it by video I can tell you from personal experience that it is the next best thing to actually being in the room with them.

In essence the 'goats' were saying to Jesus 'Of course, if we had known it was you, we would have helped you.' We mustn't confine our Christian actions to helping people in the church but we must do our best to help everyone that we know is in need.

And it goes without saying that our reason for helping is not to gain praise or reward for ourselves but to witness for Christ. I was talking the other day on the phone to a non-church goer and he mentioned how a mutual friend had helped him over the years and he said "The only way I can describe him, Harry, is to say - He is a true Christian." What an accolade!

 
Next week's service will be led by Meg Thomson