Professor Susan Docherty offers new insights into who will inherit the Kingdom in the Last Judgement Parable.
The Parable of the Last Judgement: Matthew 25: 31-46
Matthew’s parable of the Last Judgement is one of the most familiar passages in the New Testament, with its powerful message about Jesus’ closeness to the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned and the poor. It teaches us that it is those who care for others in need who will be rewarded in the last judgement:
“Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:34-40)
The actions of those deemed righteous in this text serve as the basis for the Church’s list of the seven Corporal Works of Mercy. When we consider how we should live as Christians today, then, or how we should vote, or how we might want our society to be organised so that it better reflects the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, this parable continues to inspire us.
As well as providing ethical guidance, the passage also gives us some insights into the nature of God’s judgement. This is the final parable in a set of three, which all highlight different aspects of this theme. So Matthew chapter 25 opens with the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, with its warning to “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13) at which the bridegroom will arrive. This is followed by the Parable of the Talents, with its surprising assertion that, when the day of the master’s return does come, “…to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away…” (Matthew 25:29). Finally, we have this parable, with its explicit description of the son of man seated on his glorious throne ready to “… separate people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats…” (Matthew 25:32).
It is easy to take this imagery of differentiating between sheep and goats rather for granted, as we have heard the parable so many times. However, a closer look into farming practices in ancient Palestine reveals some fresh information which can potentially deepen our understanding of it.
Farming Sheep and Goats in First Century Palestine
To modern European readers, this critical act of separating the righteous “sheep” from the wicked ”goats” seems perfectly straightforward. Even city dwellers, whose lives are far removed from the realities of farming and food production, can tell the difference between a sheep and a goat. However, in first century Palestine, it would have been no easy task at all to distinguish between these animals. Running mixed flocks of sheep and goats is advantageous for subsistence farmers working poor quality grazing land. Goats are better placed to forage harsher, scrubbier ground, leaving the grass-richer sections of the available pasture for the sheep, thereby ensuring that all the land is used to best effect without becoming dangerously depleted. This was common practice at the time of Jesus, then, and it continues to be the norm in parts of the Middle East and other resource-poor areas of the globe today, where both sheep and goats are needed to provide the community with essentials like milk, meat and wool. In these circumstances, interbreeding occurs naturally and frequently, so that it becomes very difficult indeed to tell simply by looking whether an animal is a sheep, a goat, or some kind of half-breed “shoat”.
This is the situation reflected in the pages of the Hebrew bible. It is frequently stated there, for example, that a sacrificial offering can be made of either a sheep or a goat (e.g. Exodus 12:5; Leviticus 1:10; 3:6-16; 5:6), as they are regarded as interchangeable “animals of the flock”. In fact, as well as the specific terms for “sheep” and “goats”, Hebrew has a single word, seh, which encompasses both (e.g. Genesis 30:32; Exodus 12:3; 21:37; 22:3-9). So inseparable have sheep and goats been in the long history of Palestinian agriculture, therefore, that their relationship has been enshrined in language itself.
Do Not Judge… (Matthew 7:1)
It is this picture of mixed and largely indistinguishable flocks that would have been in the minds of Jesus and those who first heard this parable. Recognising this context helps add nuance to how we interpret the text today. It may be intentionally suggesting that it is not at all easy to decide who is going to inherit the kingdom and who is to be excluded from it – so it is not up to human beings to get involved in these decisions. We may do well, therefore, to show more awareness in our interaction with others of the possibility that all of us are like the hybrid animals that Jesus and his early followers would have known: none of us are fully “sheep” or wholly “goat”, so we have to keep on working towards reaching the state where we are sufficiently more like a sheep to be counted as one when the reckoning comes.
This reading of the parable is consistent with the teaching on judgement found elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel. The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, for example, makes the same point, that weeds are indistinguishable from the sown crop in a field of grain (Matthew 13:24-30), so all we can do is to “… let both of them grow together until the harvest…” (Matthew 13:30). Since it is God alone who will decide a person’s fate, we should not be too quick to rush to judgement on others, as illustrated so wonderfully in that other Matthaean image of our blindness to the log in our own eye while we busily call out the speck in our neighbour’s (Matthew 7:1-5).
Susan Docherty is Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism, and Head of Theology and Philosophy at Newman University, Birmingham.
