Ezekiel 34:11-24 † Psalm 100 † Ephesians.1:15-23 † Matthew 25:31-46

​It’s all hindsight. All of it. No one was doing what they were doing in the parable because they thought they were doing it “unto Christ.” They were just doing it. It was just what they did or didn’t do. Everyone was surprised, in other words. Everyone was surprised that this would be the thing that would set them apart—right from left, sheep from goats. When did we see you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger or naked, or in prison?
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Which kind of begs the question. What were they expecting? Not so much for the goats. We know all-too-well the world in which people do “goaty” things, do for themselves, vote for their own interests, look out for number one, shove and claw and occupy and foul more space than they need to. This story is as old as the hills, or at least as old as Ezekiel who sounds like a modern-day prophet for climate change. “Is it not enough,” the prophet asks,
for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet?[i]
 
There’s more than enough of that to go around. And, of course, we know that part in us. Because we all have a little sheep, a little goat—we all have contested space within us, a DMZ between Thanksgiving feeding at the REACH meal and that feeding-frenzy we call Black Friday.

But they were all surprised—sheep and goats together. No one was expecting this. It just kind of surfaced. So if it wasn’t about pleasing, about caring, about serving as a way to meet the holy, to do it “unto Christ,” what was the motivation? Why did they do it? What did it mean? What does it say?

Ezekiel 37:P1-14 † Psalm 130 † Romans 8:6-11 † John 11:1-45

​You’ve maybe heard me say this before, but I loved fairy tales as a child. They contained for me a power, a kind of terrible fascination, that I have revisited as an adult. I am pretty sure that big bad wolves, wild hags, shoemaker elves, ugly ducklings, good fairies, taking animals, and savvy children abandoned in forests populated my childhood dreams. They provided for me very good company.

Now I am not talking about the “handsome prince rescuing the helpless damsel”  kind of fairy tale, although those are always fun too. I am talking about the fairy tales that help us look at the terror and the hope in this life.

I remember a long list of little stories – sometimes called fairy-tales, folk-tales, or wonder-tales. Maybe you know some of these. ​