Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley, 03 April 2022 by Captain Michael Ramsay
We have had the
opportunity to read through Matthew as a congregation this Lenten Season. We
are all, no doubt familiar with the Three Little Pigs. Today we are going to
chat a little bit about the three little sheep in Matthew. The first little
sheep we read about is from Matthew 12:7-15. There is a man with Jesus with a
deformed hand. Reading again Vs 11-14:
11 He [Jesus] said to
them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will
you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person
than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
13 Then he said to the
man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely
restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted
how they might kill Jesus.
Jesus tells us the
story of the first little sheep – and the story didn’t go over so well. People
plotted to kill him. Jesus had just been accused of breaking the religious law
prohibiting working on the Sabbath.[1] He responds by telling this 1st
sheep story and quoting the Bible, Hosea 6:6, and then he further provokes his
accusers by not only healing on the Sabbath but by doing so right in the synagogue
(the near equivalent of a church). This would be like if a police officer
ticketed you for J-walking and then when he was done you J-walked right over to
the police station.
it is important to
note that Jesus wasn’t changing the religious rules here (see Matthew 5:17) at
this time many educated, religious, and other people had many different ideas
about what was allowed to be done on the Sabbath.[2] Priests worked on the
Sabbath and they did not get another Sabbath day off in lieu. [3] Some in that
synagogue would have held that it is quite alright to heal on the Sabbath. In
Jewish communities even today, hospitals are open on Saturday.
Jesus here, through
the story of the first little sheep and his actions that accompany it, is showing
us that when we interpret our traditions, our culture, our religious practices,
and even the Bible, God’s love needs to be the centre of it.[4] God’s love
needs to be the centre of God’s law and God’s love needs to be the centre of
our lives. That is what Jesus is telling us here with the story of the first
little sheep.
Some similar examples
I have heard from church culture would be when people feel unwelcome in church.
One person told me that she remembered as a child that her family was only allowed
to sit at the back, in the balcony, so others wouldn’t see them; I had one
friend tell me that The Salvation Army was the only place she felt welcome
because she was a single mother. That is terrible. Whatever rules people have
for church, they – we - really need to interpret them through the lens of love
so that we can bring people to God’s love and rather turn them away from that
support we all genuinely need. That is what Christ is about and that is what we
the church are supposed to be about.
This brings us to our
second little Sheep, Matthew 18:10-22. We will re-read Verses 102-16 and 21-22:
12 “What do you think?
If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave
the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13
And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than
about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father
in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
15 “If your brother or
sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they
listen to you, you have won them over.16 But if they will not listen, take one
or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony
of two or three witnesses…
21 Then Peter came to
Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who
sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I
tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Jesus says that if our
little sheep wanders off, we go and get them; then he explains what it means.
If someone gets trapped by a sin; if someone gets stuck in a sin; you do what
it takes to free them from it because you love them. First you try to help them
on the spot, by yourself like a shepherd would try to help his sheep from a
pit. Then, if you can’t help them out by yourself, you get one friend or a
whole bunch of friends to help you help them out of trouble. You do whatever you can to help them return
to safety and if they are clear that they don’t wish to be saved from their
situation, then it says that we are to treat them like we would treat pagans or
tax collectors; Now, what does it mean to treat people like tax collectors?[5]
Who is a famous tax collector in the Bible? Matthew. Matthew is the one who
wrote this book. He is the one who wrote this story. Matthew is saying, 'treat
the person caught in sin as Jesus treated me' – with the love God – hoping that
indeed at some point the second little sheep will return to the flock.[6] This
is what the parable of the second little sheep is telling us. And Verses 22-22,
How many times must we forgive someone who sins against us, always? Always
times forever Jesus says.
Jesus, the Church and
Christians aren’t about attacking people with random laws to punish them, we
are about loving one another so that they can all experience God`s salvation
both now and forever.
I am going to share a
bonus story that has the same message as the story about the second little
sheep. This one is about a trip or two our family took to Florida when Rebecca
and Sarah-Grace were 6 or 7 years old.
The first time we were
in Florida we went to a gator farm where Rebecca and Sarah-Grace were allowed
to have their pictures taken sitting on real alligators, holding their taped
shut mouths. They did. This was fun.
There was one thing though: there are signs everywhere in Florida (like this one)
telling you not
to go near ditches, lakes, or any still water because it may have an alligator,
and not a nice tame one like the girls sat on, waiting for you. On our second trip, a year or so later,
Rebecca, for whatever reason, just wouldn’t listen.
I was getting quite
frustrated. Every time I turned around 6- or 7-year-old Rebecca would be
bolting to look in another body of water. I kept telling her not to, not
because I had some arbitrary law that I wanted to enforce but because I love
her and I didn’t want her to be eaten by an alligator. Sure enough, the last
time 7-year-old Rebecca went unaccompanied by any Floridian water, no sooner
had I picked her up and headed up the embankment than an alligator came out of
the water right where she was standing. We were just in time.
It is the same with us
and God. That is why we are always to forgive and to try to restore each other
to holiness: not to punish or to be mean to people but to save each other from
the alligator of sin that wants to drown and devour. Just as I never gave up,
time and time again, pulling my daughter from the water’s edge, none of us
should ever give up on anyone we know; we need to keep pointing them to God’s
love and His Salvation. God can help them and us in any situation we find
ourselves. That is the point of both the stories of the alligator and of the
second little sheep. And that brings us to the third little sheep in the book
of Matthew - the parable of the sheep and the goats.[8] Matthew 25 again from
Verse 31:
31 “When the Son of
Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his
glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will
separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the
goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on
his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the
kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry
and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to
drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you
clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to
visit me.’
To the sheep, Verse
40: “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the
least of these siblings of mine, you did for me.’” You are welcome in my
Kingdom. The goats, who (equally unknowingly) did not do these things, miss out
on the Kingdom. The sheep are in; the goats are out.[9]
On a third trip to
Florida, this time after Heather was born, we all went to the Animal Kingdom in
Disney World. Do you know the Animal Kingdom? It is like a big zoo, nature
reserve and/or safari with all the requisite Disney characters and rides added
to it. It is quite neat.
While Rebecca, Heather
and I were visiting the petting zoo at Disney, all of a sudden the sheep left
the goats. They were all in one place and then the sheep just split like an
invisible hand was separating them. They all ran away from the goats. Rebecca
(who was a teenager then) and I noticed this and so we decided to go stand with
the sheep.
I then asked Heather,
who was six at the time, if she remembered the parable of the sheep and the
goats and how they were separated. It was at this point that one of the Disney
employees must have heard part of our conversation because he told me that the
animals do this by themselves. He doesn’t know why but every once and a while
the sheep just separate themselves from the goats.
I thought about that
comment – that the sheep separate themselves from the goats – and I thought
this must be the real life example that the story is drawing on to make its
point that our actions (whether or not we show mercy, love to one another) are
the fruit that broadcast to the world whether we are sheep or goats. If we are
sheep we will naturally show love by feeding the hungry, watering the thirsty,
clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the imprisoned... Just like a good
tree cannot produce bad fruit; so too we who love God will naturally produce
acts in keeping with repentance and salvation. God won’t make us love one
another against our will and we will not have to master our own will to do
those things either. As we come to love God more and more, we will naturally
show our acts of love to God and to our neighbour just like how we naturally
show our love to our family and friends and just like good trees naturally
produce good fruit and good sheep naturally move from the goats. God loves us
all and He wants us all to have the joy of loving and caring for one another.
These are Matthews
stories of The 3 Little Sheep (and the alligator).And today, as we have been
looking at these 3 little sheep stories, I encourage us to this end: Let us
love the Lord our God and show mercy and forgiveness to one another. Let us
seek the Lord with all our hearts for as we love Him and as we love our
neighbour, God will naturally transform us into His likeness as easily as He
separates the sheep from the goats. Let us all be sheep.
Let us pray.
[1]M. Eugene Boring, Matthew (NIB 8: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 279: This is a legal accusation rather than a question
[2] Douglas R.A. Hare, Matthew (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky: John Know Press, 1993), 131
[3] Douglas R.A. Hare, Matthew (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky: John Know Press, 1993), 132
[4] M. Eugene Boring, Matthew (NIB 8: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 279: Love is the centre of God’s Law: here Jesus is not replacing Sabbath worship but rather explaining it.
[5] Cf. Douglas R.A. Hare, Matthew (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky: John Know Press, 1993), 213-215 for a good discussion of this question.
[6] Daniel Hetherington, SJ, Sacra Pagina, The Gospel of Matthew, 272, “The implications of Matt 18:15-35 for life within the3 Church today are great. The text outlines a clear procedure designed to help the sinner recognize the sin and return to the community. It roots reconciliation and forgiveness of sins in God’s mercy, and thus reveals the foolishness of those who try to set limits on their willingness to forgive others”
[7] Cf. NT Wright, Matthew for Everyone Part 2: Chapters 16-28 (NT for Everyone: Louisville Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004),, p. 30-31 where it is highlighted that while Seraphim always ordinarily have their faces covered in the presence of God, the angels who advocate for the ‘little ones’ always see the face of God.
[8] But cf. D.A. Carson, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Matthew/Exposition of Matthew/VI. Opposition and Eschatology: The Triumph of Grace (19:3-26:5)/B. Fifth Discourse: The Olivet Discourse (24:1-25:46)/6. Parabolic teaching: variations on watchfulness (24:42-25:46)/e. The sheep and the goats (25:31-46), Book Version: 4.0.2: Strictly speaking, this passage is not a parable. Its only parabolic elements are the shepherd, the sheep, the goats, and the actual separation.
[9] Cf. Jim Wallis ‘ Matthew 25 in the Age of Trump’ (Red Letter Christians: January 6, 2017) for a contemporary political reference point, Jim Wallis reminds us of Matthew 25 Pledge: I pledge to protect and defend vulnerable people in the name of Jesus. Online: https://www.redletterchristians.org/matthew-25-in-the-age-of-trump/
[10] Captain Michael Ramsay, ‘Devotion 2.35/88: Matthew 7:18: Good’ (Thoughts from the Riverside CafĂ©: Sheepspeak.com, 13 January 2017) online: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2017/01/devotion-23588-matthew-718-good.html
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