Happy Year Of The Sheep! Or sheep-like animal of your choice.
Google had what looked like a ram by their name that day last week. “Goat” has been tossed around too. And people love lambs.
We’ll be delivering a baby boy this Summer. A Chinese friend explained that a Summer Sheep Year baby is good because sheep have plenty to eat during the Summer. So some of this is logical.
To the Christian mind, confusing a sheep for a goat wouldn’t seem likely.
One appeal of the Bible for some people is that one thinks one might find within it, if not the meaning of life, maybe a vital clue to what one can expect from the afterlife.
Jesus addressed the subject directly in his description of the final judgment. The sheep merrily go off to Paradise. The goats all go downstairs.
He describes the difference between the two. The sheep helped people out. The goats did not.
Perplexingly, both sheep and goats are oblivious and incredulous. Neither group is clear on what they did to their credit or their shame, and need to have it spelled out for them.
Each group is surprised that Jesus says they helped Him out all those times, in all those ways; that they snubbed Him all those times in all those ways.
How difficult for the rich to get into Heaven!
Of course, it can be. For some, the status of wealth centers on making distinctions and passing judgments: who are one’s peers in society, in temperament, in the worth of respective accomplishments.
Sometimes, those with cannot help out those without, because those with barely have enough and live in fear of losing what they have. We have our few bucks toward the small luxuries of life, and we have our street cred that knows we can’t believe everything we hear from those who will make a claim or tell a story to get a dollar.
Blessed, the poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of Heaven.
A story aired recently about a guy who gave a street person $100 or some such amount, and followed him to see what he did with it. The man went into a store, bought some groceries, and shared it with some friends. His celebrity benefactor was astounded by the gesture, amazed that this man didn’t just live on an island where only one man lives, who has no friends and no sense of society.
That the celebrity wasn’t embarrassed by his own cynicism– really weird.
Blessed, those who do not make false distinctions about who and who is not worthy of a simple gesture of humanity.
Blessed, those who are not ashamed to be brothers and sisters to those who suffer through the most trying circumstances, who bear the heaviest burdens.
Blessed, those who see their own reflection in any other person, who treat others as they would like to be treated themselves.
Blessed, those who see there are no enemies, foreigners, or strangers among the sometimes-wayward children of God.