This Sunday lesson was an all too familiar parable of the goats and the sheep.  The goats represented those deemed unworthy, while the sheep represented those who are seen to be righteous.  There is something both familiar and uncomfortable about this story, and not just because it forces us to ask whether we are goats or sheep.  There is a separation, a sorting into groups, that is an all too familiar human trait.  And Jesus’ use of it as an allegory just points to how prevalent this behavior is.

For thousands of years, placing people into groups and sects was a survival instinct—those who were inside were safe while those on the outside could represent an unknown threat.  We became instinctively comfortable with the familiar and instinctively uncomfortable with what was seen to be strange.  As an innate survival tool, this served early humankind remarkably well.  Unfortunately, we have perverted an instinct into a pattern of destructive behavior that threatens our very humanity.

The challenge is that this “sorting” has engendered a level of moral judgement.  Where once we were worried about physical safety, we are now more focused on value and determining right—at least what we consider to be of value and right.  This judgement is a lot less forgiving because we have made our judgements prior to any presence of real understanding of the other based on our personal experience.  We decide people’s worth based on what we see or what we have been told or worse, what we perceive.  We obliterate any sense of empathy and understanding of another’s pain or circumstance.  We simply decide who is welcomed home and who is thrown aside.   

As our rector said this past Sunday, the danger of this is that when we judge, we become blind to the very people we are asked to serve.  The parable of the goat and the sheep is not only about righteous and unworthy, but also about our ability to serve the neediest to show love.  In judging, we lose sight of the fact that every human deserves to be treated with respect and shown the kind of love that God has shown us.  Our ability to love is our greatest gift.  Judgment separates us from that gift.  Judgment turns even the sheepiest of sheep into goats.

We are more divided than ever—about US politics, about Israel and Palestine, about economic disparity—and it becomes easier and easier to sit in judgment.  More and more, we want to put people into boxes not only to “understand” them but, more often than not, to minimize them.  However, if we allow this to continue, we will all be one tribe of unworthy goats.  We are headed into a time of the year when many of the world’s religions celebrate a source of light (literal or metaphorical) overcoming darkness.  By throwing aside judgment, we too will become a source of light.  By throwing aside judgement, we can love.  By throwing aside judgment, we will make this world one world.