I don't know if you have ever read it, but I highly recommend the book Good Goats . It's quite uplifting, challenging too and also leaves you with a feeling of hope. We are perhaps very familiar with the scripture reading in which God returns to separate the goats from the sheep. The goats are the not so good people.
In todays passage from Scripture we get the distilled version of the Ten Commandments, whatever we have done ( or have not done ) for the least of the kingdom you have done to me (the Lord God). Wow. Yikes! Even if we act secretly for only God to see, we often do good deeds, being quite proud of the fact (even if only interiorly) that we are doing a good deed. We pat ourselves on the back. I think we usually pick nice things to do for the people we'd prefer to do nice things for. What about the ones we are not so fond of? Would we find ourselves secretly doing good deeds for those people we really might find loathsome? When we aren't being nice to the least of these, we perhaps would find ourselves being more goat like than the sheep we might prefer to be or that me might think we are.
Yesterday I spoke of being proud of who you are. Today the caveat is clear, who we are and our goodness is not based on all the nice things we do for nice people. Following Levitical commands or strict adherence to the Ten Commandments won't do it either. What we need to do is live by the Spirit of the law and that will almost always be a bit more difficult. We will have to stretch ourselves, perhaps feel a bit uneasy and challenged to love whomever "the other" is that we are not so comfortable with. It will be our challenge to see who those people are in our own lives and in the world.
We are called as beloved children of God but so is everyone else and it is one of our tasks to use our talents and gifts and who we are to make sure everyone else feels that way too.
No comments:
Post a Comment