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There is a discussion, if not dispute, whether 2015 is the year of the Sheep or Goat. This is confusing because many articles on Chinese Zodiac indicated that this is the year of the Sheep or Goat.
Goats are very hardy beasts that can live off shrubs and the scanty vegetation of the desert. They form the basis for the nomads who eat goat milk, butter, yoghurt, goat meat, and use goat skins as containers. The goat was important as a sacrificial animal (Lv). Goat hair was used for making the roof of the tabernacle (Ex). In contrast to the goat, the sheep prefers flat or gently rolling grazing grounds and eats plants down to the root. Sheep is related to the goat and was domesticated to provide a steady supply of meat, milk, hides and wool. Even sheep horns were used as containers for oil or as musical instrument. Sheep skins were usually made into clothing and the inner covering of the tabernacle was made from skins that had been dyed red (Ex).
Sheep are mentioned in the Bible more than 500 times. A touching image of the relationship between a lamb and its owner is depicted in 2 Sm 12 (cf Ps 23). Throughout the NT the sheep is used in a figurative sense for human beings.
Surprisingly, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will “place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” Then he will say to the sheep, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you...” Then he will say to the goats, “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire…”
The "apocalyptic" parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Mt 25:31-46) has inspired and challenged many generations in Jesus’ Church that one may describe the Christian preaching as the preaching of love and charity - the essence of faith.
The classic interpretation emerges directly from the text. When the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will judge all peoples. The criterion of judgment will be works of charity and mercy shown toward the marginal, the poor and the suffering of the world, the least of Jesus' brothers and sisters, who generally throughout Christian history have been equated with suffering Christians or members of one's ecclesial community.
John Chrysostom interprets the parable that hungry unbelievers deserve to be fed because they are hungry, hungry believers doubly deserve to be fed because they are both hungry and brothers. To Augustine, the sheep are always Christians. The goats include pagans, Jews, and Christians who do not do the will of God, or who converted to please men, or who do not keep the commandments. The goats especially include the wealthy who do not share their resources with poor believers. For Thomas Aquinas, the sheep and goats, however, will be composed of secular Christians, the one group having made good use of their possessions and the other only selfishly using their possessions. The acts of charity depict both literal acts of charity done for other believers who are the true "brothers" of Christ, as well as other actions which help the believer himself to be fed, nourished, and protected spiritually. In this way the actions become a metaphor for all deeds which help the believer grow toward the beatific vision. The goats are those Christians who fail to do this. Martin Luther used the parable as an exhortation for Christians both to assist poor believers and to maintain those who have abandoned secular employment to enter the ministry.
Since the close of the 19th century, the passage has increasingly received a "universalistic" application that care must be shown to all the needy of the world and that this mandate binds all people. Such an interpretation is especially strong within contemporary Catholicism, where it has been used to summon Catholics to a concern for every needy and hungry person, or any victim of injustice or persecution. Fr. Gutierrez often evokes this passage to engage the Church with massive poverty and social injustice. He argues that the least of Jesus' brethren are all the needy and interpret the parable as: (a) the stress on communion and brotherhood as the ultimate meaning of life; (b) the insistence on a love which is manifest in concrete actions, with "doing" favored over simple knowing; and (c) the revelation that contact with the Lord takes place through human mediation. Gutierrez thinks the political process to overcome the poverty issue is the "surrender of private ownership of the means of production" and the abandonment of any "inhuman and anti-Christian system such as capitalism.” “We take it for granted that Jesus was not interested in political life… This is a Jesus of hieratic, stereotyped gestures, all representing theological themes. In this way, the life of Jesus is no longer a human life, submerged in history, but a theological life -- an icon.” It should be noted that Cardinal J Ratzinger once expressed concern that some theologians had inappropriately mixed Marxist critique of the global economic system with Catholic theology.
In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbor of absolutely every person, and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon, a refugee, a child born of an unlawful union and wrongly suffering for a sin he did not commit, or a hungry person who disturbs our conscience by recalling the voice of the Lord: "As long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it for me (Mt 25:40). V2 GS
Lord, teach us how to distinguish sheep and goats and give us the strength to be the good one. Amen.
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