It was 40 years ago this week (on July 28, 1982) that a talented Christian musician by the name of Keith Green died at the age of 28 in a tragic airplane crash.**
I knew little about Green then, but I have fond memories of him because of the first song of his that I heard.
That memorable song was “The Sheep and the Goats,”
based solely on the words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 25. I don’t remember
when or how I happened to hear it, but in the late 1970s I listened (probably
on a cassette) multiple times to a recording of it.
Back then I was only able to hear him sing that gospel song,
but now the video of a live performance of it is available on YouTube, and I
encourage you to click on this
link and watch/listen to Green performing it in 1978.
It is nearly eight minutes long—and the last part of it is
especially powerful, so I hope you don’t miss that. (If you just don’t have
time to watch/listen to the above video, here
is a link to just the lyrics for you to read or at least scan.)
Green’s emphasis on Jesus’ words about the sheep and the
goats impressed me so much that I talked about it some in 1981-82 when my
family and I came back to the States for a regular “stateside assignment,” a
year’s “furlough” from our missionary work in Japan.
Sometime during that year, I was asked to speak one Sunday
night at the First Baptist Church in Bolivar, Mo., where June’s mother was a
member—and where we had been members on our first furlough in 1971-72. In that
sermon, I introduced Green and his powerful song.
It seems that some of the attendees that evening were not
too pleased with my emphasis on Matthew 25 and Green’s musical interpretation
of it. They were mostly supporters of the words of the “Great Commission,”
Jesus commanding his followers to “go and make disciples of all nations.”
That “commission” was not the only or even the primary
reason June and I committed our lives to missionary work, but it was long a
part of our thinking. But during my first fifteen years as a missionary, I came
to place more and more emphasis on the words of the following verse.
Jesus continued, “...teaching them to obey everything
I have commanded you.” I had increasingly come to understand that the words
of Matthew 25 that Green sang so forcefully were a very important part of what
Jesus had commanded and what we followers of Jesus should do.
Jesus emphasized loving others, and what he said as
recorded in Matthew 25:31~46 emphasized what that meant in action—or inaction.
Most people don’t consciously choose to be sheep or goats,
they just live according to their values and priorities. And there is a problem
when or if people seek to be sheep in order to receive the benefit of being so.
From my late teens, I have tried to do the sort of things Jesus said were characteristics of those he called sheep, although too many times, I’m afraid, I was too sheepish (=“resembling a sheep in timidity or lack of initiative”).
And part of the problem of growing older and losing energy
and mobility is not being able to do the things Jesus spoke about in the
Matthew 25 passage—not that I ever did those things extensively. But I used to
be able to do a lot more than I can do now, and I am sad about that.
But I try to do what little I can—such as writing blog
articles like this one. And June and I are proud of our daughter Kathy for unquestionably
being the type of person Jesus referred to as a sheep—and she told me that she
is “a big Keith Green fan,” and she probably first heard “The Sheep and the
Goats” in our home as a teenager.
_____
** Once again, this blog post was prompted by an article
published in Plough Quarterly. “Singing God’s Glory with Keith Green” was
published in the Summer 2021 issue and is available online here.
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