“The Sheep and the Goats”: in Memory of Keith Green

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.

Learning from the Indomitable Mother Jones

For some reason, I have never known much about the indomitable woman known as Mother Jones. But noticing that she died 90 years ago, on November 30, 1930, I decided to read some about her and to share some of what I discovered about that most remarkable woman. 

Mother Jones, 1924

Learning about Mother Jones

In her autobiography published in 1925, Mary Harris Jones claimed that she was born in Ireland on May 1, 1830. Well, the country is correct, but the date probably isn’t. Most likely she was born shortly before her Catholic parents had her baptized on August 1, 1837.

In the late 1840s, Richard Harris, Mary’s father, emigrated to the U.S. and then a couple of years later Mary’s mother and siblings joined him in Canada where he was then working.

By 1861, Mary had moved to Memphis, and the next ten years were filled with joy and tragedy. In that Tennessee city, Mary married George Jones and in the next five years they had four children. But then in 1867, George and all four of their children died of yellow fever.

Mary then moved to Chicago and started a dressmaking business, only to lose it and most of her possessions in the Great Fire of 1871.

In the 1870s, Mary Jones became affiliated with the Knights of Labor (KoL) and became lifelong friends with Terence Powderly (1849~1924) who was the Grand Master Workman of KoL from 1879 to '93.

After the demise of KoL in 1893, Mary became heavily involved with the United Mine Workers. When she began working for that fledgling union in the 1890s, it had 10,000 members; within a few years, 300,000 men had joined, and it became the largest union in the U.S.

Claiming to be older than she actually was, Mary started being called Mother Jones by 1897.

Her tireless work, and success, in organizing strikes for the betterment of working conditions for miners and other laboring people prompted a West Virginia district attorney in 1902 to call her “the most dangerous woman in America.”

The danger, though, was to the wealthy mine owners and others who profited off the labor of their insufficiently paid workers. By contrast, for some fifty years she was instrumental in helping improve the working and living conditions for common laborers across the United States.

Mother Jones’s funeral in 1930 was held at a Catholic church in Washington, D.C. She was then buried in Union Miners Cemetery in Mt. Olive, Illinois, after she was honored with another funeral Mass in that small Illinois town.

Learning from Mother Jones

Here are some important lessons we today can learn from the indomitable Mother Jones:

** Pressing on in spite of adversity. The five years between 1867 and 1871 was a terrible time for Mary Harris Jones. Can you imagine losing four children, your spouse, your business, and all your possessions in the space of five years?

And yet, Mary pressed on becoming increasingly involved in seeking to help others. In spite of her personal tragedies, for nearly fifty years she lived mostly to help the working poor across the country. What an inspiration!

** Recognizing that “silence is violence.” The lifework of Mother Jones, a lifelong Catholic, is expressed in these oft-quoted words of hers: “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.” She was a woman who wouldn’t keep silent, even though harassed and jailed repeatedly.

** Expressing faith in deeds, not words. Although a Christian, Mother Jones was not a “pious” churchwoman and seemingly didn’t talk a lot about her faith. But her indefatigable activity for others was in harmony with the kinds of things Jesus noted in Matthew 25:31~40 about his true followers.

These are just three of the many things we might learn from Mary Harris Jones, who probably did more for laboring people than any other woman in the history of the U.S.

*****

Links: Here is the link to the Mother Jones Museum website, which has a wealth of information about Jones.

Also, see this link to access Mother Jones, the politically progressive/liberal magazine that was founded in 1976 and named in honor of Mary Harris Jones.