Raymond Stewart “Stu” Bartlette Graveside Sermon – Matthew 25:31–40 August 2nd 2025 / Sheep on His Right

Raymond Stewart “Stu” Bartlette Graveside Sermon / Riverside Memorial Park Cemetery / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Saturday August 2nd 2025: Season of Pentecost / Matthew 25:31–40 “Sheep on His Right”

[Jesus says,] “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He will place the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcome You, or naked and clothe You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and visit You?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me.’”

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends and family of Raymond Bartlette we’ve been blessed to hear a number of Scripture passages this morning and among them was what Jesus taught about His return and the Last Day, the Day of Judgment and the separation of the sheep and the goats. While planning for today this passage came to mind regarding Raymond. Now it is a part of a larger passage and if you keep reading where we left off the Son of Man in His glory upon His glorious throne deals with the goats separated to His left and it quickly becomes apparent that they thought they had done what was expected of them but they had not. Whatever they had done in life they had not actually cared for the people in need placed before them or at the very least if they had done so they were doing it for the wrong reasons. The wrong reason would be in order to gain favour and reward not simply to do what is needed because the one in need actually needed it. And of course if they had done nothing at all, passing by without so much as a prayer or a kindness, that too would have been out of selfishness and self-interest curved in on itself. The Lord has no brownie-points to award to the goats and no true crown of righteousness,[1] no imperishable crown,[2] no crown of glory[3] and certainly no promised crown of Life[4] either; what the Lord says to the goats on His left hand side is, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”[5] These goats couldn’t recognise Jesus in the hungry or the thirsty, in the stranger, in the naked, in the sick or imprisoned. 

Remember Jesus who provides this teaching about His return and the Last Day, the Day of Judgment and the separation of the sheep and the goats was the same Jesus who would end up after His Last Supper with His disciples arrested, hungry and thirsty, nailed naked to a wooden cross in His crucifixion. Looking forward to Jesus the Old Testament prophet Isaiah described Christ upon the cross as one who “had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.” Isaiah says, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.”[6] The goats in this life are happy to do something for someone sitting on an obvious throne of glory because they imagine a reward but not for the beaten and bloodied condemned man, thrashed within an inch of his life, left for dead, naked and nailed to a cross. To the ones who orchestrated Jesus’ death He was a stranger to them, a dangerous outsider who would have no place at their table. What reward could such a one give that didn’t even have a pocket to put a penny in. Regardless of whether that suffering is great or small by human standards, when you see the Good Friday suffering of Christ in the suffering of the people around you who are in need and you act upon it, not for a reward but simply because they are in need, then you are like the sheep and not like the goats: ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prison and you came to Me.’

You are gathered here today because you know Raymond, or as many people knew him Stu, and you know him to have been a man who did visit the sick and who would help those in need, one who when pressed by Jesus about these things in the way in which we hear it in this account about the final judgement found in the Gospel of Saint Matthew would more than likely, along with the rest of the sheep, say, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcome You, or naked and clothe You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and visit You?’ Jesus is the judge of the sheep and the goats and when we look at Raymond’s life we see more sheep than goat in Him so as one forgiven by Christ and washed in His blood poured over Him in Holy Baptism[7] and received at the communion rail in the Lord’s Supper Raymond is one to whom the Lord would say, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me.’

It is important to remember that there are promised rewards for being faithful and true as a Christian but they are given as gracious gifts from God to men and women and children that cannot earn them by their own works. And in return we are called to be gracious and kind to those around us who are not in a position to repay us for our deeds.[8] The one who is perfectly faithful and true is Jesus, He is the King of kings and Lord of lords[9] and where the World sees a humiliated man dead upon a Roman cross we see the Son of God the very fountainhead of all mercy and kindness and love, the source of all forgiveness and grace. And this kindness and love, this forgiveness and grace is the rod and the staff that comforts us, it becomes the cup that overflows running onto those in need around us, the very thing that restores our souls when we are brought low in life and what gives us courage in the face of death and evil.[10] Raymond then is the recipient of God’s grace.

Dear ones, in the book of Hebrews we are given this advice, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”[11] Now no man is perfect except for Christ Jesus and yet in this advice you have encouragement look at how Raymond cared for others in need and imitate that part of his faith. He may not have spoken the Word of God to you or talked much about his faith, for that you may need to find someone else in your life to do that part for you, but Raymond (as I understand it) did care for the needs of others and he didn’t do it for earthly or even heavenly rewards. It’s my experience that the Christian does these things because they’re grateful for the suffering Jesus willingly endured for them and want than to alleviate that suffering in the lives of others out of gratitude. These are the sheep on Jesus’ right hand side, made righteous in Him, who are separated away from the goats into the Father’s kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. Surely goodness and mercy has followed them all the days of their life and they shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.[12] In saving us from sin death the devil and the world, even from ourselves, Jesus did for us what we could not do by our own hard work and in return we are called to do for others what they cannot do for themselves whether those things are great or small: you go and do likewise. Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] 2 Timothy 4:8
[2] 1 Corinthians 9:24-25
[3] 1 Peter 5:4
[4] Revelation 2:10
[5] Matthew 25:41
[6] Isaiah 53:2–3
[7] Titus 3:5–7
[8] Luke 11:1-13
[9] Revelation 19:11
[10] Psalm 23
[11] Hebrews 13:7
[12] Psalm 23:6

Photo Credit: Main photo provided by Mount Olive Lutheran Church and Bartlette family.