Goats aren't all baaad; nothing in the Bible is black and white, least of all the recipe for salvation.

"THERE ARE TWO KINDS of people," my friend said as we sipped coffee in a sunny cafe. I groaned. People are so riotously different it seems rude to bundle them into categories. By comparison, most popular books and movies seem to have been written by the same tired committee. Human beings are not very imaginative thinkers, as even creative talent T. S. Eliot admitted: "Good poets borrow. Great poets steal."

It could be our decided lack of creativity that leads us to the black-and-white thinking that insists there are two kinds of people: conservatives and liberals, smart people and idiots, the saved and the damned--"them" and "us" by any other names. No matter how hard we try to think beyond the divisions, it remains a challenge to keep from drawing some definitive line in the sand.

Fundamentalism, whether in religion or politics, is attractive precisely because it tells us where to put the line: Right is here, and wrong is there. If someone wrote a book called Morality for Dummies, it would probably be very popular. Many of us would be happy to reduce ethical questions down to an easy-to-digest sound bite. Sad to say, a lot of people have tried to interpret the Bible this way, but scripture resists our attempts at oversimplification.

Even the barest statements in the text, the Ten Commandments, were unpacked and expanded by Jesus to reveal their elasticity. We may think "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty straightforward--but get five Christians together and ask them about abortion, capital punishment, war, self-defense, embryonic stem cell research, end-of-life decisions, environmentalism, of animal rights. All of a sudden you realize the simplest moral command is open to interpretation. If we are willing to qualify our commitment to life in even one instance, how does that limit the authority of our claim that life belongs to God alone?

My friend, convinced that people can be divided into two camps, finds this kind of talk annoying. "You make things so complicated!" she scolds, as if cosmic complexity were my idea, and adds, "It's not comforting. I want certainty."

So do I, as it happens. For example, I'd like someone to give me the definitive answer as to what to do when a person on the street asks for spare change. I've interrogated everyone I admire--holy people, social workers, the folks at Catholic Charities, and the local shelter--in search of the most constructive response. Is it healthy to reinforce their begging? Is it right to cling to a quarter in my pocket when someone is in need? Is it just good old Catholic guilt that makes me want to hand over some alms? Should I diagnose the person for chemical dependencies or pass moral judgment over their lives before I decide whether or not this is the poor Christ in front of me? Of whether they deserve 75 cents to buy the right to an hour inside a McDonald's nursing a cup of hot coffee?

While I sit in a cafe nursing my coffee, it is hard to be self-righteous about denying someone else the opportunity to do the same--especially since I have a home waiting for me when I'm finished. I can make the argument about having worked long and hard to get that home, but I know people who work harder and make far less money, money that is then stretched across the needs of children and medical bills.

I know people who can't work because they lack mental stability or performed poorly in school and have few employable skills. I know there are hosts of reasons why someone might ask for spare change. I may come up with as many reasons why I won't share, but that may say more about me than about the person in front of me.

MORAL ABSOLUTES ARE COMFORTING, BUT BLACK-AND-white principles sidestep the divine mandate of compassion. Yet is there no truth to the idea that there might be two kinds of people? After all, even Jesus tells a story about separating humanity into sheep and goats in an ultimate sense.

The story of the Final Judgment is not a parable. It belongs to a category known as apocalyptic revelation. Unlike parables--stories with a moral punch line at the end--apocalyptic revelations are specifically related to the "last things." Interpreting apocalyptic sayings is tricky because they employ stock images not meant to be taken literally. So there's no danger, for example, that we'll all be turned into farm animals in the afterlife. And we may not be confronted with a post-mortem pop quiz.

What this revelation does imply, though, is that in the final analysis we will be held accountable for the sum total of our lives. Whether that analysis is conducted at the end of our days or the end of the whole shooting match is not the point. What is crucial to grasp is that you and I each have been endowed with a special stewardship--our existence--for which there are expectations.

Would we like a checklist for that stewardship? I sure would. Will the Ten Commandments fit the bill? From the perspective of this revelation, not really. In the evaluation of the sheep and the goats, Jesus offers us something surprisingly more personal and positive than the "Thou shalt nots" of Deuteronomy. The tests we face in this Final judgment are what the church has come to call the corporal works of mercy, and it may not be the pop quiz we've been cramming for all these years.

WE CAN IMAGINE JOE CHRISTIAN STANDING IN THE PRESENCE of the Son of Man, feeling pretty confident. He's been regular in his Mass attendance, kept his marriage together even though there were times--but never mind. He didn't touch another woman, never took so much as a pencil from the office, gave to the church, and didn't cuss anywhere near as much as the people on TV.

"When I was hungry," the Lord began.

Joe interrupted: "I know, I wrote checks to Catholic Relief Services after the hurricane and that business in Haiti."

"Actually," the Lord admitted. "when I was hungry for a word of encouragement on the job, all you ever did was find fault with me."

"For heaven's sake!" Joe snorted. "You mean to tell me you were that loser in the mailroom? You never could get those memos in the right slots."

"A fact you took satisfaction in pointing out," he said. "And when I was thirsty--"

"Wait," Joe interjected, "The CRS checks didn't cover that?"

"I was thinking of your daughter. All she wanted was your time, and what you gave her were braces, a first-rate education, and a car."

"When I was a stranger," the Lord continued, but Joe waved away the accusation before it was completed. "I was the first to greet everyone who moved into the neighborhood. Even the ones who didn't speak English," he added with some defensiveness.

The Lord eyed Joe sympathetically. "And when your wife of 40 years became a stranger due to the usual estrangements that creep into a marriage with two wage earners and three kids, what did you do to welcome her back into the intimacy you once enjoyed?"

Joe could see this wasn't going very well.

"And when did I see you naked?" he prompted, remembering the gospel literally if not profoundly.

"Lots of times," the Lord nodded sadly. "I was the organist at St. Martha's who got AIDS and was let go. You could have supported me, but you didn't say a word."

"OK, OK," Joe said wearily. "I get the picture. I'm doomed, right? Or damned."

This time the Lord smiled. "If I used your measure instead of mine, perhaps." Apocalyptic imagery is over the top, but for the purpose of illustration, not elimination. Jesus went on, "When I was ill, you were fiercely loyal to me."

Joe was quiet this time. He understood that the Lord was referring to his brother Len and those long years of alcoholism. Sure, Joe got furious with Len, barred him from the house when he was drinking, refused to lend him a dime until he was sober. But brothers are brothers, and Joe stuck with him because he knew Len's demons were not all of his own choosing.

"And when I was in prison, Joe, you didn't leave me there to rot." He was talking about his mother, a bitter woman who alienated everyone until there was no one but Joe who would come around. Even Joe had blamed her for inflicting such misery on herself, but in time he found it possible to forgive her for the weaknesses she was unwilling to forgive in others.

A period of great peacefulness followed, maybe an hour--it was hard to tell without time.

Finally, Joe said, "The bottom line, Lord?"

The Lord winked. "Seems to me you've learned to hear these questions. So follow me, you old goat!"

ALICE CAMILLE, author of Invitation to the New Testament and Invitation to the Old Testament, both from ACTA Publications.