O holy goat.

For years, I was entirely satisfied with the story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46. The story seems so wonderfully simple on the surface. The mixed flock makes its way up the hill to the she herd, and the shepherd quickly and efficiently separates them into "yes" and "no." The good and obedient sheep are directed to the shepherd's right hand, and then they nibble their way happily into heaven. The damned rebel goats pass on the left side and then slide down the hill to hell.

The reasoning - again, on the surface - seems impeccable. The sheep obey and are richly rewarded. The goats do not obey and reap the consequences of their decisions. What obedience means is also clear: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting those in prison.

It is all so neat and clean and clear. Sheep or goat? Turn left, or bear right? Heavenly bliss or eternal damnation?

At the 23rd hearing or so, I began having problems with this story, two problems, actually. The first is realizing how much I prefer the goats. I have developed a perhaps inordinate fondness for them over the years.

There is an e. e. cummings poem that expresses this fondness rather well: "In Just-spring when the world is mud-lucious ... [and] puddle-wonderful . . . the goat-footed balloonMan whistles far and wee." Goats, it turns out, have a lot to recommend them. Surefooted, independent, friendly, fiercely competitive (at least the billy) - goats are everything that sheep are not.

Goats are glad to see you when you come visiting in the morning, whether or not you remembered to bring along any treats. They are willing, even eager, to cavort with you in the pasture and sorry to see you leave when you have to go. Most hospitable animals, goats are willing to take you at face value as a friend and follow wherever you lead, although it is true that goats do not like to be driven.

Sheep are much more passive. Sheep are gentler, to be sure, and more obedient, but sheep are also dumb. It is no accident, I think, that goats are identified with disobedience. Thousands of years of service to humankind, providing milk and meat and even their skins, have not been enough. One bad piece of press in Matthew's gospel and most of us are quite willing to see the goats get hopelessly condemned to eternal despair. I wonder why. It's not my business of course. The goats are not my responsibility. But, as I say, I have developed a fondness for them over the years, so I keep wondering.

By the way, this passage is the only one I have been able to find in the entire Bible where the goats are treated so badly. Even the scapegoat in Leviticus is useful, and some of the Old Testament passages dealing with goats are positively flattering.

I said that I have two problems with the wholesale condemnation of goats. The first is my personal fondness for them. The second is that I am not able to believe in the radical division. When I look at the world - either out at others or in at myself - I do not see white or black, yes or no, sheep or goats. I see gray, maybe, and "geep" (sometimes even "shoats," but that's a different story). I would be the first to admit that I do not see with the eyes of God. My human eyes see much more dimly. Nevertheless, I see what I see.

I see Emmanuel, the young man we got out of jail two years ago. I see his sheepishness the first day we meet as he hangs his head and cannot look me in the eye. I also see his goatish adolescent energy increasing as he begins to believe there are people in this world who will love him no matter what. Then he begins cavorting and does some very goatish things indeed. I see Ellie as I take her home each Sunday after church. We turn the comer, and she strains to see her husband Gregorio awaiting her on the porch. "Well, there's the old goat," Ellie says, and I cannot imagine her calling him a ram. He gambols down the sidewalk and reclaims his nanny.

Seeing gray is dangerous. It's a risky way to live. One disastrous possibility of seeing maybe instead of yes or no is a tolerance that can become excessively permissive. The irony is that we can begin by insisting upon preserving our goatishness and by means of that very insistence turn into sheep that simply follow blindly along.

But there is also danger on the other side. How easy it is to develop a "missionary mentality" and feed the hungry for all the wrong reasons. I am seeing now an acquaintance who dispenses clothes from the church clothing bank and serves meals at the community dinner, but she is repulsed by the stinking sheep who are. the objects of her charity. It is the tension in her voice and body that gives her distress away. She is being obedient in a formal, legalistic, sheepish way but at what great cost, both to her own joy and to the possibility of forming real relationships of genuine love?

So what's to be done? I, too, want to pass on the right side of the shepherd and nibble my way into heaven, but I also want to cavort with the goats on the hillside. I want the safety and security of belonging to the flock, but I also crave the freedom to climb alone to the top of the hill in order to check out for myself this progress that we are all allegedly making.

I return again to this passage with my goatish eyes and think I see a saving possibility. Perhaps goatish obedience is an option. Perhaps the double vision of seeing the value of both goat and sheep can be carried all the way to the top of the hill and laid at the feet of the shepherd with the rueful admission that this was the best I could do.

Hope grows as I entertain these possibilities. Is it not true that both my sheepishness and my goatishness are facts of my creation? Is it not possible that God loves, and will therefore save, also the goats?

I look eagerly for support for this position in the passage from Matthew, but I don't find much. The word is sharp. The distinction is clear. It seems as if my choices really are reduced to two after all. Obedience or freedom, sheep or goats - just two choices.

The saving grace is laughter. What I have been missing all along is the very point of the passage. What I have been missing is the glorious freedom to decide.

God does love the goats. The evidence is there. God loves me after all. My life is blessing upon blessing. I am graced with the freedom either to accept this amazing unconditional love or to deny and turn away. I can feed the hungry grimly and grudgingly, feed them with zest from joy, or tum away and pretend that they are not even here.

It is not a perfect freedom. I was right before when I observed that the fate of the goats is not my responsibility. Truly, I do not see with single vision. For me, the world is gray.

It is not perfect freedom, but it is a real freedom. I am even free, if only for a moment, to lay aside the burden of goathood and take my place in the flock. I, too, am passive, sometimes gentle by grace, occasionally obedient, and dumb.

Sheepishly, I pull my tiny toy whistle from my pocket. I am about to add my little toot of praise to the God who made me, is making me right this very now, and has the firm intention of remaking me anew. By grace, I am the sheep with goat feet, and I am whistling bravely now ... bravely and foolishly ... far and wee.