When the Son of Man comes in his glory…he will sit on the throne of his glory…and separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. — Matthew 25:31-32

In a recent essay, Princeton Seminary president Craig Barnes wrote about two black Labrador retrievers that attended worship in the seminary chapel. It’s not that these dogs were especially religious. Rather, they were guide dogs trained to help visually impaired students make their way across campus. Barnes noted that when these dogs came to chapel they laid under the front pew and he added, “They always faced the pulpit.”

It’s a fascinating experience to look down from the pulpit, halfway through the sermon’s best sentence that was oh so carefully prepared, and see a couple of tired dogs looking up at me…