Fourth Sunday after Trinity,
2011
Text: St. Luke 6:36-42
The Rev. Jerry Kistler
St. Stephen’s Reformed
Episcopal Church
Jesus said, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to point out things that are wrong than things that are right? Or how much easier it is to find fault than it is to give praise? Or how it seems to take no effort at all to recognize someone’s failures, but how difficult it seems to give credit where credit is due? Have you ever noticed that? For some reason, when something goes wrong, or when someone makes a mistake, or doesn’t do things just the way we like them done, we feel compelled to point it out to them, as if, if we didn’t, they couldn’t possibly know that they made a mistake or done something wrong; or if we just let things lie, then the whole fabric of the universe would come undone! But when something goes right, or when someone does something well, then we’re indifferent. Or we might even say to ourselves, “Well, they must know they’ve done well. Wouldn’t want to stroke their egos and give them a big head.” Or, “Well, you know, they just did what they were supposed to do.” Those may not be our conscious thoughts, but you know where I’m coming from, don’t you?
At the same time, we absolutely hate it when others treat us that same way. I’ll tell you when I hate it. I’m sorry, but I have to admit that I hate it when, right immediately after the service, right immediately after the last verse of the recessional hymn, when we’ve just ascended in the Spirit to the throne-room of God together, when we’ve just partaken and be united together in the Body and Blood of our loving Savior, Jesus Christ, the first words out of some of your mouths to me, as you come to shake my hand, “I just hate that hymn!” Or, “that was the wrong tune for that hymn!” Or, “Did you know that you made this mistake in the bulletin.” Or, “Here, let me help you out, and give you a bulletin with all the mistakes in grammar and misspelled words underlined and circled in red ink. But I’ll surreptitiously put it on your desk with no name on it so you can’t know who is being so helpful.”
But at the same time, I know that I have immediately jumped on some of you for making mistakes in the service. Poor Deacon Alan! He’s got to have the broadest shoulders I’ve ever experienced in a Deacon, if he can take it from me! Poor Altar Guild women, that they’ve always got to hear it from me when things aren’t just right! I know I’m that way, and I’m sorry. I guess it’s the German in me. Maybe I should have been a Lutheran pastor—Pastor Adolph.
But why do we do that? Why is it so much easier to be critical than it is to be encouraging? Well, there’s a simply one-word answer. Sin! It’s the sin of always seeing ourselves in a better light than others. It’s the sin of always judging our own motives as pure and beyond a reasonable doubt, while reserving the right to question others’ motives. It’s the sin of always insisting that everyone else ought to be able to see clearly enough to give us the same charitable interpretation of our words and actions that we give ourselves, while assuming we have the supernatural power of being able to look directly in the hearts of others to know what they really meant.
Are you feeling convicted at this point? Good, because that’s what Jesus’ words today are meant to do for us. He said, “Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and it will be forgiven you. Give, and it will be given to you.” It’s the sin of judgmentalism, and the sin of being hypocritical in our judgments of others, that Jesus, the righteous Judge, is condemning here.
Now the sin of judgmentalism and of being hypocritical in
our judgments is a far cry from the virtue of making sound judgments. Jesus is
not saying that we should make no judgments at all. That’s what a lot of people
in today’s feel-good, be-tolerant-of-everything-and-every-behavior type of
churches are trying to make Jesus out to say. Jesus says in John, “Do not judge
according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment” (Jn.
The sin of judgmentalism is not the same thing as discerning the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, nor even of having to confront one another sometimes about our questionable behaviour. It’s, number one, a matter of motive. Why are you judging another person? And, number two, it’s a matter of consistency. Are you judging others the same way you judge yourself, or are you extending to yourself more mercy than you’re willing to give to others?
So let’s talk about motives first. Why are you judging other people? Is it to build them up, or to tear them down? Is it because they’re engaged in a behavior or a state of life that could be hurtful to themselves and others either physically or spiritually, and you’re trying help them come to a place of repentance and healing? Or is it simply to point out that what they’re doing is wrong?
Well, how does God deal with you? Does God ever judge you, in the sense of bringing you to a place where you recognize and acknowledge your sins? Yes, He does. Do you remember the story of David and Bathsheba?—how David was lounging around the palace one day, when it was the time that he, the king, was supposed to be out fighting his nation’s battles, but instead was up on the rooftop being idle. And he looked down and saw the beautiful Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, bathing out in the open in her backyard. Why she was bathing out in the open under the palace walls has always been a bit of question for me. But anyway, you remember how David then took Bathsheba and committed adultery with her, actually got her pregnant, and then devised this great scheme to bring Uriah back from the fighting to be with his wife, so it would look like he’d gotten her pregnant. And when that didn’t work out, in another attempt to keep his adultery concealed, David then conspired with his generals to have Uriah murdered by putting him up at the front lines of the battle only to have all the rest of the soldiers suddenly retreat from around him, leaving him completely exposed to the enemy. Well, that plan succeeded, and Uriah was killed. An amazing story of how sin just keeps piling up on top of sin. And yet David was still a man after God’s own heart. That’s the really amazing part of the story.
And so you remember what happened next. God sent Nathan the prophet to confront David concerning his sins, but he did it in a very subtle and creative way. He told David a parable about two men, one a rich man who had an exceedingly great number of flocks and herds, and another who was a poor man, who had only one little ewe lamb which was dear to him, and had grown up with his children, and ate from his own food, and drank from his own cup, and was more like a daughter to him than a lamb. And when a traveler came to the rich man house, the rich man went and took the poor man’s lamb and killed it and prepared it for his guest, because he refused to give up a singe animal from his own flocks and herds. And when David heard this, he was filled with rage. He came unglued, and he swore and oath, saying, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.” And then, in one of the greatest lines in all the Bible, Nathan turns to David and says, “Thou art the man!” I mean it’s Shakespeare 1600 years before Shakespeare! “Thou are the man!”
And what was the result? David suddenly had a clear view of himself. David suddenly realized, not just that he was caught, but that he was in a state of sinfulness and rebellion against God that, with his own mouth he’d rightly declared, made him liable to death: “That man shall surely die!” And so having finally rightly judged himself, he was able to make his confession: “I have sinned against the Lord.” And on that basis, Nathan, the minister of God, declared his absolution. “The Lord has put away your sins; you shall not die.”
Now in sending Nathan to confront David, was God judging David as a sinner? Yes. But was God being judgmental? No, because His motive for exposing David’s sin was to bring this man He loved so much to a place of repentance and restoration, not to condemn him; not to see David writhe on the ground before Him, or to get his comeuppance. That’s not why God confronts us with our sins. So when it comes to confronting others and pointing out their sins, are you doing it from the same motives that God deals with you, or do you just like to make sure people know when they’re wrong? Are you judging with righteous judgment, or are you just being judgmental?
And secondly, are you being consistent in the way you judge others with the way you judge yourself? You see, another thing we can learn from the life of David is that when you start piling sin on top of sin, it’s really easy to add to all those other sins the sin self-justification—justifying all your sins—while becoming hypercritical of others’ sins. He was ready to condemn a man to death for stealing another man’s sheep, while he gave himself a pass on adultery and murder! See, even the great king David needed to take the 2x4 out of your own eye before he tried to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
But we fall into this kind of hypocritical judgmentalism all the time. I’ll never forget overhearing a woman railing against—and I mean railing against—anther group of women for their gossiping. And she was saying how she just couldn’t listen to them, and how it hurt her to hear them talk so terribly about other people. And she just went on and on about how horrible these other people were for their gossiping. And I was thinking, “Where’s the disconnect here? How is possible that this person can’t hear herself? ” But sometimes in the very act of criticizing others we’re guilty of the same thing we’re criticizing them for—and we don’t even see it! “How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye?”
You know, sometimes one of the biggest clues that we’re doing this is the level of emotion and moral outrage we express with regard to someone else’s sins. “Surely that man will die!” “Well, you’re the man, David. Why don’t you turn that same moral outrage on yourself.” As one commentator has put it, “Sudden and strange outbursts of emotion can sometimes be signs of a sensitivity that is personal rather than moral or spiritual.” So when you hear yourself saying certain people ought to die, or certain people ought to be punished, or God really needs to deal with certain people, take a clue from David, and turn the mirror around and look in your own eye before you take the magnifying glass to your brother’s eye.
For Jesus says, “Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned… For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” That’s really a terrifying statement, isn’t it? If you judge others only by a strict standard of justice, rather than with the same mercy you give yourself, Jesus is saying that, not only will other people treat you that same way, but God Himself will judge you by that same standard. That’s not because God is vindictive and hates the sin of judgmentalism above all others, but it’s because you simply haven’t understood the gospel; you haven’t truly received the gospel, because if you have, how could you treat your fellow man in any other way that with the same grace you’ve received from God?
You know, it would have just for God to judge you eternally and to condemn you to everlasting darkness for your sinful rebellion against Him. But instead, in mercy He sent His Son to take your sin and to take the justice you deserved, so you could live with Him in eternal peace and happiness.” That’s the grace and mercy you’ve received. So Jesus says, “Be merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” And don’t ever forget who He’s been merciful to. Don’t ever think that other person needs more mercy that you, because that’s when you start to fall into the sin of judgmentalism.
You see, the true disciple of Jesus is not judgmental, because when a man or a woman truly embraces the gospel of God’s grace, His grace changes them. A gracious and forgiving spirit is the evidence that that person has received grace and has been forgiven. So as God has been gracious to us, let’s be gracious to one another. As God has forgiven us, let us forgive one another. As God has given to us, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, let us give that same charity to one another. +