Between Judgment and God

Judgment. The very word sends shivers down my spine. I did not even grow up Southern Baptist. No pastor ever told me that every little decision in life should be scrutinized and agonized over through the moral code laid out in the Good Book. Still judgment is the type of thing that I tend to politely and reverently avoid. I am partial to a passage like Philippians 2:12 in which the writer implores his readers to work out their own salvation in fear and trembling. Judgment in this scenario remains something very personal and private, unlike how scenes of judgment typically go.

I had a friend in seminary with whom I mopped floors for work-study hours. One day we were talking about judgment and he told me that growing up in a conservative church the Day of Judgment loomed large in his life. He even said that for a time he worried that it would be a day when the chosen would gather together and watch his life shouting things like, “Look, he’s being mean to his brother!” or “Oh my! He’s doing ‘it’ again!” My friend’s view of judgment does not feel that far off from today’s Gospel lesson.

Jesus appears to play into this dire scene of the End of Days saying, “Sheep over here and goats over here.” One group marches off to eternal life, while the other gets herded into the forever burning flames of Hell. I cannot help but find myself falling into a narrow way of reading this passage, such that there is no good news, no hope, no grace; only a very vengeful God. But, that’s not God. That is not who God is, and I believe that is not what this lesson says.

When we get into our minds a certain way of hearing a story, we may find it impossible to hear the tale in any other way. Jesus is two days from his betrayal, torture, and death. He can clearly see the urgency with which he must testify to the birthing of God’s Kingdom. He has just told the parable of the ten bridesmaids and the parable of the talents. He is desperately trying to get across to his followers that the decisions that they make impact the building up of the reality of God here and now. And yet, they will fail miserably. The disciples will betray Jesus. They will abandon him. They will sit helplessly by while he dies on the Cross.

These are the same disciples that would rather send people away empty, then figure out a way to feed them. The very same people who had no faith that Jesus would not let them perish in a storm. Even after being with Jesus from the start they could not put following him, loving others, and becoming the servant of all before their own needs and concerns.

There’s a bumper sticker I am sure you have seen. It reads: “Look busy, Jesus is coming.” The righteous ones in today’s Gospel did not follow this bumper sticker. They did not serve others because they knew that Jesus might be making a list and checking it twice. Neither did the accursed ones intentionally walk around seeking to harm others. Rather, both the sheep and the goats were unconscious of their choice. We are not so blinded. We have heard these words, and thus we are forced to wake up.

The day when Jesus comes in fullness may not ever happen in our lifetimes, but Christ is always coming into our lives. The concept of judgment is necessarily scary because regardless of how hard we try to be a sheep we will almost always find a way to at some point be a goat. God through Jesus has given to us this startling news that one day all will come together; however, I’m not so certain that it will be replaying our worst moments. Rather, I trust that as we walk this life momentarily shifting from sheep to goat we might wake up and recognize the larger Truth that we must rely not on our own times of getting it right or impressing Jesus in disguise, but living our lives completely giving over our highlights and lowlights to Jesus.

In a moment during the Offertory we will offer up not just our financial contributions, but our entire lives. Ourselves, our souls and bodies are put upon the altar and they are altered. We are broken along with Christ and we are transformed through his self-offering. Then we are sent back out into the world but in a way we are changed. We are changed by God’s love. Judgment is scary. However, nothing, not even judgment, gets between God and us. As we wake up to this truth may our lives be transformed, so that whatever we do we do it in the love of Christ. Amen.

Learning Where Judge and Love Meet

The Truth can find us in all sorts of strange ways. Take for example this morning when I was getting ready for the day and listening to some sports talk radio (one of my favorite pass times). On this morning’s “Mike and Mike” show the hosts were discussing the use of smokeless tobacco products in light of Tony Gwynn’s early death partially due to his use of dip and chew. While I did not hear the entire conversation both the Mikes attested to the courtesy of their callers who discussed and debated whether Major League Baseball should ban the use of smokeless products to lessen their prominence and prevent young viewers from thinking it is “cool.”

All of the civility went out the window as Mike Greenberg read an email from an irate listener. This man had been a fan of the show for many years, but was going to stop listening after today’s broadcast because this show is now just like the rest of the media. The disappointed listener went on to write that no one can tell him how to live his life, especially not the media. What I heard the listener saying is quite common in our society, “No one can judge me.”

Today’s reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans makes this claim as well, “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, whenyou judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself,because you, the judge, are doing the very same things” (2:1). We rejoice in this passage because we can point to it and say, “YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! ONLY GOD CAN!”

We do not like the feeling of being judged. Certainly Jesus makes a claim for doing the work of figuring out where we are in the wrong first when he talks about getting the log out of our eye before weinspect the speck of sawdust in another’s. Yet, the Truth I recognized this morning is that so often when I feel I am being judged I want to pack up my toys and go play by myself. It is not that we judge it is how we do it.

If I did use smokeless tobacco products I would certainly know that they are bad for me, this fact is written on the packaging. And, if you saw me using tobacco products you would certainly know that I was putting myself in danger by using them. Yet, I do not want to know that you know that I am putting myself in danger, and I do not want to hear that you know that I am putting myself into danger because then I would have to acknowledge the way I am living my life. Let me go on living in denial, please! Most often when someone points out a flaw in us, even if they do so politely, it feels as though they are being too direct, too confrontational, and too mean. Looking at the opposite end of the spectrum though, what if no one ever judged that we had done anything wrongly?

We could live however we want to live. We could do whatever we want to do. We could congratulate ourselves for the simplest accomplishment. We could scream as loud as we want to in our very own echo chamber without anyone saying a peep. The difficulty in living in this way though is that there is no growth, no transcendence, and no way of getting closer to God. The solution is not isolation, nor is it a total lack of judgment, but rather a redefining of how we share difficult, confrontational, and crucial information with one another.

When God created all things God made a judgment about Creation. God said, this is good, and this is very good. When God’s people chose their own way and not God’s will God did not judge that they ought to be destroyed. Rather time and time again God sent leaders (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Aaron) to bring the people back to God in all sorts of strange and creative ways (i.e. see the Pentateuch). God sent the prophets when God judged that the Israelites were not living up to their “Chosen People” status. Then God sent Christ Jesus, his Son, to judge the people in a way that shows what kind of judgment awaits us.

We judged that Jesus should die, so we put him to death. Yet even in this moment God did not choose to destroy us, but God judged that forgiveness transcends revenge, that life overcomes death, that love unites us not separates us. Judgment and love cannot be separated in God’s decisions. Yet, this is what we choose to do when we simply point out flaws in other people, when we choose to be cynical about the state of the world, and when we point our fingers blaming one another for our collective challenges. This is like a doctor giving a diagnosis without a treatment plan. This is like giving someone a fishing pole without teaching them how to fish. If we spend our time only pointing to the problems in our lives, without working through a solution with others, then we are cutting ourselves off from the healing, transcending, and redeeming love of Christ.

None of us like to be judged because that Truth is so hard to hear and when we hear it we might feel shame or guilt for being that way. Yet, we must hear and accept the Truth about ourselves to grow closer to one another and closer to God. We must look to the way that God judges us. Do not judge by pointing a finger, but by extending a hand in love, for that is how God judges us with an overabundant love that overcomes even death. 

The Widow Wins: Luke 18:1-8

This blog post is in response to the Rev. Evan D. Garner's (a long way from home) blog post entitled, "I Don't Get the Unjust Judge", which deals with this coming Sunday's gospel.

The Rev. Dr. Jane Patterson told my Luke class one day that the words “parable” and “parabola” share a root word, which she interpreted to mean that for us to understand the deeper implications of Jesus’ story we have to move. Like the Rev. Evan D. Garner, I do not like the method that Jesus employs in this coming Sunday’s gospel. If I could I would like to just extract a message, something like keep the faith, keep praying, the Son of Man is coming, but to throw away the method Jesus uses is to the throw away a gift from God. While my sinful heart sometimes leads me astray, I believe willfully throwing away God’s gift is problematic at best and at worst leads to a life of sin, vice, and nothingness. So, what are we to do?

As I see it, we cannot just extract the message (keep the faith, keep praying, the Son of Man is coming!), as the characters (the unjust judge and the faithful widow) help to employ that message, and without them we lose a message altogether. We only get a glimpse of the importance of prayer by exploring who these two characters are within the culture of Jesus’ day. The unjust judge, one who would ignore the plight of a widow, certainly “neither feared God, nor had respect for people,” and in fact, ignored also the commandments of God, which were so important to the people of Israel and made them different from the Romans who would just throw beggars to the wolves. In brief, this judge is one unrighteous dude. 

In contrast, our other character, a benevolent widow, is the poster-woman of the Faith. She, along with orphaned children, are the persons that God's chosen people are bound to take care of no matter what. And yet...no one is taking care of her. She cannot even get a judge to rule in her favor. In a society where a judge is not able to rule in favor of an innocent widow who has nothing something is going wrong. Unfortunately, this inequality hits too close to home, as I think of all the unjust ways that the poor and outcast are misrepresented within our judicial system. The bright spot in all of this, is that the widow keeps at it. She stays true to her conviction. She fights the good fight, she fights the system and you know what?… SHE WINS! If that doesn’t get us fired up about our Faith, it’s hard to see something that will.

And, for the last few chapters in Luke, Jesus has been building this whole strange argument about Faith and what it really looks like to be faithful (Luke 15 was about God’s faithfulness, Luke 16 was about the shrewdness of faith and the lessons of Dives and Lazarus, Luke 17 was about being open to the miraculous power of Faith), and this is the culmination of his Faith argument. It's weird for sure, but maybe Jesus is not saying, “Wow, look at this unjust judge, boy our God is just like him,” as he has already shown us clearly what God’s faithfulness looks like (the Good Shepherd, the Seeking Widow, the Accepting Father). Instead, Jesus perhaps says, look at this woman who is so determined in getting what she wants that it consumes her every fiber. Jesus is saying, "This is what I’ve been trying to say about our Faith. It is persistent. So now you be persistent." Now, I am certain that I, Seth Olson, am not God, nor will any of us ever be God, so we cannot strive for becoming a judge, whether just or unjust. Instead, our focus is on what we do have, the power of prayer and the power of Faith. God is faithful to us always, now reciprocate that gift, don’t just throw it away.