Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Luke 6:36-42)
Be merciful, as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged.
A lo̱ckun kɔ̱c, ce̱tkɛ min kɔ̱c lɔc Guurun in te nhial. /Cuare naath luk, kɛ ɣöö /ca yɛ bi luk.
Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Gospel reading today begins with these words:
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven.
The most well-known part of this passage is the words: “Judge not, and you will not be judged.”
And it’s funny because this passage is often used when people want to judge someone else. Often when a person says: “Judge not, lest you be judged”, what they really mean to say is: “What you just said was wrong! And let me tell you that you were wrong!” It is even sometimes used by people to make themselves a little bit superior to other people, by quoting little piece of the bible at them.
We have to know what is actually meant by this passage.
Firstly, Jesus is not speaking these words to judges and magistrates!
Someone’s on trial for murder in court, and when the court is over and all the evidence has been heard, it’s time for a verdict. The judge comes out and says: I’ve decided to do nothing about this, because Jesus says, “Do not judge.”
That’s ridiculous! Judges are called to judge! That’s why they’re called judges. In fact, they are given the right to judge by God himself! We should pray to God for good, wise, Christian judges in our country! We need good judges – when someone has committed a crime, we need judges who will give people a fair judgment, a fair verdict, a fair sentence! There’s nothing worse than living in a society where there is no justice!
So when Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged”, he’s not talking to judges. But also, a judge doesn’t judge by his own rules, and by his own opinions. He (or she) judges cases according to law. A judge doesn’t make up laws on the spot – they study the law very carefully, they spend years getting to know about different types of laws, and how the law works. Jesus calls judges to judge rightly according to the law.
Secondly, when Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged”, he’s not talking to parents and teachers. So a parent at home, or a teacher at a school sees a child punch another child, and the poor child is crying. Then the teacher or the parent goes up to the children and tells the naughty child off. Then the naughty child says to the teacher or the parent: “Mummy, (or Miss), Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged.” “
That’s ridiculous! Parents and teachers have a calling from God to train children in the right way. Children have to know what is right or wrong. If children are naughty, they have to be punished. If naughty children are not punished, they just get naughtier and naughtier! Every child should know that it is a gift of God to be told off by their parents or teachers and to be told the right way to behave and think, and the right way to live.
We live in times where some people believe that it is wrong to tell children that they have done wrong, or to say “no” to them. This is an absolute lie – and teachers and parents have to know that it is their God-given duty to tell their children what is right and what is wrong. Parents and teachers are not called to teach children their own ideas about right and wrong, but God’s ideas about right and wrong: The ten commandments.
So when Jesus says, “Judge not, and you will not be judged”, he’s not talking to judges, and he’s not talking to parents in homes and teachers in schools.
Third, when Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged,” he’s not talking to pastors and leaders in the church about their public duties. As a pastor, I am always making judgements about this or that, about what I think we should do in the church, about what I am going to say in the pulpit each week, and all that sort of thing. If I didn’t judge, and if I as a pastor didn’t make judgments all the time, then I wouldn’t do any work at all.
In fact, preaching, in some sense, is “judging”. But sometimes pastors make judgments in the church according to their own private opinions. If they do this, then it is completely wrong. The people who do this in the New Testament are called the Pharisees. The Pharisees invented all sorts of rules for people which God didn’t want. Instead of basing their life on the word of God, they based it on human traditions. On one occasion, Jesus attack the Pharisees for making their human traditions into God’s laws, and then ignoring God’s commandments.
So pastors are not allowed to judge on the basis of their own opinions. But they are called to judge on the basis of the word of God. And that involves not just talking, but acting. Pastors are not just called to talk to people about the forgiveness of sins, but they are actually called to give it to them on behalf of Jesus. Pastors are called to speak God’s verdict to you each week: I forgive you all your sins. That’s not a pastor’s own opinion: It’s God’s judgment, it’s his verdict. God says that he forgives you.
But the pastor doesn’t just speak those words without a little trial, if you like. Each week, you make a confession of sin, and I ask you three questions. The pastor cross-examines you, if you like! In fact, God is cross-examining you! And each week, you say, I do, I do, I do. I do confess my sins, I do believe in Jesus, I do have a desire to lead a holy life with the help of the Holy Spirit. And then the words of God are spoken to you: “I forgive you all your sins because Christ has died for you on the cross.”
The pastor is not a judge who judges on his own opinion. He is more the messenger boy who tells you what God judges, who is the judge of heaven and earth. If people don’t want the forgiveness of sins, if they don’t confess their sins, or if they don’t believe that Jesus died for them, or if they have no desire to see the end of their sins and to be rid of them, then the forgiveness of sins doesn’t apply to them. St Paul says in this sense: You are to judge those inside the church, but not outside. Sometimes a person in the church needs to be confronted and told to repent.
So pastors don’t give the forgiveness of sins to people because they can read their minds. They give them forgiveness on the basis of what the person says, and what the pastor hears. Even Jesus says this about his relationship with the Father. He says: “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge.” Jesus does nothing without the Father: and he speaks the judgment that hears from the Father. So also in the church, pastors speak the judgment that they hear from the words of Jesus. They can do nothing on their own.
When it comes to this sort of judgment, the Small Catechism says: I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.
So when Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged”, he’s not talking to pastors in administering the word and the sacraments. In fact, in the Old Testament, in 1 Samuel, there’s a story about Eli the priest, who has two sons. And these two sons steal the offerings from the temple, and even slept with women who came to the temple. Eli the priest should have chucked his sons out of the temple, but he didn’t. So God judged Eli: his two sons were killed on the same day, when Eli heard the news he fell of his chair and broke his neck, and his household was eventually cut off from the priesthood.
So when Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged”, what is he actually talking about?
He is talking about our hearts, our consciences. The only person that we can judge in our own hearts is ourselves. In our own hearts, and in our own minds there is always a little court-room going on. We are always talking to ourselves. (It’s not the first sign of madness: it’s the first sign of being human!) And so, when we’re in the kitchen and we cut ourselves with a knife and our finger gets covered with lemon juice, we say something like, “You stupid idiot!” We make a little judgment on ourselves! We condemn ourselves. You drop something on your foot, you speak a judgment on yourself. That’s the way it works.
In Hebrew there is no word for conscience. There is only the word “heart”. (Also in Nuer). But conscience means “when our heart talks”. Conscience has to do with what advice we give to ourselves, what our own heart says about who we are, and what sort of a person we are. That’s what conscience means: it means the heart talking to itself.
And when the heart overflows, it pours out words from the mouth.
In this little chamber, in this little court-room, Jesus says to us: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
You are not called to look outside of your own body with your eyes and make a judgment. You are called to be merciful. You are called to put the best construction on things. Jesus is talking here about the 8th commandment: You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.
In the small catechism again, it says: We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbour, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.
That’s the sort of judgment you should make on others: Defend people, speak well of people, and explain everything in the kindest way.
Instead of judging other people, you need to judge yourself. Jesus says:
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,” when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
But sometimes you might genuinely notice something wrong with someone else. Jesus says, that you are not called first of all to judge them. You are called to take the log out of your own eye first.
Sometimes we see something bad happen to someone else, and people start to wonder if they are being punished for something. Never mind! Mind your business! You make sure you take the log out of your own eye.
But if someone does something wrong to you, Jesus in Matthew 18 allows you to go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. Jesus says: “If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and as a tax collector.”
Notice here that Jesus doesn’t allow you to speak about the person behind their back. Jesus doesn’t allow you to get together with other people and talk about a bad person, when they are not listening. If you are a gossip, don’t be surprised if people gossip about you. Instead, he calls you to go and speak to the person himself or herself, to take two or three people to the person and talk about it together. Not because you want to judge a person, but because you want show mercy to the person.
Jesus says in Luke 17: If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, “I repent,” you must forgive him.
God knows everything about your heart, and he doesn’t go around telling everyone about you! Just imagine if he did! That would make us shake in our shoes! You shouldn’t do it either!
Instead, you should be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful. Your heavenly Father doesn’t shame you, he forgives you. He covers the sin over with the blood of Jesus, and welcomes you into his heavenly kingdom. He welcomes you to the Holy Supper of the body and blood of Christ.
And you are called to the same thing: you are called to be merciful. And when you, as a forgiven sinner, show mercy, and when you treat people in a merciful way, and when you don’t treat people badly because of their sins, then you are learning what it is to be like God, and you learn what it means to share in God’s own nature.
So be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful. Amen.
Help us to be merciful, heavenly Father, because we are nowhere near as merciful as you are. Stop us from setting ourselves up as judges over people’s hearts, because you are the only fair judge, and you are the only one who knows the hearts of people. And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment