May 2, 2010 Sermon

Who Are You to Judge?
Matthew 7:1-5

Here, the last section of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives practical advice based on how to live a holy life as God commands.  If we read our passage too quickly we may get the idea that Jesus tells us we may not judge others.  In fact, he tells us we can judge others, but only after we have judged ourselves, and with the mercy of God in our hearts.  Judge with love.

A ban on smoking in workplaces went into effect statewide yesterday.  The new law has created both expected, and unexpected opposition.  A story appeared in the Arab Detroit News under the headline “Hookah Operators Decide to Fight Smoking Ban”.  (Hookahs are waterpipes in which people smoke all kinds of things, including tobacco.)  It seems that hookah stores, where men go to while away the hours smoking whatever and talking, line the streets of the Arabic neighborhoods in southeast Michigan.  Their owners stand to lose a great deal of money because of this new state law banning smoking in workplaces.  So they oppose the law for economic reasons.  But they also call it discriminatory.  They have hired attorneys from the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee to press lawmakers to give them an exemption from the law.

Michigan's senate majority leader Mike Bishop strongly denies any intent to discriminate with this new law.  He is a politician.  Discriminating is the last thing he wants a reputation for doing.  It would cost him votes.  Ironically, it is precisely discrimination that we need.  We need discrimination in the old sense of the word, as in the ability to make careful distinctions.  We need leaders who can understand the difference between right and wrong.  We all need to be able to discriminate with Christian vision.  We all need to follow Jesus and we do so in part by being able to discriminate between what his Spirit tells us to do and not to do.

I have spoken before of a young man of my acquaintance.  He graduated a couple of years ago from West High School, where he played football.  Early in his junior year seven of his teammates received suspensions from school and sports for attending a bonfire kegger.  This did not put a crimp in the kegger schedule.  Young people by the dozens continued to drive out into the woods someplace, get drunk, then climb back in their vehicles and drive away.  The summer before his senior year he heard at football practice about a party, supposedly the biggest ever, to be held that night in Leelanau County.  Later he climbed into his jeep and drove almost all the way to the party.  When he reached the line of vehicles parked along both sides of the two-track he decided not to go.  He turned around and, just as he reached the paved road, was passed by a line of police cars and trucks.  They sped up the two-track with their lights and sirens off.  Our young man opened his cell phone.  He was going to call friends he knew were at the party to warn them to get away.

He did not make the call.  He later told me he felt as though somebody else was thinking for him in that moment.  He decided that even though some of the people who were about to get arrested were good friends, it would be better for them.  He knew he could not remember driving home after the last kegger he attended.  He and his social circle needed help to quit drinking, let alone drinking and driving. 

Jesus preached right and wrong.  He preached good and evil.  He preached holy and unholy.  In his Sermon on the Mount he called his followers to live in obedience to the most stringent interpretation of God's laws.  In order to meet Jesus' call we need discrimination.  We need good judgment.  Look at what Jesus said in Matthew 7.  The passage begins with, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.”  This sounds like a contradiction of everything I have preached this morning.  It is not.  Jesus continued with the statement that we will be judged by the same measure with which we judge.  He referred to an Old Testament law governing the repayment of debt.  When Person A borrowed from Person B, no matter what they borrowed (be it coins or grain or whatever), both would witness as it was weighed on a scale.  When Person A repaid Person B, this law required that they weigh the repayment on the same scale.  This prevented any question of inequality.  (If only my mortgage holder would accept repayment of only the money I borrowed and no interest!)

However we judge, Jesus said, we will be judged similarly.  If we judge harshly, we will be judged harshly.  If we judge lovingly, we will be judged lovingly.  And how can we judge lovingly?  Jesus gave us the answer: judge yourself first.  Address your own sin before attacking others' sins.  Take the plank out of your own eye before reaching for your neighbor's speck. 

Sadly, the hardest part of selecting an illustration for Jesus' plank/speck saying turned out to be choosing from the many stories thirty-plus years of church service have given me.  But here goes.  A woman said nasty things about a pastor at her church.  She kept saying them to everybody but that pastor.  She stirred up trouble.  People took sides: Pro-pastor and anti-pastor.  A couple of more spiritually mature elders tried to get the entire board to deal with the matter, but the woman's allies prevented any real action.  The conflict grew so horrible the Presbytery appointed a temporary committee to go to that church, learn the facts, and try to bring reconciliation to the parties involved.  I served on that committee.  It was perhaps the saddest, most frustrating thing I have ever had to do. 

Our committee met and prayed together, developed a plan, drove to the city, visited with the woman and her husband, the pastor, the staff and the session (the board of elders).  We quickly discovered that nobody was completely innocent.  This did not shock us.  We asked the major players to join us at a prayer meeting.  We told them in advance that we would ask all to confess their part in creating the mess and that we would ask the Holy Spirit to lead them all into forgiveness.  Most of them tried to follow our script.  The woman did not.  At the prayer meeting she stated that she was not the problem.  She was just telling the truth.  How anybody could accuse her of gossip was beyond her.  She wanted to know who was talking about her.  An evil, hateful look came over her as she asked this.  Then she walked out of the meeting.

Less than a week later heavy hitters across the Presbyterian denomination received a letter from this woman.  In it she accused the members of the temporary committee of improper conduct.  She made outrageous claims.  Her words were so excessive nobody took them seriously.  And she had added another layer to her own sin.  She put her hypocrisy in writing.  Yet her actions were not unique except in their over-the-top nature.  She makes a wonderful example of how we all act at times.  I will say that again.  She makes a wonderful example of how we all act at times.  We all sin.  Often we see others' sins but miss our own.  Jesus preached that we must do exactly the opposite.  First remove your own sin, then help your neighbor with his.

Judge, but judge lovingly.  Judge lovingly by judging yourself first.  Use discrimination and justice gained through Bible study and prayer to guide your judgment.  Pray that God might give you a powerful sense of your own sin, that God might help you to love others as Jesus loves them.  Judge, but judge lovingingly.

Writing this sermon caused me to think of people who have had the most influence over me.  They share certain traits.  They stood up for their beliefs.  They did not compromise on truth or virtue.  Yet they all had an essential humility.  They did not act like they thought they were better than others.  They made mistakes.  They sinned.  But they knew it, and they continued on with life on the highest level they could attain.

I think of my own father.  Until the day he died he held to a strict code of right and wrong.  Yet he loved all kinds of people.  In their small group at church he and mom spent time with a woman who had made a major life decision with which they completely disagreed.  In dad's eyes, it was wrong.  But that woman was still his sister in Christ.  I thank God that he tried to raise me with the same attitude.  When I fail to live it out myself he bears none of the blame.

I think of a seminary professor I had who literally laughed when a speaker at a banquet introduced him as a giant of the faith.  “I am no such thing,” he said at the start of his speech.  “I am just another Christian stumbling along as I try to follow Jesus.”  Yet this man served with distinction as the moderator of the national Permanent Judicial Commission, a church court in the Presbyterian system.  He was notorious for his law and order approach to that work, yet also famous for his advocacy for lenient sentences for those his commission convicted.

Do not compromise on truth or on virtue.  Judge according to the measure of Christ, which is strict.  Yet judge with love.  Judge yourself first.  Then judge others—but only to help them stay on the path with Jesus.  Never forget that we all walk that same path.  Judge lovingly.