Judge Not

"Judge not" is a good word, spoken by none other than Jesus himself. With the proviso, "lest ye be judged."

Which is a good thing, both to be judged by God, and then, with all sincerity and whatever shreds of integrity we can gather around ourselves from the bits and pieces of life, to render judgment.

Here's the full text of the Matthew 5 passage:

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with thejudgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you givewill be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out ofyour eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, firsttake the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly totake the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

Judgment, as Bonhoeffer did ... a slow and arduous process ... but called for by the very nature of history.

From his book, "Ethics,"

The responsible man acts in the freedom of his own self, without the support of men, circumstances or principles, but with a due consideration for the given human and general conditions and for the relevant questions of principle. The proof of his freedom is the fact that nothing can answer for him, nothing can exonerate him, except his own deed and his own self. It is he himself who must observe, judge, weigh up, decide and act. It is man himself who must examine the motives, the prospects, the value and the purpose of his action. But neither the purity of the motivation, nor the opportune circumstances, nor the value, nor the significant purpose of an intended undertaking can become the governing law of his action, a law to which he can withdraw, to which he can appeal as an authority, and by which he can be exculpated and acquitted. For in that case he would indeed no longer be truly free. The action of the responsible man is performed in the obligation which alone gives freedom and which gives entire freedom, the obligation to God and to our neighbour as they confront us in Jesus Christ. At the same time it is performed wholly within the domain of relativity, wholly in the twilight which the historical situation spreads over good and evil; it is performed in the midst of the innumerable perspectives in which every given phenomenon appears. …. … responsible action is a free venture; it is not justified by any law; it is performed without any claim to a valid self-justification, and therefore also without any claim to an ultimate valid knowledge of good and evil. Good, as what is responsible, is performed in ignorance of good and in the surrender to God of the deed which has become necessary and which is nevertheless, or for that very reason, free; for it is God who sees the heart, who weighs up the deed, and who directs the course of history.

None of us can escape the judgment of God, and none of us can eschew making judgments about the people we know, or hear about ... judgments not made hastily, or without deliberate consideration and humility, or without regard for God's judgment upon our own life - what we value and how we conduct ourselves.

When reminded by others about judgment (which is a good thing of which to be reminded), I remind them that all the writers of Scripture rendered judgment on others ... and made it clear that there are boundaries, rules of engagement, doctrines, ideas that define the heart and soul of faith ... and there are those who take license with such things, who, for devious reasons, alter the "truth of Christ" and create "another gospel."

In 2 Corinthians 2.17, Paul writes:

For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.

Peddlers?

Rather a stunning judgment, would you not say?

Yet Paul had all the right in the world to render such judgment, not because he was always right, but because of his labor of love, his learning and experience, his determination to set people free from the horrible superstitions and moral codes of so much religion. I'm not suggesting that Paul was always right, but I'll take Paul anytime, even if a grain of salt is sometimes required.

So ... Paul makes it clear: he's not a "peddler of God's Word" ... but, rather, someone who speaks with sincerity as a person sent from God.

Huge claim for himself.

But in a world of all sorts of competing ideas, Paul took a stand.

So did Moses and Jeremiah and Peter and down through the ages, folks like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Huss and Wycliffe, Luther and Calvin ... and of our own time, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mother Teresa or Pope Francis on poverty and justice and immigrants.

It's this, and not that.

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Dr. King makes is clear, abundantly clear, what he refuses:

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction.

And then offers a litany of what he believes:

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. "And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid." I still believe that We Shall overcome!

And that's a judgment ... so help us God.

"You're Wrong. Flat-out Wrong"

"You're wrong. You're flat-out wrong."

So writes the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians (today's lectionary, 4.21-5.1).

Paul cared deeply about the Galatians, and so he writes: "You have adopted another gospel. What's wrong with you?"

Lots of time could be spent on the whys and wherefores of Paul's dispute with the Galatians, but it seems to me much of the issue rests upon two elements: 1) Christian freedom in Christ, and 2) in Christ, by the Spirit, the Fruits of the Spirit.

It seems that the Galatians, after their initial enthusiasm in Christ decided that the Gospel needed some dressing up, and what better clothing to put on the Gospel than the froo froo of the Jerusalem Establishment and a few other things to boot. And with that, says Paul, you've given away your freedom, a freedom hard-won by Christ, and you've descended into a dark world filled with rotten fruit.

What strikes me here is Paul's willingness to "judge" ... call it discernment, call it whatever you will, but Paul says, "This is flat-out wrong."

Of these two systems, says Paul, only one can work - one produces enslavement, the other liberty.

In a world of competing world-views, American Christianity faces something similar - I'll let the reader figure out what I have mind - and Paul might well say, "Open your mouth, and challenge the system that's more about enslavement and the tools of enslavement: fear, oppression, strife and quarrels."

"But," you say, "isn't Paul engaging in strife? Quarrels?"

Indeed, he is. And so does Jesus, and Jeremiah and Moses, too, to name only a few.

And so it goes in our tangled world. So, who's to judge?

Well, Paul for one.

Some strife and quarreling arise out of the struggle for power, dominance and control, and the lies needed to win.

Some arises out of a concern for liberation, justice and the things that make for peace. Think Martin Luther King, Jr. (and how he was bothered by this, and I can hear the same distress in Paul, here and in his letters to Corinth, too. It's not fun to engage like this, but it's needed).

And there are tests to be applied.

The system Paul opposes produces little good and lots of harm, even as it looks so very tempting, what with all of its "success," and the "assurance" that such success produces.

On the other hand, the system Paul espouses, the Gospel he proclaims, produces a great deal of good, summed up in the Fruits of the Spirit and above all else, Freedom! The clean, clear, air of freedom in Christ.

Paul is wiling to engage in strife and quarreling because he cares about people, he's committed to the Gospel, God's restorative justice, and restorative justice requires truth, and truth needs to be defended now and then, in a world where lies can so easily capture mind and heart.

Thank God for Paul's willingness to engage a system of thought in which he saw danger and his willingness to simply, clearly, say of it: "It's wrong. Flat-out wrong."

The Apostle Paul and Big Government

At the heart of Paul's gospel is an idea that strikes a mortal blow against all human pretension and the human inclination to then divide the race between "those who deserve something" and "those who don't."

He read the Text with great care!

It's called grace ... the love of God reaching out to those who cannot reach beyond themselves, their sorrows and their plight.

"None are righteous," says Paul, and therein he demolishes any and ever wall erected by pride of place or power.

In God's eyes, humanity is a pauper of soul, and only by divine largess, both in its initiating and in its sustaining, it is always and forever grace that enables life.

Hence, no one can claim a higher ground, either in the initial awakening, or in whatever good fortune, spiritual or material, may emerge.

Only God's Big Government is big enough to undertake the rebuilding of God's earth - devastated by greed and its demented cousin, War!

The Biblical Message of Grace is the ultimate Liberal Agenda, a Progressive ideal, and when embraced, can only generate the healthiest of all emotions: humility before life, especially if life has been favorable, and kindness toward one another, especially those for whom life has been less than favorable.

No wonder the Medieval Church didn't want people reading the Bible, and no wonder Evangelical Preachers chop it up into tiny little bits and pieces, and then rework it all to become a "personal message of salvation" (which it isn't) or a "Harvard Business Model for Success" (not even close). These are the forces arrayed against Grace, those they tout their own righteousness and speak easily of Jesus, as if they were all his political advisors.

Nevertheless ...

It's God's Big Government, intervening in the affairs of humankind,  injecting massive amounts of spiritual wealth into the human system, that puts Humpty Dumpty together again. 

And to God be the glory ...