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Sunday, December 06, 2009

What Do You Know for Sure?

By Rev. Jerry Herships

 Matthew 7:3-5

³Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ⁴Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

Romans 2:1

2Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.

I realized as I wrote the title for this talk that I might be misleading.  This message is not about faith and doubt.  It is about something that is potentially far more damaging.  It is about something that you and I do every day, probably dozens of times a day.  It has the potential to eat us up inside and when we find someone who doesn’t do it, we run to them and confide in them our deepest darkest secrets.  It is a sign of small mindedness and is the exact opposite of compassion and chances are if you are anything like me, you have done it since you walked in the door tonight.

 It’s judgment.

 Here are what our two verses have to say about it tonight:

Matthew 7:3-5

³Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ⁴Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

Romans 2:1

2Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.

I have almost made it a year.  I preached on Judgment back in February.  This refresher isn’t for you…it’s for me.  In some ways, it helps me recognize that Christianity is not that complicated.  Following in Jesus’ foot steps is simple…but not easy.

There are only so many core messages that Jesus spoke to:

• Love
• Compassion
• Fear
• Judgment
• Grace
• Forgiveness
• Attachment to this world
• Creating a better world.

And he spoke on some of those more than once.  Jesus repeated his message more than once in three years…I was able to go for almost a year…see, here I am judging myself.

Now, I know a lot of pastors that don’t repeat.  What they do end up doing is preach on some weird esoteric subjects.  I hear their topic and think that I already don’t want to hear about that.  See, I would rather talk three times on love and the lack of it and what we need to do about it, than preach on substitutional atonement, transubstantiation and Schleiermacher’s understanding of salvation.  (Incidentally, Schleiermacher is often called the “Father of Modern Protestant Theology.”  And, I do enjoy talking about him…I just don’t know how much he will help you get through your week.

So I am going to talk a bit more about Judgment tonight.  It is clear from our two passages tonight that both Jesus and Paul were not the biggest fans of judgment.

Let’s first look at the Matthew verse.  For me the biggest deal regarding this verse is that we need to know what the passage means by, judgment.  In the Greek, krino, has a broad meaning.  It means everything from aesthetic judgment, Wow, that’s pretty,” to court proceedings “we find the defendant guilty.”  It is believed that, in this passage, Jesus is stating it to mean, “be critical of” or “condemn.”

It was kind of cool that when were in Israel we went to Zappori.  Zappori was a town nearby Nazareth and it was a town that had a lot of construction going in it in Jesus’ day.  Traditionally, it is understood that Jesus was a carpenter but it is probably more accurate that Jesus was more like, what we would consider, a stone mason.  If there was every any confusion about Jesus being of the common man put those thoughts to rest.  Jesus probably went to Zappori to work on building the city.  That’s where the work was.  Jesus was a construction worker.  This was a town where Jesus would have been exposed to a lot of things that he wouldn’t have been exposed to in a smaller town like Nazareth.  Zappori was more cosmopolitan.  It even had a theater.  We went and stood in that theater. 

When we look at this passage we see Jesus telling the crowd not to be a hypocrite.  Do you know the origin of the word hypocrite?  It is a Greek term that comes from the theater.  It means I play a part.  Derived from the verb, “Judge” (»κρίση, "judgement" »κριτική (kritiki), "critics"), it was probably one of the words that Jesus picked up while he was working in Zappori, and if he was working in construction, he probably picked up a few more words that didn’t make it into his teaching. 

We see in this passage Jesus knowing that judgments WILL be made, with regards to discrimination and not necessarily condemnation.  It’s more about before you “fix” other people’s little problems; fix your own bigger one.

In Roman’s, Paul is talking about the GOOD NEWS, that on the final judgment day, those that have been oppressed and suffered injustices will be set right.  Things will be made right.  Still, he is coming at us from the angle that it is in judging others that WE are the ones that look bad.  The verdict you pass down to them is the same verdict that you will receive. 

I will catch myself saying and even thinking some really judgmental stuff.  I am especially susceptible, because I already have been put in this position of “authority” and it is amazingly easy to adopt an elitist attitude.  This is EXACTLY what Jesus rallied against during his time on earth.  His beef was with the religious authorities.  It was with people who held MY position that he was upset with.  He was upset with the leaders that ignored the 2 cents that the widow put in the offering but made a big deal when THEY put money in or a big deal when those with lots of wealth put money in.

Jesus ALWAYS sides with the oppressed.  Shouldn’t we?  If we are trying to model the work of Jesus we need to not be judgmental of those out in the world but at the same time ask ourselves, “Who is doing the oppressing?  Who is perpetrating injustice?  Who is abusing the system and how can we fix it?”  Our job is to do the hard work on ourselves and bring the Kingdom of God down to earth.  Jesus came here to teach us how to love each other not judge each other.

That judgment can often lead to people giving “advice”.  Do you know these people?  Those that always want to give you advice…even when you never asked for any?  My dad use to tell me, “Jerry, don’t give advice.  The wise don’t need it and the dumb won’t heed it.”

There is a time to be selfish.  That time is in regards to judgment.  Focus on working on yourself first, THEN more on down the line.  I know so few perfect people.  I have so many things to deal with in regards to myself, I sometimes think it is silly that I come up here to give you all any advice.  We preachers like to call it, “A Message.”  This is part of my job description though so the best I can do is walk along side of all of you and try to figure this out together.

Judging others is like poison.  It eats you up inside.  It also doesn’t make you look all that great to the outside world.  You know those folks that are always criticizing something?  They aren’t very attractive.  And, I don’t mean in a Johnny Depp, Zac Ephron, or Brittney Spears kind of way.  Judgment just looks…ugly.

Truly, only God knows the whole story so it would seem to me that God would be the best one to make any kind of call.  When we are judging others…we are playing God. 

It reminds me of the card I use to carry in my wallet.  It looks like this:

Dear Jerry,  You love ’em, I’ll judge ’em.  Signed, God.

I don’t know if you have heard this story but it is about the guy who lives in New York and he is riding the subway with his three kids all under the age of 5.  They are…shall we say…a spirited bunch, running up and down the middle of the car and swinging around the poles.  After watching for a few minutes a woman makes a snide remark, “I see you are one of those parents that believe in letting your children run free?”  The man replied, “Sorry if that is bothering you. They normally aren’t like this but we are returning from their mom’s funeral and it was a long day and I just don’t have the energy to reprimand them.  I am just trying to figure out how to go on from here.

We never know the whole story.  I am going to try to think about that the next time someone goes speeding around me, or a woman is trying to control three kids while shopping at Wal-Mart, or I have a co-worker that is doing things that make absolutely no sense.  We never know the whole story.  Ask yourself the next time you catch yourself ready to make a judgment, “What do I really know for SURE?”