Judgment

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, October 4, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 7:1-5.

            “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”  That’s probably one of the most quoted verses in the whole Bible.  You hear it all the time, right?  “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”

            Of course, we usually quote that right after we’ve done something we know we should not have done.  We quote it after we’ve been called out for having done something we know goes against common opinions of right and wrong, good and bad.  We say it, of course, to try to avoid taking responsibility for our actions.  We used as if it was a divinely-given Get Out of Jail free card.  “You don’t have the right to judge me!  Jesus said so!  Only God can judge me!”

            Now there is truth in that.  At least in the last sentence.  God will judge us.  And in the end, that’s the judgment that’s going to be the most important one of all.  Yes, we can try to use Jesus’ statement to avoid the judgment of human beings, or at least to make ourselves feel better about that judgment, if we want to.  But there is nothing we can do to avoid God’s judgment.  And God’s judgment is final--there is no higher court to appeal to.  Human judgment can be wrong, but God’s judgment is always right, and it is always put into effect.

            But let’s look at the rest of it.  We can probably agree that Jesus did not mean for us to use this statement as a way to avoid responsibility for what we say or do.  But what did he mean?

            Well, first of all, let’s look at who Jesus was talking to and who he was not talking to.  He was not talking to people who may be on the receiving end of judgment.  He did not say, “If you ever feel like someone is judging you, here’s something you can use in your defense.”  Jesus was talking to the people who might be doing the judging.

            But did he really mean it literally?  Did he mean that you and I cannot judge that actions or words of other people?  That would lead to an attitude of “anything goes”, right?  If I cannot say that anything you do or say is wrong, and if you cannot say that anything I do or say is wrong, then everything is allowable and nothing is forbidden.  Is that really the kind of society Jesus believed in?

            Well, no, I don’t think so.  Remember, Jesus believed in Jewish law.  In fact, in this same speech, the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew Chapter Five, Jesus says this:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.  Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 

Jesus did not have an “anything goes” philosophy.  Jesus believed in right and wrong, in good and evil.  And Jesus had no doubts about which side he was on.

But the thing is, when people quote that sentence about not judging, a lot of times they stop right there.  But look at the next sentence.  Jesus said this:  “In the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Does that remind you of anything?  It’s the same principle Jesus used when it comes to forgiveness.  In the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  And right after giving us the Lord’s Prayer, in Matthew Chapter Six, Jesus says, “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  And there are other examples in the Bible of Jesus saying pretty much the same thing.

When it comes to things like judgment and forgiveness, Jesus is pretty clear.  If you and I want God to forgive us, we’d better be willing to forgive others.  If you and I want God to show mercy to us, we’d better be willing to show mercy to others.  If you and I want to feel God’s grace, we’d better be ready to extend grace to others.

In a way, it’s sort of the reverse of the Golden Rule.  Jesus told us that we should treat others the way we would like others to treat us.  Here, Jesus is saying the way we treat others will determine how God will treat us.  

And that’s all consistent with what comes next, too.  Jesus says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?”

Again, Jesus is not talking to a person who’s on the receiving end of the judgment.  He’s talking to the one who might be doing the judging.  And he’s saying, look, anyone who’s going to judge someone else had better have their own life in order.  If you’re going to tell someone else what they’re doing wrong, you’d better make sure you’re doing things right first.  Because, again, the standard by which we judge others is the standard by which God is going to judge us.

So, what does that mean for our lives?  Does that mean that, if we see someone going down the wrong road, we should never say anything to them?  That we should let them continue going down that wrong road, because after all, we make some mistakes, too?

Not necessarily.  I’ve told you before that I’m very fortunate that, at some important times in my life, people loved me enough to tell me what I was doing was not right and that I needed to change some things.  Maybe you’ve had that happen, too.  I did not like hearing it at the time, but after I looked back on it, I could see how lucky I was that they did that for me.  Had they looked at me and said, “Well, I’ve got to let Jeff keep doing things the way he’s doing them, because I have no right to judge him”, my life would not have gone as well as it has.  So yes, sometimes the most loving thing to do is to call somebody out when they’re headed down the wrong road.

But it’s something we need to do carefully.  And one of the things we need to be careful about is our attitude.  When we try to correct someone in this way, are we truly doing it because we love them?  Or are we doing it for some other reason?  Are we approaching them with love and forgiveness and grace and mercy?  Or do we have some other motivation?   Are we acting in the way we would want someone to act toward us, if the situation was reversed?  

Those are tough questions.  Knowing our own motivations can be a tricky thing.  It can be hard, sometimes, for us to know what our real motivations are.  It can be really easy for us to convince ourselves that we’re acting for totally pure and selfless reasons when in fact, that’s not really the case.  And the thing is that, a lot of times, we don’t even realize we’re doing it.  The sad fact is that, quite often, the biggest lies we ever tell are the lies we tell ourselves.  I don’t know if that’s true of you, but I can think of times when it’s been true of me.  The reason I can talk about this stuff is that I’ve done it myself.

And that’s probably one of the biggest reasons Jesus warns us against doing this, or at least to be really careful about doing it.  Because Jesus understood human nature better than you or I ever could.  Jesus understood human nature from two standpoints.  He understood it from the human standpoint, because he was fully human.  And he understood it from a divine perspective, because he was fully divine.  Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves.  And Jesus knows how easy it is for us to tell ourselves what we want to hear and then to convince ourselves that what we’ve told ourselves is true.

Jesus did not tell us we should say “anything goes”.  But Jesus did say we need to be careful about judgment.  Because the way we judge others will determine the way God judges us.  If we want God to forgive us, we need to forgive others.  If we want God to give us mercy, we need to give mercy to others.  And if we decide that we can judge someone else, God is going to judge us by that same standard.  And if we cannot stand up to judgment by that standard, there will be consequences for us.

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”  Jesus did not give us a Get Out of Jail Free card.  Jesus gave us a warning.  And when Jesus gives us a warning, we’d probably better pay attention.