Don't Be So Quick To Judge

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Don’t Be So Quick to Judge

These three commandments are what I like to call “The Big Three”. These are the ones that it are hard to preach because they are so easy. Don’t go around cheating on your spouse. That’s bad. Don’t take stuff from other people. Also bad. Do not kill people. That’s super bad.

Now, it is a communion Sunday and I try to keep the sermon a little shorter on Sundays with extra stuff happening, but not that short.

Sure, we could go into a few nuances. What about capital punishment? What about unmarried folks? What about “finders keepers”? That sort of thing. I was talking to a colleague about this the other day and we got way off the rails debating things like if it’s murder to buy something you know was made under dangerous and unethical circumstances that lead to horrible things like factory collapses and other negligent deaths.

But when we do that, we’re just splitting hairs and trying to nitpick the law like the pharisees who got on Jesus for plucking grain on the Sabbath. We have completely missed the forest for the trees.

The other trap that’s easy to fall into with these commandments, and perhaps easier to fall into than picking them apart like that, is that of separating “those people” from us. We set up in our minds the sort of person who would do those things and we categorize them as worth less or as a lessor sort of person. We like to be put in a different category than people who commit those sins.

I spend alot of time in the jail. My friends love to joke about it, I’m there so often. “Oh, I see they let you out this time.” “Going to jail, huh? What did you do this time?” I think partly I just hang around a bunch of funny people and partly, humans like to use humor to diffuse things or lighten a mood. And when it comes down to it, there are, in our cultural mind, people who go to jail or prison and people who don’t. The people who do go to jail are bad and the people who don’t are good. The people who do things like murder or steal are bad and the people who don’t are good.

But here’s the thing: I’ve met alot of good people in jail.

In fact, I’ve never met a bad person there.

I’ve met alot of people who have made bad choices because of their circumstances. I’ve met alot of people who have made bad choices because of addiction or un-cared for mental health. But I’ve never met a bad person there.

When you teach the same class term after term for enough years, you start to hear yourself say the same things over and over. One of the things I find myself saying frequently in class at the jail is, “You are a unique and important person and you are fully capable of being the incredible person God made you to be.” I knew that always struck a chord with the women when I said it, but I didn’t realize how much until one day when one of the women teared up and said, “Nobody has ever said that to me before.”

It’s easy to think you’re a bad person when nobody has ever told you you’re capable of being better.

Clue

I like to tell my kids, “Always remember there is nobody out there who is more important than you and there is nobody out there who is less important than you.”

What Jesus is saying in is along those lines. “Always remember that there is nobody out there who is better at avoiding sin than you and there is nobody out there who is worse at avoiding sin than you.”

We’re all in the same boat, sisters and brothers.

Think you’ve got this not killing people thing on lock? Guess again, because there is not a one of you who has never been spitting mad at someone before. If I go a day without thinking or saying “You fool!” at someone, it’s a miracle.

Sure, Jesus is using hyperbole here. Jesus loves hyperbole and so do I. He’s not saying that yelling at someone does the same amount of damage to the community that killing them does. He is saying that both are just as much sin, though. There is no hierarchy of sins.

There is a cute sitcom I started watching this summer called “The Good Place”. It’s about a group of people who have died and are now in the afterlife. The decision about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell is made based on a points system. Each sin has a different negative point value attached to it and each good deed has a positive point value. If you get a high enough score in life, you go to heaven. If you don’t, you go to hell.

Cute show, terrible theology. That is not AT ALL how this works.

We are all just as much sinners as every man and woman sitting in our jails and prisons.

Experience

Grace in the World

Tom Wright, in Matthew for Everyone says that:

Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–15 On Murder and Reconciliation (Matthew 5:21–26)

In particular—and this is very striking—reconciliation takes precedence even over worship. Jesus imagines someone getting all the way into the Temple courtyard, buying a sacrificial animal on the way, and suddenly remembering (as well one might, when approaching the presence of the loving and holy God) some relationship that has gone wrong. The scene then becomes almost comic. It takes about three days to get back to Galilee, where most of Jesus’ hearers lived. He cannot seriously have imagined an anxious worshipper leaving a live animal sitting there in the Temple courts for a week while they scurried back home, apologized to the offended person, and then returned to Jerusalem. As so often in his teaching, he seems to be exaggerating to make the point. The point is that you must live, day by day, in such a way that when you come to worship there is no anger between you and your neighbour, your sister, your brother. Impossible? Jesus implies that it isn’t, now that he is here to show the way.

Reconciliation takes precedence even over worship.

Healing relationships is a priority over what we are doing right her and right now because what we do when we gather here in this place on Sunday morning can’t fully be what it’s meant to be if we come to it bringing our broken relationships. That includes personal relationships with individuals AND our relationships with groups of people.

Anticipate

That is hard to do.

It’s hard to admit when we are wrong.

It can be quite painful to have to say to someone, “I haven’t treated you with the value you deserve.”

But what can give us the courage to do that is this reminder from Jesus that we are all on equal ground and reconciliation has to be our top priority.

The church’s mission in the world is to bring healing to relationships and communities. We’re not here to tell people how many points they have toward heaven or how far in the hole they are because of all their sin. We’re here to spread the good news that God’s love is for all of us.

God’s love is for every person sitting in the county jail, the state correctional institution, the federal prisons every bit as much as it is for you and I. God’s love is for the murders and the haters, the adulterers and the lusters, the thieves and the greedy.

There aren’t bad people, there’s just broken community. It’s our job to get out there and help heal that broken community.

Prayer Prompt

Where is the community around us broken? Where can we be examples of God’s healing love and reconciliation?

What relationship(s) in your life are in need of reconciliation? Who do you need to be reconciled with or offer reconciliation to before coming back to worship next week? (Note: please do not place yourself into or back into a dangerous situation by doing this. Some people do not respond in healthy ways. In those cases, we might have to let go of hurt or anger in our heart without talking to a person.)

Let us Pray

Almighty God, we pray for all those around us who are suffering from broken, unhealthy relationships and from stereotypes and stigmas put on them by the world around us. We ask for your healing for them and for all the relationships in our lives. Help us to remember that there is nobody out there more important than us and there is nobody out there less important than us.

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