To Serve

Homily for Sunday, September 30, 2018

Judgment and mercy. My fellow members of a Wednesday morning contemplative prayer group at Graves Chapel have been pondering together these fundamental concepts of our Christian faith. In our prayers of confession, we expect the judgment of God, but also hope for God’s loving mercy. Since our country’s earliest history, the Puritanical element in American Christianity has presented God’s judgment as harsh, unrelenting. The story of the Fall of Man, of Adam and Eve’s sin and subsequent expulsion  from Eden, is used as the primary example of human weakness and God’s punitive judgment. Contained in Genesis 3, this story of temptation,  disobedience, and judgment has cast a long shadow on human history.  Yet, how often has anyone pointed out to us the significance of one verse in that chapter? Genesis 3:21 has not had the emphasis it deserves,  but in this verse we see how God’s judgment, harsh as it may seem, is always tempered by mercy: “And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife and clothed them.” We have been taught too much, it seems, about the wrath of God and not enough about God’s abiding mercy. Whenever we feel unworthy of mercy or unable to defend ourselves from harsh judgment, I hope we will remember a vision of the Lord God with needle and thread in hand, sewing garments for Adam and Eve.

The current Roman Catholic pope, Pope Francis, has said this about the effects in today’s world of harsh judgement: “We lack the actual concrete experience of mercy. The fragility of our era is this, too: we don’t believe there is a chance for redemption; for a hand to raise you up; for an embrace to save you, forgive you, pick you up, flood you with infinite, patient, indulgent love; to put you back on your feet. We need mercy.” [END QUOTE] If mercy is our world’s greatest need, we ought to consider what it means to move from righteous judgment to mercy. We are called to help others to find their way to such mercy. 

In Biblical terms, what does it mean to be a judge? Today’s lesson from Numbers 11 corresponds to an account recorded in Exodus 18; in both accounts, Moses is advised that he needs help dealing with all of the issues raised and disputes argued by the many people of Israel. Moses is asked to select seventy elders for this task. In the Exodus account, they are specifically called judges and are given the responsibility of hearing and settling cases brought before them. In today’s lesson from Numbers, what the elders do is called “prophesying.” Either way, we are meant to understand that they act with wisdom.  As we might say, the elders use their gifts of judgment in discerning what is right or wrong, fair or unfair as they guide the children of Israel.

“Use good judgment” may have been words of advice given to us by our parents when we were young. It was another way of saying “Use good sense” as we navigate the perils and choices of our lives.  Somehow the idea that each of us is called to use good judgment in making decisions about our own lives has been extended to a troubling tendency to feel we deserve the right to judge others.  This human tendency was clearly an issue in Jesus’s day; how many times did Our Lord instruct his followers, “Do not judge others unless you wish to be judged in the same way”?  We can also turn our apparent need to find fault with others on ourselves. Do you also hear that interior voice sometimes calling yourself “Stupid” or worse? Speaking (or just thinking) a harsh condemnation of myself or others may arise from my own feelings of failure. When we have been told too often how undeserving we are of God’s love, how can we begin to believe that we should expect mercy?

In today’s lesson from the Epistle of James, we hear of a more mutually loving approach to helping each other with our human failings. James writes,”...anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” Isn’t that an interesting idea—that sin is like a kind of illness from which we can be healed, with each other’s loving help and prayer? That sounds very different from the finger-pointing condemnation of sinners to eternal damnation that has, unfortunately, become part of our American religious culture. James, the brother of Jesus, calls us to hold each other accountable, yes, but as an act of love among equals.

What does Jesus himself say, in today’s lesson from Mark, about sin and judgment? One of his disciples asks him to judge the behavior of someone who was not an “official” follower but was casting out demons in the name of Jesus. You might think Jesus would have a harsh word of judgment for such an imposter, but instead he says, “Whoever is not against us, is for us.” In other words, if someone behaves with love and mercy for others, he behaves the way Jesus wants all his followers to behave. For Jesus, that is sufficient.  

In the verses preceding the ones in this lesson, Jesus has drawn a little child from the crowd and taken the child in his arms. As we have been told from the days of our own childhood, Jesus loves the little children. He also uses the idea of childhood as a metaphor for innocence, weakness, and vulnerability. Sometimes, instead of saying “little ones” when he refers to the most vulnerable members of society, Jesus uses the term, “the least of these.” The harsh words he did NOT use for the man casting out demons in his name, Jesus now uses for anyone who would hurt one of the vulnerable ones. He says, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.” That condemnation may very well comprise the strongest words of judgment spoken by Our Lord. Being thrown into the sea with a millstone around our necks? There doesn’t seem to be any mercy in that judgment, and yet this harsh judgment is reserved for a particular type of sinner: anyone who would abuse or take advantage of someone as vulnerable as a child. 

Is that a reason for justice most of us could find acceptable? Let us recall now that the idea of judgment is closely tied to the term justice, although the two terms are NOT equivalent. Justice is what should follow rightful judgment; if the judgment is too harsh, then justice will not prevail. In the most beautiful and eloquent (at least in my ears) explanation in scripture of the Lord’s will for us, we find these words in Micah 6: 8: “He has told you, O Mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” How succinctly all three qualities are tied together in a way that illustrates the necessity of each: without humility and a love for kindness, how can any human offer fair judgment and dispense rightful justice ?  That love for kindness is exemplified, of course, in mercy. 

We are called, it would seem, to remove the stumbling blocks that our society places before the ones most beloved of Christ, the ones he called his little ones. We may ponder what it may take to remove those stumbling blocks as we move forward, but that is probably a sermon for another day. Even so, our own openness to the experience of God’s loving mercy is surely a blessing available to each of us. It can begin with gratitude.

The collect appointed for today reminds us of a reason for such gratitude, opening as it does with the words, “O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity...” O, God... How helpful it could be to remember these words and deeply feel the mercy and pity of God!  AMEN.