February 5, 2023
Matthew 7:1-14, 24-29

In today’s passage from Matthew, Jesus gives his concluding instructions during the Sermon on the Mount.

So far, Jesus has told the gathering who would be blessed in the coming kingdom and has offered instructions in the proper way to pray.

The entire Sermon on the Mount is about relationships. … our relationship with God … our relationship with the world … our relationship with ourselves … and in today’s passage it’s about our relationship with the people who come into the sphere of our lives … how they are viewed through the frames we each provide and how we interact with them based on that view.

Those hearing Jesus’ sermon … including us … are called to consider what sort of life is shaped by faith in God’s reign … and to consider how well the life we lead fits into the coming kingdom.

In today’s passage, Jesus reminds the gathering of the law of the prophets … what we call the Golden Rule. I think it’s worth noting that Jesus flips the prophets’ words and makes our actions the focus on the rule, rather than our response to others’ actions. 

In essence, how you treat others is how they will come to treat you.

 “Do not judge,…” Jesus tells the gathering at the beginning of the reading. But did he really say that?

This is one of those times when the translation from the original Greek does us a bit of a disservice. It uses a word more palatable and easier on modern audiences’ ears.

The translation we heard today has Jesus telling the people not to judge others for behaviour that they themselves practice or worse. We embrace this translation when we say things like “it’s not for me to judge” or when we simply remain silent and accept things the way they are.

But a more accurate … and a better translation is one that calls on the people not to “condemn” others. 

This means not considering someone irredeemable or unworthy of mercy.

Avoiding condemnation rather than judgement … I think … makes sense when we reflect upon Jesus’ sermon. 

After all, we judge all the time … we judge situations … we offer critiques … we judge the people who create unfair situations … and unfortunately … we even allow appearances or lifestyles to lead us to judgement. We should avoid those last two.

And throughout Jesus’ sermon he has been calling on people to judge. … to judge the world … to judge themselves and to judge their neighbours for behaviours ill-fitting the reign of God.

Jesus told the disciples and the people on the mount to discern and reflect upon their relationships … and there is an element of judgment whenever you discern or reflect upon something.

Some would hear this passage and argue that it means we can never be critical … that we cannot look at circumstances or actions and judge them as being good or bad. 

That is a lazy, apathetic approach that draws us away from our life of discipleship.

To do this means that we would have to turn a blind eye to evil or oppressive systems. Without judgement, we give tacit approval to such circumstances.

And I don’t believe that is the intent of Jesus’ sermon.

In Matthew, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees and religious leaders for being hypocrites or self-serving status seekers. How can we recognize such actions in our world without being at least a little judgmental?

Scholar Craig Koester says that to refuse to be critical, enables unjust circumstances to continue. 

He explained in a podcast on this morning’s passage, “That would mean that you can’t say ‘no’ to anything … that you can’t say ‘that’s unacceptable.’ That means, you’re just enabling destructive patterns.”

God wants us to live under the same standard … one that has love at its centre and one that calls us to behave better … to be accountable for our words and actions … even for our approach to others.

The Sermon on the Mount… especially today’s passage … calls for us to first look at ourselves and our beliefs and actions… to hear our own words … even before they are spoken. It calls us to place our words and actions in relationship to those of others before we judge.

Jesus tells the gathering … and us … that we should determine our role in unhealthy, dysfunctional or destructive patterns.

And once we recognize our roles … our failings … our prejudices and recognize our responsibility … then we are better able to answer our call to give voice to the situation … to affirm and support the victims of it … and act in a way that addresses these patterns … these issues and attitudes.

This is when we call out social injustices … acts of racism … acts of violence and oppression against the LGBTQ2+I community or other instances that are contrary to our call to foster inclusiveness and facilitate reconciliation among the peoples.

Of course, Jesus places limits on how we are to judge … specks and logs, after all.

Through our judgments in our lives and in our congregational life, we exclude people who we deem unworthy. We exclude people who are different from us … whose challenges we don’t understand and don’t want to. 

The hypocrisy of those moments are condemning … and we are condemned by them, as well. 

In such moments, the church suddenly finds itself on a foundation of sand … instead of the bedrock of love and grace. Faith communities are judged by their members’ words and deeds and pay the price when they are judged to be hypocritical.

The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t reject judgment … the ability to determine if we are keeping the law … and if we are living into … and sharing … the promise of the Gospel. 

Judgement doesn’t mean the absence of grace … in fact, I think it helps facilitate grace in circumstances that are unfair and or filled with self-interest. 

On the other hand, condemnation … the better translation … means we are withholding mercy. It means that our hearts do not forgive … it means we consider someone beyond redemption. And that’s definitely not a grace-filled act. 

Because the more that we keep grace at the forefront, the more it will influence our relationships with those inside and outside the faith community. We then begin to see people not for what they have done, but what Christ has done for them in his grace. It allows us to forgive more freely. It allows us to approach someone else’s missteps with greater humility and patience. It removes a hindrance from our ministry to others.

It creates in us a desire to follow Christ more closely in our lives outside the church so that others may come to see the wonder of God’s grace … and know that this abundant unconditional love is present for them too … judgement-free and rock-solid.

AMEN