Judgement

This is a sermon based on the reading from Matthew 18:15-20 last Sunday

Jesus tells his disciples how to handle a person that “sins” against you. If the person sins against you, go to them and point out their fault. If they don’t listen to you , take two or three others with you. If they still don’t listen, then tell it to the church. If they STILL don’t listen, “let such a one be to you as a tax collector and a Gentile.” Then Jesus says to them – “Whatever you bind on earth, will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”.

This comes from another pastor’s writing – “A man once told me, ‘I’m not coming to you’re church… too many hypocrites go there.’ ‘Please joins us’, I replied, ‘One more won’t hurt.’ By the way, if you ever find a church with no hypocrites, don’t go there, you’ll ruin it.”

In a previous church there was a person that I had heard was telling things about me behind my back. These were things that were untrue, misleading, and destructive!

What would you do? How would you have handled this?
A question I have asked my self a lot during my ministry is: “What would a healthy family do?” How would a healthy family deal with conflict, change, etc. They deal with these things through healthy responses.

Well, I called her, asked her to meet me somewhere, and basically I said – here’s what I heard, here’s who I heard it from. Is it true? They said yes. So then I told them back-stabbing and bad mouthing a person behind their back is destructive and not cool! I continued, saying if they had a problem with me and/or what I have been doing, they should come and talk with me personally so we can deal with these things in healthier ways! We might agree or not, but that’s better than what they were doing. Ultimately they didn’t stop… and kept up the destructive behavior. You can lead a horse to water, as they say. I learned you can’t “make” people get healthy. You can only model it, and keep the expectations of healthy behavior high.

In the Gospel story Jesus tells his disciples to go through this process as described in Matthew 18, and then says “treat them as a Tax Collector and a Gentile.” Now, for Jews of the time, tax collectors were seen as traitors and worthy of nothing but scorn and loathing. Is he asking them to reject the people that don’t “repent”? Ostracize them? Kick them out? Shun them? Sounds like it. Sounds like judgment!

So what do we make of judging? Luke 6:37 – Do not Judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you won’t be condemned.
Then look at the Matthew 18 reading from today. Are there contradictions there? Judge – Don’t Judge.

Here’s a distinction I make about judging – “Salvation” is God’s business. We ought not judge about THAT! That is not up to us! We have NO IDEA who’s going to heaven and who’s not!
However, I think we ARE to judge “behavior”. I have heard people say “We shouldn’t judge”, meaning behavior. But we do it all the time… and we should. I tell them, “If I hit you, what would you think of that? Wrong or right?” Of course they agree with me that it’s wrong. So… You judged! That’s about protecting boundaries. And having a healthy sense of boundaries is important! Back to the Healthy Family thing - In fact, the healthiest people seem to have a healthy sense of personal boundaries. How many of you have a hard time saying “No.” That’s a personal-boundary thing. The healthiest people say “no” when they need to. That’s just one example. So… is there such a thing as “Healthy Judging”? Is it ever healthy to kick someone out of your life? If the person is destructive… you bet your boopie it is! But… when do you make that choice?

We may not always get it right… but if we’re a person of ethics, struggling with the issues of Right and Wrong is important.

Let me ask you… Is killing wrong? Would you accept in your midst a person convicted of murder… or attempted murder? This is a “theory” question. Let’s get down to where the rubber meets the road.

Here’s a real life story – Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian before and during the Nazi regime of World War II. He did not agree with what the Nazi’s were organizing. He noticed the majority of the German church had bought into Hitler’s ideas. They had mostly sold out to them. He thought what Hitler taught was an affront to humanity. So he decided to leave Germany and came to the US. But as time went on, he felt more and more the call to go back to Germany and make a difference through action. So he returned to Germany.
He involved himself in a plot to kill Hitler. The plot was discovered, he was arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to death. But Bonhoeffer was a man of faith, a Christian… a PASTOR? Wait a minute… this doesn’t make sense?
From an account off the web: “A decade later, a camp doctor who witnessed Bonhoeffer’s hanging described the scene – ‘The prisoners… were taken from their cells, and the verdicts of court martial were read out to them. Through the half-open door in one room of the huts, I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devoutly and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued in a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I have worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.’”

So, knowing what you know about Hitler, is killing wrong?

How about this… If you were a pastor, would you ever deny anyone Communion? The church has for many centuries regarded the last half of the reading about Jesus telling his disciples what they bind on earth would be bound in heaven, and what they loose on earth would be loosed in heaven, as part of the pastoral use of the means of grace, and that might involve denying someone Communion for the greater good. Communion on the one hand an expression of unity. It implies a deep connection to core values. Yet it also calls for a degree of integrity in our lives. It lifts up the ideals of a healthier way of living; spiritually, morally, ethically. What if we don’t live up to that? Would we not be allowed to communion? How many of us would not be allowed to communion?

Pastors, as I mentioned, are theologically allowed to deny people communion to someone that is unrepentantly destructive and/or sinful. This is exactly the Matthew 18 text above.

Would you have denied Hitler communion? Could I deny someone Communion? Possibly. When I did prison ministry, I was with convicted murderers, with convicted child molesters, and people who have done a whole array of destructive acts. Guess how many times in my almost 10 years of ministry I have denied anyone Communion? Zero.

I could have, I guess. I also believe in Grace!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed in Grace as well. He distinguished two types of Grace; Cheap Grace, and Costly Grace. From his book, Cost of Discipleship;

Cheap Grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

Here’s an example of Costly Grace, Grace that reminds you the cost, a reminder that changes the course of you r life. Do you remember the final scenes of the movie Saving Private Ryan? Tom Hanks played Captain Miller, a man whose mission was to take 7 men and find the last surviving brother of a family, private James Ryan. At the beginning of the movie, after they received their mission to find Ryan, it was a thing they had to do in order to get closer to home. But as the movie continued, they began to make the mission personal. They had to keep this young man alive!
In one of the final scenes, Captain Miller is mortally wounded. As the battle is finishing, Ryan remains unharmed, and finds himself kneeling by the dying body of Captain Miller. Captain Miller whispers, “Earn this!”
By the end of the movie we see a very much older James Ryan at the grave of Captain Miller in the American Cemetery in Normandy France. Here’s the scene from the movie.

Old James Ryan [addressing Capt. Miller’s grave] My family is with me today. They wanted to come with me. To be honest with you, I wasn't sure how I'd feel coming back here. Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I tried to live my life the best that I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that, at least in your eyes, I've earned what all of you have done for me. Ryan’s Wife: James?... [looking at headstone. She reads:] Ryan’s Wife: Captain John H Miller. Old James Ryan: Tell me I have led a good life. Ryan’s Wife: What? Old James Ryan: Tell me I'm a good man. Ryan’s Wife: You are. [She walks away] Old James Ryan: [He stands back and salutes the grave of Captain John H. Miller]

We can assume Ryan spent the rest of life from that moment on the bridge trying to live up to this, living as best as he could. Wouldn’t an experience like that make you want to live a life as honorably and with as much integrity as you could?

Have you ever experienced Grace like that?
Grace that lifts you back up to your feet when you fall down…
Grace that pulls you back from the edger of the abyss…
Grace that opens your eyes to see life in a new way…

Grace like that puts it all in perspective… even judgment!