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September 28, 2003
The Role of Judgment in the Life of a Christian
The Role of Judgment in the Life of a Christian
Psalm 27 / Job 8: 1-13
Luke 6: 37-38
September 28th, 2003
Last Sunday we remembered the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.” This is one of Jesus’ all-time favorite sayings, even though we find it hard to treat others as we wish they would treat us.
Second to the Golden Rule among Jesus’ all-time favorite sayings is, “Judge not that you be not judged.” In a day when “diversity” is a popular buzzword, and “individualism” is flown like a banner, “Judge not that you be not judged” seems like a God-sent mandate to promote my freedom of behavior. It’s Jesus saying, “Live and let live.” It says to you, “Get off my case,” when I choose a way of life different from the ethic delivered to us by either the Bible or the wisdom of our forbears.
But let’s think again about this. First, let me remind you that the same Jesus who said “Judge not that you be not judged,” also gave us the parable of the Sheep and Goats. In this scary parable the Son of Man separates all people into two groups. To the right go the “sheep,” the ones who have fed, clothed, and visited in prison the least of these, His brethren—who are Jesus in disguise. To the left go the “goats,” the ones who in the course of life did not feed, cloth and visit in prison the least of these, His brethren. The sheep go to eternal life, the goats to eternal punishment. Does this sound to you like judgment?
Then, let me remind us all that the Jesus who said “Judge not that you be not judged” is the same Person who said, “Not an iota, the smallest piece of a letter of the law will pass away until all is fulfilled.” The laws of God are not temporary and optional. They describe right and wrong. We are accountable.
You and I are now being judged by how we live by God’s standards. We may not always realize it, but our consciences are monitors God has built into us. Like the black box in the airplane cockpit that records the conversations of the pilots, our consciences record what we do. You cannot turn off that black box. When our consciences are healthy, a self-correcting device is at work. We judge ourselves when we step over the line of the law, and respond by self-correcting. Mental illness is sometimes the roar of conscience protesting against our continuing violation of the law of God.
Conscience is the God-given tutor to help us prepare for the day that we will stand before God at the judgment day. Paul wrote, “It is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment.” The voice of conscience reminds us of that judgment day, however little we recognize this.
So, let’s be clear, when Jesus said, “Judge not that you be not judged” He was not telling us that there are no consequences before God on how we choose to live. Jesus is talking about something else here. He is continuing to explain the Second Great Commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Why does Jesus go on and on? Because we don’t get it. He is talking about the endemic human problem of mutual criticism, the judgmental attitude that festers, keeping us from loving our neighbor as ourselves. The Book of Job addresses this human problem.
The subject of the Book of Job is commonly thought to be the mystery of suffering. Why did a good God allow the good man, Job, to suffer?
But an equal theme in Job is the perversity of criticism. How perverse Job’s friends were in criticizing him. Without knowing anything about why he suffered, they condemned him and hung him out to dry. As they watched their friend lose all that he owned, his property, his children, and his health, they taunted him: “You’re getting what you deserve.” If there is any condition that can make suffering worse, it is to be told you’re getting what you deserve—whether or not it is true.
I suppose there is scarcely a topic more fit to discuss than “criticism” on a day when two people are going to exchange marriage vows. When two people live side by side for a long time, they become well acquainted with each other’s flaws. From the star-struck eyes I see in pre-marital counseling, you’d expect that all the wonderful traits of each other would grow like Banyon trees over the years. Unfortunately, it’s more often otherwise. Some husbands and wives become so aware of each other’s flaws that they wonder why they got married at all. Some go their separate ways.
Indeed, some marriages look like two people with logs in their eyes stumbling around the house annoyed with the splinters in their spouse’s eye. It’s a wonder that more vases and lamps don’t get broken, when we see how many log-eyed spouses stumble around in the home. An elephant’s nose sticks out from its face like a log, but is a delicate organ. The end of an elephant’s trunk is as delicate as a lady’s hand. It can pick up a teacup. But the business end of a log-eye is blunt. It is not delicate in the least. It’s no wonder. You and I weren’t made by God to have logs for eyeballs. The greatest problem of the human race is the evolution of log-eyes from eyeballs.
The spirit of criticism spills over into every nook and cranny of life. We’ve entered the moment in the cycle of our political system when candidates eye each other with acute sensitivity to each other’s flaws. Ostensibly, their purpose is to help us voters choose the perfect candidate for office, but we all suspect a smidgen of ambition may cloud their vision of others. But politics is only one arena in which lack of charity blooms.
A critical spirit ruins many friendships. Whom do you consider a former friend who was once your friend because of what he said to you? Paul urges us to “speak with grace, to let our words be seasoned with salt.” James reminds us that the tongue is like a match that sets on fire a forest.
Criticism stings like lemon juice squeezed on a wound. It contaminates many a workplace, many a church. How different it is to work together in the church when we know others are for us rather than against us. We love to quote the Scripture, “If God be for us, who can be against us,” and how good it is when God’s people are for us too. A critical spirit at work in a congregation takes away the joy. It undermines the Gospel. It works like a virus. The most painful problems we face in a church stem from a critical spirit. Few factors can stunt the growth of a church like the undertow of criticism.
Whereas the instinct to notice what is wrong is God-given, and is intended to help us distinguish the false from the true, it has been contaminated. A critical spirit leads us to snipe at others, to bring them down, to vent the harsh winds stirred by our own bad feelings. If only we could see ourselves aright.
We love to remember the most famous louse in history. Robert Burns, the beloved Scottish poet, describes in detail how a louse climbs through the hair of the lady in church, sitting so proper with her bonnet attractively perched on her head. She just knows she’s admired for her piety and proper dress. And all the while behind her someone sees this louse crawling in her hair. He cannot hear the sermon so entranced is he by that crawling little creature. Burns reminds us winsomely that we need to be able to see ourselves as others see us, which would free us from many a false notion. We laugh, but our laughter is uneasy. We rarely see ourselves as others see us.
We defend our stubbornness as resolution. He’s stingy, but I’m thrifty. I’m a man of principle; you’re judgmental. In me it’s good taste, but in you it’s snobbishness. I’ve got self-esteem; you’re arrogant. We harbor our false notions of ourselves uneasily.
When the spirit of criticism works on the global scene, it erupts so tragically. How much of the present crisis in the Middle East might have been avoided if the warring factions were self-critical rather than critical of the other side? Can such a thing happen between peoples? The Jews and Muslim Arabs are both descendants of Abraham. If each recognized in the other his neighbor if not his brother, and loved him as himself, how different our world would be.
Can you imagine a Middle East where every suicide bomber brought a gift of homemade sweets instead of homemade explosive to the other side? Can you imagine it if the bulldozers that destroy homes were replaced with trucks bringing building materials? If only the spirit of criticism of others were replaced with self-criticism! It’s easy for us to see this as we look at this tragedy deepen. Meanwhile, what we can see would work elsewhere we find hard to appropriate in ourselves.
John’s Gospel tells us, “The Son did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” But we seem to believe that one reason why we came into the world is to criticize others. It is to this instinct that Jesus says first, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged.” Then, in case we don’t get the idea He says the same thing in other words, “Do not speak ill of others and they will not speak ill of you.”
So important is this that Jesus goes on to put things in a more positive way, “Be generous, and you will receive generously.” Criticism may be generous, but in a way that steals a person’s good name. Be generous with others in a way that builds their good name.
As if that idea needed further embellishment Jesus said, “Measure out good to others, pressed down, shaken, and running over and others will give the same back to you.” This is not the graceless idea that we will give only to the one who will give something back to us. Instead, Jesus referred to a reflex that works among people. Children who receive encouragement, give encouragement. Adults who grow from children who received encouragement, give encouragement. It is a law of life. This is the giving and receiving Jesus had in mind.
Jesus wanted to be perfectly clear. In a world He was giving His life to save by grace, candidates for grace need to offer grace to each other. In Matthew’s version of the same teaching, Jesus says, “You will be judged with the judgment you give.” Think of this a moment. Not just, “Judge not that you be not judged,” as though it were a possibility. But, “You will be judged with the judgment you give.”
One way I think of Jesus’ appeal to us is that He has invited us to an adventure in largely uncharted territory. Cutting away a critical spirit is like opening the gate to the Kingdom of God. The well-traveled landscape of the kingdom of this world is criss-crossed with mutual criticism, backbiting, tit for tat, quid pro quo, all of that. This spirit of defensiveness and hostility infects every level of society, from the family to the family of nations. The instincts are well traveled to get even, to look out for myself, to cherish my kind of people, to be leery of those who are not my kind.
Jesus says to us, “There is a better way. And this is the gateway. Divest yourself of a critical spirit. You say, “I will if she will.” Jesus says, “No, you’ve got to walk through this gate first by yourself.” You’ll have to walk through the grace-gate by yourself because grace has to operate where it is not deserved. The Bible tells us, “We love because God first loved us.” God took the initiative. He asks us to take the initiative.
When you and I come to Jesus by faith to receive His grace, He enlists us to become little Jesus-es, extending grace. This is the beginning and summary of good theology. You want to understand the mysteries of God? Then study grace, and mimic it.
Grace chiefly looks like an uncritical spirit. I don’t think that people are bothered nearly so much by the fabled hypocrisy in the church as they are bothered by the criticism they expect to receive in it. Jesus says to you and me, “Don’t criticize. Instead, give generously, pressed down, running over.”
For those of you who have claimed Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, the starting point of sharing your faith comes in adopting the way of grace. Those who do not know Jesus as Lord need to see God’s grace illustrated. Grace is irresistible. This is why Jesus says to His disciples, then and now, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” How often the word “you” appears here. Jesus is speaking to you—and me. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
O Lord, may it be so with us as Jesus has taught us. And may we find this way to be our own, that ushers into life the Kingdom of God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2003
The Platinum Rule
The Platinum Rule
Psalm 19 / Deuteronomy 6: 20-29
Luke 6: 27-31
September 21st, 2003
My theme this morning is commonly referred to as “The Golden Rule.” “As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” How often we all have heard this gentle rule quoted. But who can follow it? This behavior is harder to find than gold, so we should call it “The Platinum Rule.”
In the Sermon on the Plain, as we refer to Luke’s version of this teaching, Jesus amplifies the Second Great Commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The first Great Commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength,” was thought about a lot by devout Jews in Jesus’ day. They had refined ways of insuring that people loved God right by keeping the commandments to the nth degree. Indeed, they went beyond what we think is reasonable in trying to insure that it was clear how to love God.
But it is far easier to love God whom we cannot see than to love people whom we can see. So Jesus bore down on the harder part of the Twin Great Commands, the part having to do with my neighbor. The result was the Sermon on the Plain.
In a world filled with animosity, Jesus said: “Love your enemies.” Your enemy is the hardest neighbor to love, but she is still your neighbor. Love her.
In a world contaminated by hatred, Jesus said, “Do good to those who hate you.” The one who hates you is your neighbor. You might find him lying beside the road as the Good Samaritan found the Jewish fellow lying beside the Jericho Road, beaten and bleeding. Jews despised Samaritans, and the Samaritan knew it. He treated this wounded enemy as his neighbor.
In a world where people cursed each other an awful lot—Jews cursing Romans, and Romans cursing Jews, and even Jews cursing fellow Jews, He said, “Bless those who curse you.” In a world where the strong abused the weak, Jesus prescribed the cure, “Pray for those who abuse you.”
In a world where assault and battery was a regular practice, Jesus said, “Turn the other cheek when someone slaps your face.” In a world where there were no electronic security systems, Jesus offered this cure, “Give your coat to the one who steals your shirt.” Today’s application would be, if someone runs off with your TV set, chase him and give him your VCR. When we walk down the street in Chicago and are approached by annoying panhandlers, Jesus offers this solution to this annoyance, “Give to every one who begs from you.”
This spells out who is my neighbor and how to treat him. It shows you and me how to do to others as we would wish them to do to us. It points us in the direction of the Kingdom of God fulfilled, when everyone will be able to turn the other cheek, and everyone will be able to love his enemy. And because everyone is doing this, no one is hitting anyone to begin with. This was Jesus’ goal: the Kingdom of God. Attaining this can only come at great cost. The cost is what Jesus spells out in this Sermon on the Plain.
“These principles will not and cannot work,” we tell the Son of God who said them. They would violate every principle that keeps our grievance lists long and our jails full. But we cannot deny that Jesus said each of these sentences we just read.. They explain the Golden Rule.
I’m tempted to ask then, “Do we believe the Golden Rule?” It is“the royal law according to the Scripture.” It is all about grace as it operates on the human level. We love God for His grace to us. But we must show grace too. Grace, you remember, is favor that is not deserved.
I sometimes ponder the irony that in a land where grace is proclaimed from every pulpit, we so rarely apply it. “Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me” is what will save a wretch like thee. If only grace didn’t have to be extended to wretches. How much easier it is to shower grace on kind people. Grace is impractical in responding to difficult people. Grace will not work to inhibit crime. Don’t get mad, get even, we think. Vengeance is the only thing that will work. Yet vengeance does not work. What do we mean by “work”? Violence works to trigger more violence. We’ve not tried the way of grace that works to interrupt the cycle of the many forms of violence.
We have two problems with Jesus’ Golden Rule. We have a doctrinal problem with it and a practical problem. Doctrinally, we stand with the Apostle Paul against Jesus. Jesus said to do it. Paul said it’s impossible. Why? Because we’re contaminated by sin. Reformed Christian doctrine has elaborated this contamination. The Bible simply says, “All have sinned.” But we have built a fence around this statement as the Pharisees built a fence around the law in Jesus’ day. The Law said, “on the Sabbath you shall do no work.” The Pharisees defined “work” beyond reason.
St. Augustine refined the Scripture’s teaching about sin by defining the idea of “original sin.” Scripture teaches us that Adam’s sin was transmitted to us as part of our nature. But that’s not all Scripture teaches about this. Paul told us that as in Adam all die [because death comes by sin], even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Augustine remembered only the first part of this comparison.
He amplified that sin is more a part of our nature at birth than the instinct to eat. It is possible to stop eating, but it is not possible to rid ourselves of the sin-nature. He deduced the doctrine of “original sin,” from David’s confession in the 51st Psalm, “In sin did my mother conceive me.” We are helpless because it’s genetic.
Thus, an ingloriously refined debate has festered in Christian history between those who say that God would not command us to do what we cannot do, and those who say that God has indeed commanded us to do what we cannot do.
We read this morning in Deuteronomy 6: 24-25 that God commanded Israel to obey His statutes. “It will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.” This was long after the Fall of our first parents contaminated everything. But Israel did not obey the commandments of the Lord. Paul showed us that the benefit of the Law was only in pointing out what sin is. It identifies sin, but doesn’t enable us to live without sinning.
Our Reformed heritage is well known for emphasizing this point. It explains how the Fall of Adam infected the human race with sin. The principle of disobedience to God is part of our warp and woof. Years later the prophet Isaiah remarked, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”
We seldom see our good deeds this way. You and I may be proud of good things that we do. We keep a tally of them, even if others don’t. You think the prophet is being harsh to say, “All these good deeds are like so many polluted garments.” He’s a mean-spirited fellow to say this.
I’ve told a few of you the story of my mother’s experience in India that has stood out to me as an illustration of Isaiah’s words. My mother came into the kitchen to find our cook straining tea through a sock. She was aghast. When Mohammed saw the look on her face he said, “Don’t worry, memsahib, the sock wasn’t clean!” He thought he was doing a doubly good deed by straining tealeaves while not soiling a clean sock. It is an illustration of our good deeds, as Isaiah put it. Our good deeds are like straining tealeaves through a dirty sock. We cannot help it.
So, it is impossible to do what we say we believe, that we should obey the Golden Rule. We are programmed to fail. Even if we’ve come to Jesus in faith, we’re programmed to fail. We cannot follow Him because the new nature given to us in Christ is at war with the old nature. So we are totally incapable of obeying Jesus’ command to love our neighbor as ourself.
Do we really believe this? I don’t. Are we to take every description of the Christian life Jesus gave us and declare it impossible for doctrinal reasons, sinking back into helpless acceptance that we’re programmed to fail? Is God still the potter or not? After Isaiah made his dreary remark about our righteousness being like a polluted garment, he wrote, “Yet, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are all the work of Thy hand.”
Paul wrote that we cannot earn our salvation by being good enough, but he also wrote, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” By “good works” Paul referred to these commands of Jesus, “As you would have others do to you, so do to them.” “Love one another as I have loved you.” “Forgive one another seventy times seven times.” “Gird on a towel and serve each other as I have served you.” Jesus was not wasting breath to say these things.
If you have come to Jesus by faith, Jesus’ words are the definition of how you can increasingly come to live—if you’ll beg God’s help and try hard. The issue is not one of earning our salvation, but of working out our salvation. Of course, we can’t earn our salvation, but then, we don’t even need to. “Jesus paid it all; all to Him I owe.”
We have treated the commands of Jesus that are difficult as though they are not only impossible but also contradictory to good doctrine. We have capitulated to the weakness of human nature as a defect even God is unable to improve. It is as if God is no longer the Potter and we the clay.
We have justified this line of thinking by emphasizing the doctrine of Grace in a certain way. God’s grace, His amazing grace, saves wretches like us, we sing so plaintively. Grace, thank God, abounds all the more where sin abounds. Grace is continually at work behind the scenes as we plod along on our hapless, sinning way.
But do you believe Grace operates behind the scenes and has no bearing on behavior? Indeed, is to think God’s grace should have some effect on our behavior “perfectionism,” an incorrect doctrine? John Wesley was accused of teaching “perfectionism” by people in the Reformed heritage, as though this were a defect. He wrote in his Journal, “I will do all the good that I can, in any way that I can, to every one that I can, in any way that I can.” That’s what grace looks like in operation!
If at the end of time we hear Jesus tell us that we have misused grace, treating it as the reason for not trying to do what He commanded, we may wish we’d never heard about grace at all. God did not let us know about His grace in order to make us think obedience to Him can have no good effort.
After every worship hour you have attended in this place you have heard me pronounce over you the benediction, “Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus . . . make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing to the Lord.” Should I no longer say this?
I think you would tell me not to give up on that benediction. We are, after all, God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that God has before ordained that we should walk in them. To use a good Reformed term, it is a Divine decree that we should exhibit the traits of God’s workmanship, God’s pottery making, abounding in good works. This begins with doing to others as we would have them do to us, and then loving one another as Jesus loved us, forgiving each other seventy times seven times, serving each other tirelessly without thinking of reward.
We do wrong to shape an airtight theology of the impossibility of obeying God. It is an attempt to exonerate our laziness of heart to try. In place of trying to obey Jesus we have substituted an unspoken doctrine of respectability. Regardless of our theological type, all of us have succumbed to an idealism of respectability. It is a way of life that emphasizes keeping up appearances.
A pastor of an earlier generation spoke to his congregation one Sunday morning, “If you should ask me the most common sin here, I should say, ‘respectability’.” By contrast, “The deepest obligation of a Christian, I should suppose, is to be maladjusted to the status quo.”
I ask you this morning to reflect on yourself. Can you see how you essentially perpetuate the status quo? Defuse the tendency at this moment to think I’m speaking to others. It is not I but God who speaks to you on this score. In deepest honesty, before the bar of your own justice, how are you now treating someone, some neighbor, friend, or relative, as you would not wish to be treated? How have you kept this up so that it has defined you? It has shaped your face as well as your heart. What if you were to treat that person who annoys you as you would want to be treated, how would you act differently? Jesus said “Just do it.”
If you and I cling to the doctrine of grace, God’s unmerited favor, convincing ourselves that we do not even need to try to follow the Golden Rule, we are making a scandal of grace. The sin of saving face, of maintaining respectability according to a common tolerance, may be your most grievous sin.
You recognize it in me, but you won’t recognize it in yourself. Jesus says to you, as He says to me, “As you would have others do to you, do so to them.”
Don’t wait until I treat you as you’d like me to treat you. Of course, I’m responsible too, but you can do nothing about me. You can only do something about you. Don’t wait until she forgives you before you’ll speak to her. Don’t wait until that person has apologized to you for what you’ve cherished as a grievance. Jesus tells you and me, “You take the initiative.” If you are a re-actor and not an actor, the ball will never get rolling that will grow from a snow ball to a snowman of grace.
You and I will either continue to be part of the problem or a part of the solution to the problem of this world. You demean God’s grace if you don’t try. Grace will still be needed, because as hard as we try, we’re still infected by sin, and fail. But we can do surprisingly well. The Holy Spirit is not inept. Dare to try to live as you say you believe. Remember “it is God that works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”
Let us pray: O Lord God, We ask for grace to yield to Your will, and so to help spread your grace in this troubled world, lifting high the banner of the cross. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2003
The Peril of a Good Reputation
The Peril of a Good Reputation
Psalm 23 / Proverbs 22: 1-12
Luke 6: 26
September 14th, 2003
Someone from this congregation gave me a “Peanuts” cartoon a few years ago that I displayed on my study door for a long time—before I had grandchildren. It showed Snoopy in a sad frame of mind. Linus asks him what’s wrong. Snoopy says, “Lucy told me I’m a nice dog.” I am not well known for understanding “Far Side” cartoons, and maybe I missed this one. But I think Mr. Schultz was offering a wry interpretation of Jesus’ remark, “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”
This is the fourth and final “woe” in Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount. It may be Jesus saved the most important warning for last.
On the surface this seems an odd general principal based on an unfortunate aspect of Israel’s history. Long before Jesus spoke these somber words the Jew’s ancestors lionized prophets who told them what they wanted to hear. Moses gave Ten Commandments. They preferred ten optional suggestions. They hated prophets who tried to guide them in God’s way, or corrected their violation of God’s commandments.
This grieved God then and Jesus didn’t want it to happen in His disciples’ upcoming ministry. The Hebrew prophet, Jeremiah unfettered the Lord’s anger with their forebears: “They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to every one who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No evil shall come upon you’.”
What is happening in the Episcopal Church now happened in Israel then. As Kenneth Woodward put it recently in Commonweal, “Of the three pillars of Anglican theology—Scripture, tradition, and reason—none was invoked on behalf of bishop-elect Robinson.” The “false prophets” spoke with their ears to the wind, echoing the wishes of the people.
It’s not that Jesus begrudged a prophet who might be beloved, who encouraged Israel, who lifted their spirits when they were down. Jesus encouraged sinners. But Jesus never confused encouragement of people with encouragement to sin. His issue was with prophets who were praised for adapting to the drifting mores of a society as though how we live has no higher mandate that what we want to do. It does matter how we live. False prophets, even if dressed in pulpit robes are a menace to society. “Don’t be one of these,” Jesus said to His twelve disciples.
The grumpy ol’ men like Isaiah and Jeremiah were despised--who took issue with Israel’s predatory business ethics, or with the rich taking advantage of the poor, or with the view that between sexual behavior has little to do with morality. In fact they got pretty harsh treatment for their faithfulness to their task.
It feels good to be liked as a preacher. And preachers know what people like to hear. If you’re a preacher, you discover a force inside you that cultivates the response at 10: 45 AM at the exit door, “Fine sermon, preacher.” And you are reluctant to say again what made people say to you before, “If you want to keep your audience, change your tune.” Pavlov’s experiment with dogs works with preachers. There is a temptation for everyone in my trade to let the ringing sound of “nice sermon, pastor,” influence the message he offers. This happened in ancient Israel, Jesus warned His disciples not to let it happen with them. So Jesus said to His disciples who were about to become preachers, “beware when everyone speaks well of you.”
But maybe you feel a question mark forming on your brow. Is this a general principle against speaking well of anyone? You want to ask Jesus, “Is it always bad to have people speak well of me? Maybe the example of the bad prophets wasn’t the best foundation for so sweeping a statement—“Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you.” Indeed, Jesus did not JUST say, “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you.” The next part of what Jesus said tells us what He meant—it had to do with the momentum caused by praise for those who are champions of what is evil.
Some Christians have the impression Jesus warned against all praise of others. Parents of an earlier generation thought it wrong to compliment their children’s successes for this reason. They didn’t want it to go to their heads. Thus they missed the chance to build the sense of self-worth in their children and to encourage what is good in them.
It’s a small step from this sad notion to the idea that you should never say an encouraging word—something that happens far too often in the market place, in the home, and in the church. St. Paul told us that we are to build each other up. I fervently believe in encouraging you. Our children sang enthusiastically in VBS, “Build each other up.” And speaking well of each other and to each other builds each other up. Was Jesus teaching us not to speak well of and to each other? Not at all.
Didn’t we just read in Proverbs 22: 1, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches?” What is a good name if not a good reputation? One reason why the Apostle Paul chose Timothy as his understudy was his good reputation around town where people knew him well.
Last evening I attended a retirement dinner for one of you. Wonderful things were spoken truthfully and well. This illustrated the proverb, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.”
I think of Coach John Wooden, one of the most admired people in America, a Purdue alumnus it happens to be. Would Jesus say to him, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you,” when we know he wrung his reputation out of peoples’ hearts for the best reasons. Part of his luster is that while fame goes to the heads of some, it did not go to his head. He produced several national championship basketball teams at UCLA. Americans like winners. But it has been his long life lived conspicuously in the limelight above reproach, anchored in his deep faith, that has earned him widespread admiration. Jesus did not say to people whose lives enrich others, “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you.”
In Proverbs 16: 7, we read, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” There is something so majestic about a person’s life lived in obedience to God’s ways that it earns even an enemies’ respect.
What does the proverb mean by enemies? We think of General Lee, the Commander of the Confederate forces, who was admired by Union soldiers during the Civil War. He may have been the enemy general, but everyone knew that he lived his life with integrity before God. Even his enemies knew it and spoke well of him.
Do you think Jesus would say to General Lee, “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,” because Israel spoke well to its false prophets? Clearly not. For him it would be, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
The issue is not THAT someone should be well-spoken of. When Jesus said, “Woe,” He was warning us about the possible corrosive effects of praise.
This final “woe” reminds me that life hinges on far more than the compliments of people. The ancient Israelites were a classic example of praise promoting false prophets’ preaching. The people listened to the false prophet’s popular preaching, loved the sound of their echo of their own uninhibited ideals, and cultivated the sorry way of life they praised--until Israel fell apart.
Jesus was warning people to be careful about who they praise, and for what. Athletic super-stars who can do amazing things with a basketball believe their praise and may think anything they do is remarkable. If only they’d not listened to that praise. It destroyed them.
Adulation promotes what prompts the praise. In our day popular music has sunk to miserable depths both musically and in its lyrics, goaded by adoring masses. The pop stars who shout out coarse and violent lyrics are responding to their public admirers. Why are they admired? For what? Is it anything more than that publicity has made them famous? We watch some of the pop icons today and who cannot feel sad for them. Praise has catapulted them out of the possibility of a decent life. In turn, they have become today’s prophets promoting a way of life young people adopt without thinking of the consequences.
When all restraint has been taken away from sexual expression, when self-control has been rejected as an ideal, exploiting primal instincts of the lowest order, what does the future hold? Much pop music celebrates this way of life.
I hope that you young people will notice what you are listening to. Don’t join the herd. The CD you buy may be encouraging a pop singer whose life is being destroyed by your praise. When you look at the lives of our pop icons, what do you admire? They are feeding into a short-sighted, unhappy way of life for those who praise them.
Perhaps Jesus looked far beyond the risk His disciples would face in trying to make the Gospel popular to a culture such as ours where Christians mingle in society so easily. Did Jesus foresee a culture that markets admiration? Manufactured praise is dictating whom people will admire and for what. It is pushing a way of life that is hurting a lot of people. Jesus was warning us about this.
When John Calvin discussed the Ten Commandments he showed that each one has two sides. The most obvious side is the specific command. “Thou shalt not steal,” means “don’t steal.” But it also commands us to treasure what belongs to someone else for her good. I see you living in a lovely home and I am glad for you.”
I see a similar principle at work in what Jesus is saying. Not only can praise for what is wrong promote a tragic way of life. It can promote a good way of life. It is good to encourage each other in the direction of what is good. The Church should be like the home on the range, “where never is heard a discouraging word.” Here we encourage each other to love and good works. “Let all things be done to build up,” We build up others when we encourage the good.
I think of Phillips Brooks, one of America’s preachers of the 19th century whom I admire most. It was said of him when he walked down the street in Boston that problems for people seemed less severe. Peace seemed to come when he entered a room. The admiration Phillips Brooks induced was well earned, but he didn’t take it to heart. It was not that he didn’t appreciate it, but he knew too well his own heart, and the deceitfulness of popular praise.
Yet the need for approval is built into our fabric, and this need may be satisfied in wholesome ways. As Christians our lives point toward a day when we hope to hear our Lord say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” This is a commendation I wish for you all. Let’s not risk losing that commendation by taking seriously congratulations for what may do us in.
In one of our favorite hymns we sing, “Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise.” This gets at what Jesus taught us. There is empty praise, and there is full praise. Paul taught his child in the faith, Timothy, “Let no one despise your youth, but set an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” Inevitably, the consequence to Timothy of living this kind of life would be admiration, full praise. He was neither to reject what people thought of him, nor take it too seriously. After all, he did not live his life so as to please them, but so as to please God.
You and I cannot help but respond to how people react to us. When they speak ill of us, usually we feel badly. When they speak well of us, we like it better. I see on some peoples’ walls evidence of how good they felt about their commendations. But the deep issues of life are not determined by how others speak of us. While there is some value in some admiration, and it is encouraging to be thanked for what we do that is good, praise can also have bad effect. Live as unto God, and not as unto other people. “Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.” Let your motivation be to please God, and if you find people like what you’re up to along the way, enjoy it.
But don’t take it too seriously because there is a danger that lurks in our instinct to enjoy being well-spoken of. We may lose our discernment at what brings praise. It was this that Jesus was getting at when He told His disciples, and tells us, “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for so your fathers did to the false prophets.”
There are few of us who are so secure that we are above the influence of praise. This influence is part of the fabric of society, and in the end those who have lived well will feel the glow of God’s approval. I pray we may all recognize and accept commendation that encourages us to do well, and recognize and reject praise that leads us badly.
Let us pray: Lord, help us so to live now that when we come to the end of our days we may enjoy your gratitude and hear You say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2003
What Did Jesus Have Against Laughter?
What Did Jesus Have Against Laughter?
Psalm 2 / Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-18
Luke 6: 25b
September 7th, 2003
A common perception of Jesus is that He did not laugh. Children loved Him, and He loved them. “Let the children come to me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Children aren’t attracted to sour looks. But I’ve never seen a picture painted of Jesus in which the artist imagines a laughing Jesus. His face is thoughtful, even expressionless, like the Mona Lisa. So Jesus’ words in this brief statement seem to fit with the common portrayal of Jesus. “Woe to you who laugh now, because you will mourn and weep.”
But Luke has already quoted Jesus otherwise, “Blessed are those who mourn for they will laugh.” It’s a kindly promise. What do we make of this apparent contradiction? What Jesus said first points us in the direction of those promises of joy in the Hebrew Bible. “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” “You shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace.” So what do we do with “Woe to you who laugh now, because you will mourn and weep?”
Nowhere does Jesus or any New Testament writer explain these two very different things He said. So we have the choice of either ignoring this, chalking it up to one of those puzzlers we say is “inspired,” but don’t know what to do with. Or we can ponder it, and ask what Jesus meant.
We know that Jesus had a sense of humor. He could make people laugh. It appears often in His parables. “It’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven!” It’s a verbal cartoon. The desire for wealth can so preoccupy us that we say, “heaven can wait.”
Another time Jesus said, “Take the log out of your own eye before you worry about the splinter in someone else’s eye!” It’s another cartoon. How common a flaw it is to be very perceptive of other peoples’ offenses while being blind to our own.
Jesus most certainly knew the value of humor. When people see their flaws in a way that makes them laugh wryly it works much better than scolding them. Such laughter is good medicine for the soul. So why did Jesus pronounce woe on those who laugh now?
Someone has suggested that Jesus warned against the laughter that takes no thought for tomorrow. He is warning the businessman who laughs at quick but dishonest gain. He laughs all the way to the bank but he will be discovered—and then he will weep in shame. He is telling the college student who wants to party without inhibition, “Look out!”. She binge drinks, and everyone laughs at her drunken antics. She feels high and loves it. Jesus says, “You’re laughing now, but just wait; you’re going to cry you a river. There is a kind of laughter that we know will turn to tears of remorse.
A second kind of laughter that will change to tears is the laughter of the scornful, the kind of people referred to in Psalm 1:1. They laugh at the handicapped, at suffering people, and at sacred things. Their scorn for what is good, true, and lovely will accumulate as steam in a tea-kettle and eventually burst. “Woe to the ones who laugh with scorn for you will weep.”
Or maybe Jesus was calling attention to the attempt to drown out seriousness in life with laughter. A lot of people go to bed at night laughing their cares away. So first Johnny Carson, and then a string of other comedians have occupied network television spots at bedtime. Our beloved Ball State alumnus, David Letterman, has made a fortune making people laugh before they go to sleep at night.
There was a time when the evening was seen by Christians as a reflective time, a time to ponder the day or to ask God’s forgiveness for failures of the day. Many of us have used John Baillie’s devotional classic, A Diary of Private Prayer, to good benefit at evening time. On the tenth day he leads us to pray in the evening,
“I thank Thee for every evidence of Thy Spirit’s leading, and for all those little happenings which, though seeming at the time no more than chance, yet afterwards appear to me as part of Thy gracious plan for the education of my soul.”
And then, on the eleventh day, “O Merciful heart of God, in true penitence and contrition I would now open my heart to Thee. . . What did I not think shame to commit?”
But now very many Christians are more apt to drown out the cares of the day laughing at David Letterman’s jokes. Jesus says to us, “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.” If we get rid of the opportunities we have for careful consideration of how we live, such as the opportunity that come at the end of the day before we go to sleep, we may well find ourselves in grief later on.
But if at the end of each day we recognized what we had done wrong, so as to correct our proneness to wander, the momentary remorse would guide us to enduring gladness. Maybe this was what Jesus was getting at when He said first, “Blessed are those who mourn, for you will laugh,” and then, “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.”
There is an antidote to those four tragic words so many people say, “If only I had.” And that antidote is to use the close of the day to reflect on how we are living, and to confess our sins to God. Then we can begin the new day with freedom of conscience.
In the passage from the book of Nehemiah that we just listened to, we learned of the tears that overwhelmed the Jews who returned to Jerusalem after they heard the Book of the Law read to them. Why did they weep? It doesn’t say why they wept, but I wonder if it was because they suddenly realized why their nation had been rent in two by civil war, and then taken into exile—their beloved Temple destroyed. God had taught them in the Law of Moses the way to a glorious future—by living a glorious life before Him. But they had been too busy to listen to this teaching. “Like sheep they went astray, turning everyone to his own way,” as Isaiah put it.
One of the remarkable things about Israel’s history is that it begins with Joshua telling them, “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.”
But then we look in vain for any mention of the role of the Book of the Law in the life of Israel. Only twice do we read of the people of Israel reading their Bible. And after both instances, people weep. Whereas we read in the longest psalm of the Bible 176 reminders of the delight found in God’s Word, apparently this was a joy seldom experienced in Israel. But then, after they wandered far from the ways of God, so that they fell apart as a people, they were confronted with God’s Word, and it hit them like a ton of bricks. They wept. Why? Because they were overwhelmed with a feeling of wasted life, wasted opportunity. “If only we had!” What might have been their delight became the reason for their grief.
I have the hunch that Jesus kept using the word “now,” in each of these woe statements because all people find it hard to look beyond the moment. Had Jesus seen our modern madness for quickness—fast food, fast profits, fast fame, and fast salvation—He would have warned us about our preoccupation with “NOW.” How He might have emphasized even more for us, “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.”
This morning we will share the Lord’s Table again. Here we are reminded of Jesus’ foresight, “Who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame.” Jesus looked ahead, not only to the joy that awaited Him, but to the joy that awaits us. The joy didn’t come quickly for Him, and it does not for us either.
The abundant life Jesus offers you requires a discipline of life to make it your own. Quick and easy doses of religion cannot provide what Jesus can offer only to those who come earnestly to Him.
There is a story about a Gentile who came to the grumpy Rabbi Shamai and said, “I will convert [to Judaism] on the condition that you teach me the Torah while I’m standing on one leg.” Rabbi Shamai drove him away with the tool he was using. The Gentile came to Rabbi Hillel who converted him. He said, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the entire Torah. The rest is its commentary. Go and learn it.”
As I have thought of this story recorded in the Talmud, that has Rabbi Hillel teaching an inverted form of the golden rule, it reminds me of how we’re taught to come to Jesus. Like the Gentile we come to Jesus and say, “I want to be saved now—fast—while I’m standing on one foot.” Jesus doesn’t drive us away with the carpenter’s tool He holds in His hand. But He says to us, “You want to be saved NOW? What I have to offer you is a life. You want security now. But what I have to offer you is a life.”
How important NOW is to us. Jesus warns us about our preoccupation with NOW. Now as we come together to share the Table of the Lord, I remind you that it stands for the goodness of God for our joy that worked out over a long course of time. Scripture speaks of Jesus as “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” In the Lord’s Supper we remember the time when the Lamb of God was slain for us. But we also remember the marriage supper of the Lamb—which all these occasions when we take Communion together are reminders. We will sing, “Man of Sorrows” before and after we eat and drink together. But this sorrow of Jesus was followed by joy, His and ours.
Perhaps what Jesus most wants us to remember, we who put such value on laughter, is that there is more for us to be found in some wise sorrow than there is in laughter. To feel sorrow that Jesus had to die for our sins, to feel sorrow for our sins, may usher us into the joy of recognizing the forgiveness Jesus offers us at such cost. And then to accept the way of a life-time that comes with gratitude. It doesn’t come with that ease we might call “natural,” but it comes, if we indeed want to follow Jesus. And that’s what we say we are, isn’t it, “followers of Jesus?” Blessed are you who mourn now for you will laugh. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.”
Let us pray: O Lord, help us to understand what Jesus taught us, so as to live a righteous and joyous life to your glory. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)