Trinity 4
Lk
6:36-42
7/5/20
“Judge not.” Those have to be the two most popular words
that Jesus ever spoke. Or perhaps I should
say that “Judge not” are certainly his two most popular words in our culture today.
“Judge not.” What could be better? “Judge not” means that I can do whatever I
want to do. “Judge not” means there are
no objective standards by which I can be judged. “Judge not” means whatever feels genuine and
true for me, is genuine and true for me.
“Judge not” means that you can’t tell me what I should or should not be
doing. Instead, Jesus says that you
are supposed to be non-judgmental.
Except the Jesus who said “Judge
not” in our text also said in this Gospel, “No, I tell you; but unless
you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
So Jesus clearly thinks that we need to be ready to repent of our sins –
that we need to be ready to accept God’s judgment against our sin. We must be
willing to admit that there are thoughts, words and deeds that are wrong – that are sinful. We must admit that there are things are judged by God.
And Jesus is also the same one who
said in this Gospel, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he
repents, forgive him.” If you
brother sins, rebuke him – now that sounds pretty “judgmental.” Our Lord’s statement means that there are
things called sins, and it not only God who can recognize them. There is a standard that others can know – a
standard against which they can evaluate our actions. And in fact, Jesus says that when we see our
brother or sister in Christ sinning, we are to rebuke him or her. We are to do
this to lead them to repentance, just as God himself leads us to repentance. We
are to do this because we love them in Christ.
So
after we do a little work in which we let Scripture interpret Scripture it
becomes obvious that Jesus’ words in our text, “Judge not,” do not mean that we
are never supposed to evaluate the behavior of others and confront sin. So what
do these words mean, and what is this supposed to look like in our life?
The
place to begin as we seek to understand our text is the first verse in which
Jesus says, “Be merciful, even
as your Father is merciful.” And
then in the very next verse after Jesus’ statement about “Judge not” we hear, “forgive,
and you will be forgiven.” Jesus tells
us not to judge in the same setting in which he says that we are to be merciful
as our Father is merciful. He does so as
he tells us that we are to forgive others, so that we will be forgiven.
To understand fully what Jesus is saying here, we need to go back
to the beginning
of his discussion. This section begins with the words, “And he came down
with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples
and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast
of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their
diseases.” This section of Luke’s Gospel is usually called the “sermon on the
plain.” In content it is very similar to
the “sermon on the mount” that we find in Matthew’s Gospel. No doubt, during the course of teaching for
almost three years, Jesus shared the same basic content in many different
settings.
The keys words for understanding our
text are found at the very beginning of Jesus’ address. There he says, “Blessed are the poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.” Coming out of the Old Testament background,
the poor are those who are dependent on God.
Jesus does not speak simply about those who are financially poor. Rather
his words refer to all share in the attitude of dependence and reliance on
God. He includes all who recognize their
own weakness and powerlessness, and turn to God in faith as the source of hope
and strength.
That
is you if you are honest with yourself.
You know the struggle with sin in your own life – the ways you fail to
fear, love and trust in God above all things.
You know the weakness you feel in the face of the challenges in this
fallen world.
Yet
Jesus says this morning to you – to just such a poor person: “Blessed are the
poor, for yours is the kingdom
of God.” Jesus Christ says that you are blessed – this means that you have
received God’s end time salvation. And
he can say this because the “kingdom of God is yours.”
The
kingdom of God is not place. Instead it
is the reign of God that was present in Jesus Christ to free us from sin and
death. When Jesus was accused of casting
out demons because he was in league with Satan, he answered: “But if it is
by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Our
Lord declared that in is person and ministry the reign of God was present to
overcome Satan, sin and death.
Jesus
brought this reign to its consummation by dying on the cross for your sins and
rising from the dead. Though without sin, the Son of God was numbered with the
transgressors as he was nailed to a cross.
In Jesus, the Father was being merciful to us. He gave his own Son as the sacrifice for our
sins. He gave him up to death in order
to win forgiveness. And then on the third day he raised him from the dead as he
defeated death itself.
Through
baptism and faith God has made us his own.
He has made us a new creation in Christ. And so Jesus can say, “Blessed
are the poor, for theirs is the
kingdom of God.” You have already
received this saving reign. And so you are blessed now. You are sons and daughters of God.
Notice that
Jesus says in our text, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”
Why can God be described as your Father? It is because he has shown you mercy in the death and
resurrection of his Son. This is what
God has done for us in Christ. And so it now shapes the way we live through the
work of God’s Spirit. It is the reason
that Jesus says earlier in this chapter, “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good
to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who
abuse you.”
God
has made you good in Christ. He has
given you forgiveness before God. He has
created the new man in you who daily arises from baptism to walk in newness of
life. And so Jesus can say in this
chapter: "For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree
bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs
are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble
bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good,
and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out
of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”
Through
his Spirit, Christ has made a you a good tree – a good tree that produces good
fruit. And that brings us back to the words with which we began this sermon:
“Judge not.” Our Lord says, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn
not, and you will not be condemned.” Jesus
does not speak here of the Christian who confronts a fellow Christian to lead him
or her to repentance. He does not speak
of actions done out of mercy, just as our Father has been merciful to us.
Instead he
describes the action of criticizing and finding fault for the purpose of
tearing the other person down. This is
criticism that seeks to make me feel better by making you seem worse. And of
course the irony about such criticism it is that it ignores the faults that
exist in me. Jesus says, “Why do you see the
speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in
your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out
the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in
your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then
you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.”
Jesus
needs to say this because while we are a new man in Christ, we also still bear
the old Adam within us. We are people
who are capable of mercy, forgiveness and love because of Christ. We are also still people who are able to act
in selfish, sinful ways.
As
we live the Christian life, there is a judging that is necessary. But it is not a judging directed towards
other people. Instead, it is judging
directed towards ourselves. We must be willing to judge ourselves in honest
repentance. We must confront the ways that sin continues to be present in us:
the times we gladly see the speck in our neighbor’s eye; the times we are not
merciful; the times we don’t give to others.
Yet
this is not a judging that leads to despair.
Instead it is a judging that leads to repentance. And repentance always
leads us back to Christ. It leads us
back to what Christ has done for us in his death and resurrection. And more specifically, it leads us back to
those ways that Christ’s reign is present in our midst now giving
forgiveness. It leads us back to his
Means of Grace.
It
leads us to his word through which the Spirit gives forgiveness and renewed
strength for living as one who is in Christ.
It leads us in faith back to our baptism, for there we have not only
been born again, but we have the source by which the life giving Spirit
continues to enable us to live as child of God. And we come to the Sacrament of
the Altar. Here Jesus works the miracle
of giving us his true body and blood, given and shed for you the forgiveness of
sins. He gives us food for the new man –
food that sustains us in the life of faith so that we can be merciful, even as
our heavenly Father has been merciful to us in his Son, Jesus Christ.
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