The Judged Judge

 

It was not what you would call the highlight of my musical career. 

My mouth was dry.  My leg shook uncontrollably.  My cold hands trembled even as they clutched the trumpet.  The three judges–professors in music departments at local colleges, I assume–sat in their folding chairs behind a table across the room.  One slumped back in her chair and chewed a pencil.  Another rested his elbows on the table and peered over the top of his reading glasses.  The third glanced at his watch and sipped his coffee.  They were waiting for me to begin. 

“Start with an E flat scale”, they’d said.  So, I took as deep of a breath as I could manage, and lifted the instrument to my lips.  I began to play.  Or–to put it more accurately–I attempted to play.  But try as I might, my lips refused to vibrate.  My fingers could not find the right valves.  The notes would not come out right. Some sort of sound came out the bell of my trumpet.  But it wasn’t an E flat scale.  I mumbled a quick apology to the judges, shook my head, and tried again.  Still nothing like an E flat scale.  I began a third time, this time charging through the missed notes.  When I finished the scale, I knew my audition was over.

I had prepared for that audition for months (years, actually).  I could do an E flat (and a B flat, and an A flat) in in my sleep.  But for some reason, when the judges were watching, everything fell apart. 

Judgment.  I don’t know any (self aware individual) who is excited by the prospect.  Most people feel a pang of anxiety when they hear the  word because most of us can remember I time when we were judged–and came up short.

  Not smart enough.

  Not fast enough.

  Not thin enough.

  Not rich enough.

  Not good enough.

Rarely is judgment a good experience for us.  All too often, judgment means rejection.  And so I was not surprised at the old saints reaction when I mentioned to her that I would be preaching on the phrase, I believe…he will come to judge the living in the dead.  She winced–as though she’d just grabbed hold of a live wire.  The unspoken question was written across her face.  How do I know that I can withstand judgment?  When I have to “give an account for every careless word spoken” (Matt.12:36), when every concealed thought and act is brought out into the open (Luke 8:17) and everything is laid bare (2 Peter 3:10), how can I possibly believe that I will endure God’s scrutiny?  How can I have any hope?  For her, the proclamation that Jesus will come to judge does not sound like good news.  It sounds like terrifying news.  It probably does to many of us.

And yet, when the writers of the Heidelberg Catechism pondered this phrase (Q&A 52), they insisted that we should anticipate Christ’s coming to judge (as the old translation put it) “with uplifted heads.”  We should be standing on tiptoe, straining our eyes toward the horizon, confidently awaiting his arrival.  Why?  Because the judge we await is “the very one who has already stood trial in my place before God.”  Or as Karl Barth once put it, “Our Judge has been judged.” 

Theologian Daniel Migliore observes that one of the crucial questions we must answer when pondering the meaning of the prhase he will come to judge the living and the dead is who our judge will be (the other is what the purpose of his judgment will be–but more on that Sunday morning).  Too often, write Migliore, we act as if there are two different Christs: the first Christ who came to Bethlehem to show us his love and grace and then a later Christ who will come to judge and show us his wrath and vengeance.  But this is simply not the case.  As the angel reminds the disciples in Acts 1:10, Jesus who ascended to heaven is the same Jesus who will return.  In other words, when Christ returns to judge, he will not have changed identity or purpose.  He will be the same Jesus we came to know two thousand years ago–the Jesus who came in the flesh to die in our place and save us from our sins, the Jesus who endured the just judgment of God for our sin.  He will be our judge.   

In a famous passage at the end of Romans 8, Paul throws out what appears to be a rhetorical question to his readers.  Who is he that condemns?  He asks.  Christ Jesus who died?  More than that, who was raised to life and is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us?    Paul seems to be saying it all with a bit of a smirk and a pa-shaw. Would the Jesus who died for you really condemn you?  Would he suddenly change his mind and decide that he wants nothing to do for you?  I don’t think so!  We may hear the voice of condemnation from our parents, our teachers, our coaches, our spouses, our friends, or from ourselves.  But Paul insists that we will never hear it from Jesus.  Our judge was condemned for us,  he says.  So for us, there is now no condemnation!

I recently read of an incident in which a reporter asked the wife of Albert Einstein if she understood her husband’s famous formula, E =MC2.  Mrs. Einstein replied that she did not.  Then, after a pause, she added these words: But I know my husband.  And that is enough.  That answer, I believe, is a good start for us as we think about Jesus’ coming to judge.  There are, of course, many questions that remain.  We may not know where the lines will fall.  We may not know the fate of every person we know and love.  But we know our (judged) Judge.  And that should be enough.

The Trouble with Grace

I had been dreading the conversation for days. Weeks.  Months actually.

Someone I know was stuck in a rut. They were clinging to a certain sin (or their sin was clinging to them–I’m not always sure which way it goes). They didn’t want to give it up. They didn’t even want to categorize it as “sin.” And they certainly didn’t want me to put it in that category for them. So I’d been dutifully looking the other way. Pretending not to notice. Pretending it really wasn’t there.

I thought about saying something earlier. But really, who wants to be “that guy”? You know the one. The Christian who is “good” in the worst sense of the word (as Mark Twain said). The preacher whacking people over the head with his ten pound King James Version, whipping out the bullhorn to declare God’s judgement and wrath on those who have violated his commandments. After all, we are supposed to be people who model Christ’s love. People who show the world his grace.

But that, it seems to me, is the rub. We’re supposed to show the world grace. That’s a kingdom value. But does showing the world grace mean that we can no longer talk to the world (or to each other) about sin? Does it mean that the right thing for me to do with my friend would’ve been to look the other way?

That’s a popular idea. People often say things like: “More grace, less judgment”. What they mean is that yes, I should keep my mouth shut. I should accept my friends no matter what. I should show grace, not judgement.

And of course, there is something right and admirable about the impulse. But I have to admit, I think there is something slightly off base about it.

The problem is that when we put grace and judgment at odds with one another, we’ve confused grace and tolerance. Like grace, tolerance accepts everybody–regardless of what they’ve done or left undone. But unlike grace, tolerance refuses to deal with sin head on. Tolerance deals with sin by renaming it–by calling it something other than sin. Tolerance looks the other way, always minds it’s own business, lets every person do as s/he sees fit. Tolerance makes no judgements about right or wrong.

It’s an attractive approach. But it’s not grace.

In order to show grace (and not mere tolerance) you have to make a judgment that something is wrong. You have to acknowledge that a person (maybe even you!) needs to be forgiven, needs mercy, needs unmerited love and acceptance. That’s the trouble with grace. When you talk about grace, you also have to talk about sin.

 

 

 Here’s what Neil Plantinga says on the subject:

“For the Christian Church … to ignore, euphemize, or otherwise mute the lethal reality of the sin is to cut the nerve of the gospel. For the sober truth is that without full disclosure on sin, the gospel of grace becomes impertinent, unnecessary, and finally uninteresting.” (Plantinga, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, p. 199)

So what does that have to do with my friend?

Well, after a lot of hand wringing, pacing around my office, and–yes–prayer, I decided I had to have that difficult conversation. I decided I needed to tell him that–from what I understood of God’s word and will for his life–what he was doing was sin. I had to make a judgment. But I also I had to do it in a way that was not judgmental. I had to do it in a way that was full of the fragrance of Christ. A way that showed him unconditional love, mercy, acceptance of Jesus Christ despite what he was doing wrong.

I wish it was easy–like tolerance. But it wasn’t. Sadly, there’s no handbook for these things. No neat and tidy procedure that ensures we’ll get it right. Like most people, I had to work things out within the messy context of relationship. And like most people, I stumbled and fumbled. Like most people, I didn’t get it all right. But I tried. By the grace of God, I tried.

Definitions: Some Thoughts on Forgiveness

One of the bright spots that has emerged through the darkness of Sunday’s tragic shootings has been the declarations of forgiveness from the family and friends of the victims. Christians have taken notice and, quite significantly, so has the press.* As more than one person has said to me, we ought to be grateful for the positive example of people living out their faith in a forgiving God.

Others, however, have not been quite so sure. In a recent conversation, someone had the courage to suggest what many of us may have thought–that perhaps it was too soon to offer forgiveness, that maybe doing so trivialized what was, by all accounts, a very terrible wrong, or that doing so may have rushed a grief process in which anger would have played an important role.

These are all legitimate concerns–but I think they may stem from a misunderstanding of forgiveness. So a few thoughts today on what forgiveness does–and does not–involve.**

• Forgiveness is not a one time event. The individuals affected by Sunday’s shootings declared their forgiveness almost immediately. However, it will take time for them to grow into this declaration. As I mentioned in a sermon on this topic last month, they will have to forgive–to make moves against their anger–again, and again, and again (seventy times seven!). I suspect that for some of these people (perhaps all of them) it will take years for forgiveness to be complete. As Smedes says, “Forgiving is a journey; the deeper the wound, the longer the journey.”
• Forgiveness does not mean condoning or excusing a wrong. In fact, forgiveness means the opposite. To forgive someone of a wrong, you must acknowledge that there is actually a wrong to be forgiving. To forgive, you must assign blame. When we forgive, we are not saying that the intolerable has suddenly become tolerable. Rather, we are saying that the only way we can deal with an intolerable wrong is through the miracle of forgiveness.
• Forgiveness does not mean minimizing a wrong. Saying “I forgive you” is not the same thing as saying, “That’s okay–it was no big deal.” If it’s not a big deal, it doesn’t need to be forgiven. As Lewis Smedes has written somewhere, “We need to sort out our hurts and learn the difference between those that call for the miracle of forgiveness and those that can be borne with a sense of humor. If we lump all our hurts together and prescribe forgiveness for all of them, we turn the art of forgiving into something cheap and commonplace. Like good wine, forgiving must be preserved for the right occasion.”
• Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation. Reconciliation may be seen as the ultimate (though not always attainable) goal of forgiveness. However, forgiveness is only one step in achieving this goal. For full reconciliation to occur, the person who committed the wrong must also make a move–must “repent” in the biblical sense of the word (express both sorrow AND a commitment to change). If the person who committed the wrong has not changed, it would be unwise–even foolish–to enter back into relationship with them. In short, it takes one person to forgive but two to achieve full reconciliation.
• Forgiveness does not mean there are no consequences. God (and good parents, I think) may forgive the sins of His children but deem it important for them to live with the consequences of their poor choices. Sometimes when we forgive people, it is also necessary that they live with painful consequences. This can be an important a way of protecting ourselves from future hurts.
• Forgiveness does not mean forgetting: Forgiveness has more to do with the way we remember than with removing our memories. When we forgive, we learn to remember without anger or a desire for revenge. Furthermore, in a sin filled world, remembering the wrong we’ve forgiven can be important because of the need to protect ourselves from future hurts.
• Forgiveness is not something we only do for other people: Scripture makes clear that forgiveness is one of the ways we show Christ-like love for other people. However, it’s also a way we love ourselves. When we refuse to forgive, we are held captive by our own anger and bitterness–it eats away at us and threatens to consume us. As Smedes writes: “When we forgive, we set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner we set free is us.”

*It says something about the nature of forgiveness that it is considered newsworthy event.

 **Many of these come from Lewis Smedes’ excellent book, The Art of Forgiving.

More on Judgment

Just to prove that I wasn’t making up what I said in my last post about judgment, here’s a snippet from N.T. Wrights book, Evil and the Justice of God, which I finished up this weekend.

“God’s justice is not simply a blind dispensing of rewards for the virtuous and punishments for the wicked, though plenty of those are to be found on the way. God’s justice is saving, healing, restorative justice, because the God to whom justice belongs is the Creator God who has yet to complete his original plan for creation and whose justice is designed not simply to restore balance to a world out of kilter but to bring to glorious completion and fruition the creation, teeming with life and possibility, that he made in the first place.” (64)

I told you so .

Jumpstarting Judgment

A Christian summer camp counselor I knew once reported having one of the most successful weeks ever. He proclaimed, with understandable delight, that each of the twelve boys in his cabin had given their lives to Jesus. They wanted to be Christians. They wanted to live for and with Jesus from that point on and into all eternity.

The rest of the camp staff was ecstatic–at first. But that didn’t last long. Because the next week, camp supervisors were inundated with phone calls from concerned parents. Apparently, many of the young boys who had been in that converted cabin were having nightmares that were directly related to their week at camp. They would toss and turn as they dreamt–not about the boogie man or some other camp fire legend they had learned while chomping on s’mores–but about the torments of hell and the torture that would be inflicted upon them for all eternity if they didn’t get their acts together and give their lives to Jesus.

As the phone calls rolled in and the story was pieced together, the mass conversion of Cabin 14 suddenly was a lot less exciting and a lot more disturbing.

I doubt that any of us would feel comfortable using the evangelism tactic of that camp counselor–scaring people out of hell and into heaven. But what’s troubling about the text we looked at last week (Matt 5:21ff) is that Jesus appears to do that very thing. He lets his listeners know–in no uncertain terms–that if they don’t clean up their lives, their future is not very bright. So what are we to make of this?

Well, there are several thoughts we ought to keep in mind. First: there is the obvious difference between the speaker: between Jesus (perfect) and us (not-so-much). Second, there is a distinction that must be made between the audiences: Jesus speaks to people (adults) who are presumed to be a part of the community of faith while in evangelism we (or at least that camp counselor) are talking to those who are presumed to be outside of the community of faith. That distinction is not insignificant.

That being said, something else that those of us in the community of faith might consider is the nature of judgement. We tend to think of judgment (I think) largely in negative terms. We think about a finger wagging God ready to give us what we deserve and eager to crush us with his almighty thumb. But that’s not quite the full picture of biblical judgment.

When God “judges” his people in scripture, it is not merely retributive. It is also restorative. God not only punishes, he also disciplines. Consider, for example, the exile of the people Israel. The point is not merely to send them away from the promise land to suffer in the labor camps of the Babylonians. The point is to purify them–to burn away all the garbage that stands in between them, God, and their neighbors. The point is to help them live the kind of “shalom-filled” lives of wholeness for which they were created. Or as Thomas Long puts it in his commentary on Matthew. 5:

“In the biblical sense, judgment is God’s exercise of good judgment, repairing all that is harmful to humanity. Judgment is God’s repairing of the broken creation. Judgement is God’s scalpel carefully removing the malignant tissue that threatens life. Judgment is God’s burning away of all that is cruel and spirit killing in order that we may breath the air of compassion. Judgment is good news; it is God setting things right.”

From this perspective, we can think of Christ’s call to be reconciled with our neighbors as a way to “jump start judgment.” Because when we’re seeking to be reconciled with a brother or sister–when we confess to the ways we’ve hurt people, when we try to restore our relationship with them, when we do our best to remove the garbage that separates us from God and each other–we’re not waiting for Jesus to return to set things right and cut away the “malignant tissue that threatens life”, but we’re trying to do it ourselves. And in that way, we’re “jump starting judgment.”

So just a reminder (or if you weren’t in church Sunday morning, a challenge): Jesus calls us to do our best to set right the wrongs that linger between us. And he calls us to do it now. Don’t wait for God to do it. Don’t wait for Kingdom come to do it. But through the power of the Spirit, take the initiative and do it today.