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Proper 7

Matthew 10
26 “So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. 27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. 28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
32 “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; 33 but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.


Summer driving makes me judgy.

Yes, judgy is a word. According to Oxford, ‘judgy’ means “overly critical” and “judgemental,” which I think is unfair to all the people who are judgy. So whether you are a driver, passenger or pedestrian, you might recognize some of these summer drivers.

You’re going to the cottage at 150 km/h. How is that relaxing?
You have your windows down and the tunes cranked. No song should have that much bass.
Your motorhome is pulling an SUV, dirt bikes, bicycles and an armada of small boats. No one can manage that much recreation at one go.
A small car and a big canoe. How can we be certain you can see where you’re going? And when you get to the lake, do you just flip the whole thing over?
Your car is full of gear, children, dogs, inflatable bric-a-brac and things you couldn’t possibly do without for 48 hours of weekend. You know you’ve forgotten something, right?

Maybe we should add cranky to judgy. But it shouldn’t be this way. Summer is time to re-create, re-lax, re-new. You shouldn’t be disgruntled, you should be gruntled! Yes, gruntled is a word, meaning ‘pleased, satisfied and contented.’ Gruntled. So that’s our summer challenge, to end the warm months thoroughly gruntled, and ready to enter the fall.

Meanwhile, we meet Jesus in Matthew 10, and he sounds far from gruntled. You might even say he sounds judgy:

37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

You get the sense that he could have went on. Already by chapter ten Jesus feels the need to confront divided loyalties, and the extent to which people are willing to follow within a narrowly defined set of parameters. Jesus wants his followers to be “all in,” but there seems to be a lot of bargaining implied in his comments. So it’s Jesus first—we get that—but does it have to sound so harsh?

In many ways he is simply acting as predicted. Way back in chapter three, our old friend John the Baptist gave his summary of the time to follow, a summary we tend to overlook or dismiss:

11 “I baptize you with[b] water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming...he will baptize you with[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Of course you know it, but if it sounds like something we have heard recently, you’re right. It’s the gospel lesson for the Second Sunday of Advent, that last preaching opportunity before Christmas, before the preacher gets preempted by the Sunday School and the Senior Choir. However, it’s just as well—the tone is decidedly harsh for the time leading up to the big day.

Some might even argue that John the Baptist is wrong. The Jesus he predicts in Matthew 3 seems to be replaced by the Jesus of Matthew 5, blessing the poor in spirit, the merciful, the pure in heart. Barely a harsh word passes his lips, or so it seems. But look closer, and you see glimpses of John’s Jesus—maybe not with fire, but more than a little judgement:

5.29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.
5.30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.
6.24 No one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and mammon.
7.1 Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.

The last one seems a little ironic. Judge and you will be judged. Judged to be judgy and the judgy one will judge you. Suddenly my summer driving rant takes on a new dimension, where judgement begets judgement and some sort of loop ensures. So I’m going to take the whole thing back and suggest that I should get the Douglas Fir out of my own eye before I reach for the sliver in the eye of others.

Having stumbled on the famous command “don’t judge, so you may not be judged,” it occurs to me that this might be the key to unlock the meaning of one of the most vexing parts of the reading Taye shared. It’s back to Jesus and the family, a series of verses that I find particularly troubling:

35 For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

Some have argued that this a reference to future conflict, conflict between church and synagogue, where literal and metaphorical families will be divided as the Jewish-Christian movement separates from the Jewish tradition. This may be the case, but Jesus is also speaking of his immediate followers, those who will try (for the first time) to embrace this vision of the Kingdom Jesus sets out—those who try to live as he lived.

It would be an understatement to say judgement begins at home. Those we grew up with, those we lived with from the beginning, those who continue to live with us as the generations move forward—these are the people we tend to judge first and most. Why did mom and dad let him away with that? Why did she do that? What are they doing now? Why won’t you leave me alone? Or one of my favourite lines from It’s a Wonderful Life: “Why do we have to have all these kids?”

Does any of this sound familiar? Into that caldron of judgement called family, Jesus injects this: “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.” So suddenly a man and his father, a daughter and her mother, a daughter-in-law and her mother-in-law are not only judging each other but judging each other for judging each other. See the problem? Jesus has added a dimension of inter-filial conflict that didn’t exist before—the sin of excessive judgement and the judgement it brings upon us.

Obviously, we need a way out of this loop. And Jesus seems to be pointing to a way forward on this too: “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.” In other words, only by spreading this message of non-judgement, can we hope to end the never-ending loop of judgement.

Christians in particular have to tone down the judgemental rhetoric, since that seems to be the stereotype that defines us in the popular imagination. And even as we begin to protest and insist that judgment is the purview of those Christians over there (or anywhere else), we fall into the very same trap.

The missing part of this equation, of course, is the very thing we proclaim (in the United Church) when we recite our new creed: “to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope.” Judgement is necessary and desirable when God in Jesus is doing the judging. When the ethical program of Jesus is the yardstick by which we measure human behaviour, judgement moves from that sinful thing humans do to the faithful thing believers do. But it has to be thoughtful, and prayerful, and done in the context of the Jesus who is “all compassion,” and “pure, unbounded love” (Wesley).

So, go gently back into your summer Sunday, and be kind to the people you meet, even on the highway, judging less than our human nature demands, and open to the one who “works in us and others by the Spirit.” Now and always, Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 4:46 AM