The Wall of Judgment
October 9, 2011
Romans 14:13-23 (NAB)
(13) Then let us no longer judge one another, but rather resolve never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.
(14) I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; still, it is unclean for someone who thinks it is unclean.
(15) If your brother is being hurt by what you eat, your conduct is no longer in accord with love. Do not because of your food destroy him for whom Christ died.
(16) So do not let your good be reviled.
(17) For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit;
(18) whoever serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by others.
(19) Let us then pursue what leads to peace and to building up one another.
(20) For the sake of food, do not destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to become a stumbling block by eating;
(21) it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.
(22) Keep the faith [that] you have to yourself in the presence of God; blessed is the one who does not condemn himself for what he approves.
(23) But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because this is not from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.
Mark 1:40-45 (NIV)
(40) A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
(41) Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”
(42) Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.
(43) Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning:
(44) “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”
(45) Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
The Wall of Judgment
I have to admit, I am lucky. I am lucky because as I start my career in ministry, I have had the opportunity to work alongside ministers like Pastor Judy and Pastor Skip who have a lot of experience that they have been able to share with me in many ways. One of those ways is evident today.
Over the past couple of weeks we have been looking at the walls we build around ourselves and our churches. This morning we look at the wall of Judgment. Now, there are lots of verses of scripture that talk about judgment, it is a recurring theme in many parts of the bible. So when Pastor Skip told me that Judgment is this week’s topic, I got excited because, unlike some other weeks, there is ample time taken throughout scripture on this topic. But then, he gave me the scripture we are going to be using, the short story of the leper from the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. I read over it a couple of times and while I could see a number of themes present, judgment was not one of them. This brings me back to being lucky. If it hadn’t been for the experience Pastor Skip has shared with me, I might never have seen the connection between our topic this week and the scripture I just read.
Judgment, you see, is an interesting topic for a number of reasons. So let’s start off by defining what judgment can mean. There are various definitions of this word. Here are just a few.
1. The faculty of being able to make critical distinctions and achieve a balanced viewpoint.
2. The decision or verdict pronounced by a court of law.
3. A particular decision or opinion formed in a case in dispute or doubt.
4. An estimation
5. An opinion formed.
There are also a few definitions of judgment that deal with God.
1. The estimate by God of the ultimate worthiness or unworthiness of the individual or of all mankind.
2. God’s subsequent decision determining the final destinies of all individuals.
None of these definitions fit clearly into our scripture from Mark this morning. So how is it that we proceed with no clear link.
Well, let’s step back for a moment and not concentrate on the idea of judgment itself. You see our topic isn’t judgment itself, but rather the Wall of Judgment. We are looking at the walls we build around us that interfere with our ability to fulfill our calling as individuals and as the body of Christ on earth. So let us look at what we can mean by a Wall of Judgment. And let us look at how that wall can keep us separated from Christ and from each other.
The reading from Mark talks about a situation that existed in Jesus’ day. That situation was the division of people based on a perceived, and sometimes real, threat.
Leprosy itself was not a specific condition, but rather a variety of illnesses that in one way or another affected the skin. Leprosy could be anything from a rash to a flesh eating bacteria. People were scared to death of leprosy. People lived in absolute fear of leprosy and all those who had leprosy. Therefore, if you had a skin disease, you were made into an instant outsider.
In those days, the law that governed society came from the books of Moses. Specifically that which we today call Leviticus. Leviticus was very clear: “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ And he shall live alone, his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” (Lev. 13:45-46)
If you had leprosy you lost everything – job, family, place in the community – everything. Just as with many other things, when someone loses everything, they get desperate. The leper in Mark who approaches Jesus shows his desperation by breaking the law, by coming into the city, and getting close enough to Jesus that he could talk to him. He is lucky that he wasn’t stoned. But Jesus has pity on this poor desperate leper and heals him.
This is where it gets interesting. You see, diseases were not understood then as they are today. Therefore, anyone who touched a leper was considered unclean. It was a kind of guilt by association. Jesus would have known this, yet he reached out and touched this man. Under normal circumstances both this man and Jesus would have had to go to the chief priest to prove their cleanliness and make the appropriate sacrifices before they could legally be welcomed back into the fold.
Of course, Jesus didn’t go to the chief priest, he didn’t become a leper, and he wasn’t perceived by those around him to have been contaminated.
If you remember a little earlier I talked of a division of people based on a perceived threat. That perception lies at the heart of the wall of Judgment that I want to talk about this morning. We all know that we are not supposed to judge others. This is not news. This is not a recent development. It is something that we have heard over and over our entire lives. This is especially true for those who have been active in church their whole lives. The Bible is very clear on this point. God is the only one who has the power and authority to judge. We do not.
Yet, as with many other things, our reality doesn’t work that way. We know we shouldn’t judge, but we do. In fact, it is very possible that of all our sins, this act of judging others is perhaps the most pervasive in our culture. Judgment is a necessity we tell ourselves. Besides most times we are not trying to play God or to usurp His power. Rather, we are trying to maintain the best influences in our lives. We are trying to make sure that we associate with those we should. We have a society that has rules and we have to make sure, to the best of our ability, that those rules are followed.
We live in a society where rules are important, and this is not a bad thing. If there were no rules, chaos would ensue. So it is important that we follow those rules and it is important that others follow those rules. However, it is very easy to go from a place where rules are important to a place where rules are and end in and of themselves. It is easy to forget that the rules are there for a different reason. The rules exist to keep peace, to provide stability, to enhance the lives of everyone. Yet, sometimes, many times we put such importance on the rules that we convert a helpful tool into something that actually counteracts its own purpose. When we put too much importance on those rules, we actually create a world in which there is less stability, there is less trust. This is what we call the wall of judgment.
Have I lost any of you yet? Well, let me give you an example. We read some scripture this morning from Romans. At first glance the reading is pretty straightforward in regards to judgment. However, the more you read the more you begin to wonder what is going on. For those who know a little about the early church it makes some sense. Yet, for those who are not acquainted with some of the problems of the early church, this reading begins to get confusing.
It begins with the simple statement, “Then let us no longer Judge one another, but rather resolve never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.” This is pretty straightforward, but then it gets into a whole bunch of stuff about food. Why food? For those who know about the early church, you will remember that the early church was full of both Jews and Gentiles. Those of Jewish background had grown up living under pretty strict dietary standards that were laid out in the books of Moses. Those who were Gentiles didn’t come from a background with the same requirements. Therefore, the traditions surrounding what foods could and could not be eaten and the rules that regulated how food was to be eaten and prepared were different and this caused quite a bit of arguing in the early church. It was a pretty big debate. There was a lot of divisiveness over this topic. Some said these old traditions should be upheld in the new church. Others said that the fact that Jesus came and died for our sins created a new covenant and therefore, those old rules no longer applied.
This is a common problem in a lot of the early churches and you can see evidence of that in a number of the Epistles. The reading in Romans tries to deal with this ongoing argument. Basically, what is said is that if you want to keep with the old rules, fine. There is no harm in that. However, don’t judge someone else based on what they eat. Tradition is fine, however there is a new covenant here. There is a new church, and that new church doesn’t center itself upon the old covenant made with Moses. It centers itself based on the new covenant through Jesus Christ. So if you want to follow old rules, go right ahead, but if you are doing that and it causes one of your new brothers in Christ to misunderstand the new covenant, well, that is not OK. The word of God is paramount and any arguing over details that detract from the message is harmful to the whole church, and therefore is not in accordance with the message of love that is given to us through Christ.
So we have the divisions of a society that are reflected with how it treats those who suffer from leprosy or who are otherwise unclean. We have the early church struggling to come to terms with how their own understanding of their relationship with God has changed in the new reality of the message of Jesus Christ. And now, we are here, on this Sunday morning, wondering what we can learn.
So, I ask you, in order to define this wall of Judgment, who do we consider today as lepers? Who do we consider today to be serving God in a way we don’t think is right?
The answers to those questions are endless. I could come up with a list, but the list would be way to long to recount in a few minutes. But, let’s name a few.
1. Immigrants
2. Those whose skin is not our color.
3. Those whose music we don’t like.
4. Addicts – either of drugs, or alcohol, or some other destructive force.
5. Criminals
6. Those who profess other faiths.
7. Those who love someone of their own gender.
8. Those who are poor.
9. Those who are rich.
10. Those who speak a language different from our own.
The list can go on and on. We live among lepers. Sometimes we might even be the leper and at other times we treat others like they are lepers. We judge based on things that we feel are legitimate concerns. We use this basis of judgment for one purpose, to separate. Yet, whether or not we intend on it, this separation is perceived as condemnation.
This judgment, this condemnation of others is based on fear, mistrust, misunderstanding, anger, loneliness, the inability to communicate, and so on and so forth. In so many ways, like the leper in our reading this morning, we move through life shrouded in desperation. Either we feel like a leper to the world, untouchable and unclean – or we have chosen others to be treated like lepers.
These divisions are our modern day examples of the food problem in the early church. The details have changed in 2000 years, but the situation is still the same. We build up walls, many of them, especially this wall of judgment, based on perceived threats, based on stereotypes. But in reality, this serves only to keep people apart. It is a form of leprosy that we willingly take on because it offers us a safe haven from having to interact with the other and the other unknown. It is just easier to adopt this form of leprosy than it is to risk reaching out and touching or being touched. It is not until human beings are able to see one another as children of God that we will be able to sit down and begin to try and understand one another. This is true not just for Muslims and Christians, or Muslims and Jews, it is also true for grown-ups and teenagers, for blacks and whites, for gay and straight, for liberals and conservatives, for old hymn lovers and new music lovers.
Jesus, reached out and touched the leper. In that act, he tore down that wall. He healed, he loved, he acted. You see, it is not just a matter of being willing to reach out and touch. We can control that. We can control when we reach out and we touch. No, it is also, perhaps more importantly, a matter of being willing to risk being touched, touched by God and changed, transformed, made whole.
This week, Steve Jobs passed away. I was listening to the news that day and heard a speech he made at Stanford University in 2005. Towards the end of that speech he mentioned something that I think fits in nicely with this message. He said,
“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, some day you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
This morning, these words ring true. As we gather to worship Jesus Christ and his message of love, of renewal, and of hope, let us remember that we have limited time to get it right. During our time, it is essential that we learn to tear down these walls that we spend so much time building up. It is only by tearing down these walls, by bearing our souls to our friends and neighbors, that we truly come to know not only the words of Christ, but we come to trust in him in our nakedness and we come to feel the message of Christ as it warms our hearts and souls.
May God bless us this morning, may he warm our hearts and souls, and may he give us the strength to trust in his message and the courage to live his message even when that means doing something we don’t want to, even when that means talking to someone we don’t want to talk to, and especially when that means loving someone we find hard to love. Amen!
