Love and Judgment in a World of Strangers

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged, for in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matt 7:1-5)

Christians often speak and act judgmentally. This should not surprise us, since it takes a lifetime of growth to achieve any semblance of the ideal we see in Christ, and even then we are not perfect. Just being a Christian does not make us like Jesus any more than putting on a pair of jogging shoes suddenly enables us to run a marathon. It takes consistent work and practice to really imitate Jesus in love and tolerance.

No matter if it does take more than a lifetime, we should be working on being more like Him.  More important than whether or not we have been judgmental is to ask whether Christ is judgmental.  We strive for the ideal, but what is the ideal?  Regardless of our failure to achieve the standards of our faith, is acceptance and tolerance of others part of the standard we are praying to achieve? Do we really act like Jesus when we criticize the world around us? 

The answer quickly gets complicated. One day, the Bible says, we will join Jesus in judging the world, (I Corinthians 6:2) but that day isn’t today.  The Bible also tells us to restore Christians who are caught in sin, in Galatians 6:1 “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted” but it is not clear whether means pointing out their sins or accepting their forgiveness.  It probably means both.  We have to judge in order to correct. To do otherwise is like trying to fix a car without knowing what is wrong with it.

Expressing or even having opinions always brings a hostile reaction from those who disagree.  Christians are called homophobes, hypocrites, Pharisees, self-righteous, and a hundred other ugly insults. People don’t like it when we do not approve of their lifestyle choices.  Yet we serve a righteous God who gave us commandments that define our way of living socially, sexually, morally, intellectually, and emotionally.  These commandments necessarily and definitively set us apart from others. To deny this is to deny our God.  

 This should not be a surprise to anyone.  Following Jesus morality has always set us at odds with the ad hoc morality of any given age.  In ancient Rome, Christians were initially persecuted just because they would not submit to a plurality of gods, but insisted on teaching that there was only one. John Hus and John Wycliffe were martyred for daring to suggest that the church was corrupt. In early America, working to free slaves was considered by many to be immoral.  .  In Henry VIII’s time, Sir Thomas More’s opposition to the king’s divorce cost him his head.  In Huckleberry Finn, Huck wonders whether his assisting a runaway slave will sent him to hell, since all the “Christians” he knew approved of slavery. Christians have always been in trouble for speaking what they hold to be the truth, so it should be no surprise to us that we are out of step with the times.

Being out of step with the times, though is not what this blog is about.  It is about living in a world where we are out of step.  How do we live in a pluralistic society, holding to unpopular opinions, and love the people around us?

Jesus warns us against judgmentalism.  Living under a moral code does not give us the right to criticize and condemn those who do not. Peter warns us in I Peter 4: 15 not to be meddlers in the affairs of others.   It is not us to us to impose our morality on the world at large, sticking our noses into other people’s business and bedrooms, condemning whole groups of people without knowing them. 

It’s not that we must approve of heresy, wrong thinking, homosexuality, premarital sex, or even drinking or smoking. We get in trouble when we define people narrowly with one word, using stereotypes instead of engagement.  We are never justified in labeling people by a moral or character flaw, instead of recognizing them as whole person.  If a person is drug addict, a homosexual, a Mormon or a Muslim—we may disapprove of that aspect of their nature, but it does not give us the right to ignore the rest of them.  We are not at war with anyone.  Christians talk about “taking back our country from the heathen” as if the “heathen” were horde to be vanquished instead of a hungry multitude to be fed from God’s Word.  Once we have criticized a person’s theology or sexual behavior we seem to think there’s nothing else we need say to them.

We do not need to approve of a person’s politics, religion, or sexual practices to love them.  We can love those with whom we disagree.  We do not have to focus on where we differ, but should seek common ground.  The first obligation we owe the stranger is not to criticize but to love.

We do not criticize with love, but in love.  Love is the first and fundamental face we should show to others.  We may correct our friends, but that criticism will be accepted only by those with whom we have firmly established our friendship. Only when we have first demonstrated love do we have the right to criticize.

Neither is it enough to simply believe we love a person before we criticize.  We must also like them. We have to feel a genuine affection for a person before we have the right to criticize them.

Much has been said about love being first a choice, not a feeling, and so it is.  This is the agape love that the Bible describes—a choice that is based on our decision to love, not on the other person’s behavior.  Psychologist Rollo May describes this kind of love as an act of will.  The will to love is based on our decision informed by or relationship with God. It has nothing to do with the intrinsic worth of the person who receives this love.  We do not love people because they are worthy, but in spite of their unworthiness. 

Agape love shows Jesus’ character to society at large.  In a world of strangers, where we know nothing of their lives, motivations, or intentions, agape must be our first response.

Strangers are strangers because we know little or nothing about them.  To practice love to strangers is first of all to treat them with civility. We should help them when they need it, but we should not meddle in their affairs, because to do so is to presume on a knowledge of them I do not have.  I do not have the right to tell them how they should live their lives, because I do not know their lives. They are the servants of another. God is their judge, not I.  To judge them is to invite their judgment on my own life.

But there is more to loving others than willpower.  Love is also a feeling, given by the Holy Spirit, which is not the same for everyone. We are drawn to specific people and groups of people, causing to feel affection for them.  In such an instance, love is more than a disinterested choice—it is a deep emotional connection. We don’t just love these people in a disinterested way—we actually like them.

We cannot always rationally explain why we feel this way about some and not others—we just do. The Spirit of God has placed them on our hearts.  God has placed a small piece of he affection He feels for all in our hearts, and told us to show it to others.  We feel empathy and compassion for them. We care what happens to them.

We may read about an earthquake in Nepal have a certain amount of sympathy for the victims the odds are that tomorrow we will have forgotten it. But a tragedy in our home town moves us to action because we know the people. If we felt that way about every tragedy around the globe, we could not bear it. Only God can bear the emotional burden of compassion for all.

Our emotional involvement in people’s lives sometimes leads us to criticize and confront.  If our children are on drugs, we cannot ignore it for love’s sake. If our husband or wife is cheating on us, we cannot and should not just ignore it. We have to confront for their sake.  Not to do so is to send a signal that we do not care.

There are moral boundaries between people, just as there are natural boundaries. People living outside the boundary of my home and family have a right to behave however they wish.  But those God has given me to love are my responsibility. I have an obligation to warn them when their behavior or ideas endangering their lives or souls. 

Some question this by citing the Old Testament prophets and even to Jesus.  They point out the prophets criticized the idolatry of their day loudly, even traveling to foreign countries to preach on the street.  Jesus drove he moneychangers from the temple, even though He was a stranger to them.  

 In reply I would first point out that we are not Jesus, nor are we among the prophets. They received divine instruction directly from God that enabled them to see not only what people did, but why they did it, and how to get them to change. We do not have such knowledge, and we should stop assuming that we do. 

Second, Jesus and prophets spoke with genuine affection for God’s chosen people.  Their criticism of the nations and of Israel’s leader was driven by a passionate love for Israel, just as we might confront societal injustice today to save a nation we love.

It’s hard enough living a life or moral integrity without taking on the responsibility of straightening out the rest of the world. We are not called to be the saviors of the world--the world already has a Savior.  Our calling is to live within a society of strangers in the way that best represents Christ.  Let’s confine our criticism to those who need it most, and to those we know the best, and not waste our time judging others. 

Nehemiah 1--Why We Need Walls

Nehemiah was a Jew among the exiles who were carried away into Babylon in 587 BC. Israel and Judah had once been a great people, but now they had fallen because of their sins.  While they were in captivity, their captors—the Babylonians— had themselves been conquered by the Persian Empire. 

One day his brother Hanani came to visit.  He was among a small group who returned to Jerusalem after the exile.  He brought bad news in verses 1-3.

Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the capital,   that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, "The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire."

Jerusalem was in trouble because it had no wall. A wall was necessary for the survival of any city.  Without a wall, a city had no integrity. How could you know where your city begins and ends? Without a wall, a city had no defense.  How do you keep robbers and animals out?  Without a wall, no one wanted to live there. Who wants to settle in a defenseless place?  Without a wall, a city had no sense of identity.  Where do you hand your royal banners?

The Babylonians had torn down the physical wall of the city, but before Babylonians had torn down the physical wall the proud, sinful leaders of the city had already destroyed the spiritual and culture wall that surrounded the nation. They followed foreign gods until they saw no difference in their minds between Israel and the surrounding countries. They encouraged commerce and borrowed customs until it made little difference whether they were Jewish or Gentile.  What's the point of maintaining the wall if you have nothing unique inside?  What's the point of defending some piece of land that is no safer or more beautiful than the places outside the wall? 

Whenever a community comes together, there must be a sense of difference between what is inside and what is not. This is our spiritual wall.  Without it, the physical wall makes little difference. 

Every church has an invisible spiritual boundary.  This wall serves as our protection, defense and corporate identity. Part of that wall is our denominational and/or doctrinal affiliation that makes us different from other religions and even other Christian denominations.  This wall protects us from heretics and schismatics. 

Another part is the individual, God-given vision for a local church. This is why we exist separately as an institution.  We are not just Presbyterian, Baptist, or Methodist churches, but we are called to this  community,  this ministry, or this kind of approach to God's Word.  

Other Christian churches will have different walls, and they are entitled to do so.  Having walls does not mean that those on the outside are enemies.  They are our friends and allies who have their own and different walls.  They are entitled to draw their lines wherever they wish.  Our walls give us and them to freedom to exist independently, in a mutually supportive relationship.  Poet Robert Frost once wrote, “good fences make good neighbors.”  Our different walls delineate us from others, define our sole responsibility, and give us freedom to be who we are. 

When Jesus walked the earth, He operated within the walls of Palestinian Judaism. He did not turn away those on the outside, but worked mainly on the inside of that wall.  In time His kingdom expanded across the whole earth, and created a new entity called the church. But Jesus understood the need for ministry within the covenant family of Israel until the time of fulfillment. Only when it was all done did He send His disciples beyond the wall to the world at large.  

In Ephesians Paul wrote about the "wall of separation" which existed in his day between Jew and Gentile, and how the wall came down in Christ.  This was not a condemnation of walls but a creation of a new community in Christ.  The wall to Paul was Christ.  Within that wall we are one city.  When the walls go down, there is no defense. Vision needs to be nurtured within community. Without that nurture time, our vision becomes weak and fragile.

For a long time, our church has attempted to function without a clearly defined central vision. We know who we used to be, but we didn’t know who we are now. Our church wall needs to be restored, rebuilt and refined. For that reason we have been meeting with the elders to seek to redefine what the vision of the church is today.  This is not a process that can be accomplished in a day or a month, maybe not even in a year, but it must be accomplished. Just as Jerusalem needed a wall around it if it was ever to become a great city, so we must have a wall around us if we are ever to again become a great church. That visionary definition is all important. 

When Nehemiah found that the wall had not been rebuilt, he understood exactly what it meant. No city can be great without a wall around it.  Nehemiah couldn't rebuild the wall, and neither could the people who had returned.  Nehemiah became very sad and troubled.

Being sad and troubled  isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes if we don’t get upset, nothing gets done.  God allows trouble in our lives to move us on to greater things.  So here is what he did in verse 4

As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

His prayers were not mechanical.  He really got down and wept. Not only did he pray, but he also fasted.  Fasting is a sign of mourning. He took his sadness and despondency and turned it over to God.  

People often talk about the “power of prayer.”  Actually, our prayer has no power—the power is all in God's hands. Prayer is simply asking for God’s power. God does not answer prayer according to some magic formula, but He answers people  who seek His help before they seek the help of others.  They ask with passion and purpose. These are the kinds of people who may be turned into conduits for His power.  Nehemiah was such a person, as evidenced by his passionate prayers and fasting. Nehemiah wanted this more than he wanted food, his high position or his own safety. That was why God could use him.

Nehemiah was in an impossible position to help.  Yet God used him to rebuild the wall. You may think God cannot use you--that you are too old, too weak, too busy or too young.  You may be asking if there is someone else. God may raise us up as leaders to rebuild the wall, but first we must be willing to get passionate about it.

Nehemiah’s prayer is found in 5-11. 

"O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,

He acknowledged God’s kingship.  God can do whatever He wants. If He wanted Jerusalem’s wall not to be built and Jerusalem to perish--so be it. Second, Nehemiah recognized His power.  He is an awesome God.  If God wanted Jerusalem’s walls to be rebuilt and Jerusalem to be a great city again, He has the power to rebuild the wall out of nothing.  Third, Nehemiah recognized God’s promise God made to Israel and claimed that promise on behalf of God's people. No human institution  will exist forever. But He will never leave us or forsake us. If we are faithful in fulfilling what God wants us to do, then our church will be blessed with a long life within the walls of God's promise and purpose.

Then he confessed his own and his country's failures. He didn’t just say “God, we had bad leadership.” Blaming gains nothing. 

The first sin mankind ever committed was almost immediately acknowledged and confessed--not by the person who committed the first sin, but by the person who committed the second one as a means of avoiding their own responsibility! Adam blamed Eve for the Fall.  Not only did he blame Eve, but he also blamed God for giving her to to him.  “God that woman you gave me caused this!” 

Suppose Adam had been willing to bear his own responsibility for the Fall, confessing his own sin and working to restore the spiritual wall around Eden that sin broke. If he had taken responsibility instead of blaming his wife, history might have been very different!  We all must take responsibility--either we caused the wall to fall, or we allowed it to happen. Nehemiah did not dwell on the past--he looked forward to the future. Repentance is turning our back to the past, not wallowing in remorse. His acknowledgement of the problem was a prerequisite to God changing the future. 

Because our wall has not been maintained, we have been scattered abroad, weakened and almost destroyed. But if we regain God's vision and again obey His Word, and rebuild that wall, God will surely bring us back. That vision will not be the same as the first vision, but it will be a great one-- better, clearer, and more suited to today.

Our job is not to rebuild the old wall, but make a new one.  In the end, the latter glory of the city can be greater than the first. One day we will reach out beyond these walls and become a great influence in the world again. But we must keep things in order. First we pray. Then we build the wall. Afterward, we will conquer the rest of the country. In the end, all will be done in its proper order, and God will be glorified again. 

Getting serious about Serving

In Joshua 24,  Joshua tells the people of Israel' Choose you this day who you will serve."  “Serve.”  as Joshua understood it is not the same as the way we understand it.  Today, if we are in a "service" job such as a waiter or housekeeper or butler, we sell a portion of our time and effort to another, but at the rest of the day belongs to us.  We serve in the armed forces, but only for a few years. We are not slaves, but temporary servants.

In Joshua's day, service  was not a profession, but a life.  A servant was a slave. They did it not by choice, but usually by birth.  Few people had the luxury of choosing who they would serve.  Birth and fate determined your master

But God gives us a choice of masters. We can either serve God or someone (or something) else.  We can not, however,  choose not to serve, because  we always serve someone or something. Service is a natural part of who we are. We can no more choose not to serve than we can choose not to have a brain. It is a basic part of human nature. 

Service is surrender to an ultimate authority. This may be a conscious surrender, but most of the time it is not. When we serve something, we don’t do it reasonably or rationally, we just submit.  A soldier submits voluntarily to his commanding officer. An alcoholic submits unconsciously to the power of alcohol. Both will do anything that their service requires.  AS Dylan put it "we gotta serve somebody." 

Service and worship are the same thing. The Greek word usually translated as worship means to serve. The English “worship” comes from “worth” meaning ultimate value. Whatever we serve is of ultimate worth to us. Whatever is of ultimate value to us  ultimately is our god.

Service is not just an exercise of the will, but it involves our whole being.  We may serve God with our minds, but our habits, emotions, thoughts, and relationships are still loyal to old masters. But as we choose to serve one master, we must  learn to serve Him alone. It’s not easy. It takes time, but we can choose to change who we serve.But we can't choose not to serve somebody. If we say that we have no master, we deceive ourselves. We cannot choose to serve, we can choose who to serve. Once we make that choice it is the last independent choice we make.  Once submit to a master, we are forever committed  unless we renounce them that master for another. 

Joshua's words comes at a critical time in the history of Israel. Joshua has led the Israelites into the Promised Land and they have conquered it. So now, Joshua gathered them at Shechem to release them from military service.

The Israelites have been following God for years. They traveled forty years in the desert, led by God, following the pillar or smoke by day and the fire by night. Under God's leadership they crossed the Jordan River and fought the inhabitants of the land, risking their lives in battle after battle. So now, why does Joshua tell them to  choose, when they seemed to have been already doing it for more than  a half century? 

Joshua told them to choose because he understood that they were not really following God.  They had not needed to. All they needed was to follow the leaders God sent them--Joshua and Moses.  Now Joshua was going away and there was no one to lead them. We may think serve God because we do what our leaders tell us, but we are really just following our leaders. That is not the same as following God. Sooner or later, we must serve Him directly. 

Service has two parts to it—submission and action.  These two parts of service balance each other.

Submission is putting ourselves under another. It starts as a choice, but it is really the surrender of choice. We voluntarily yield our will. Once submit, we are through making choices.  They are already made. Once we choose a wife, we cannot choose another later. That choice restricts our future freedom to choose.  I make this choice freely, but once it is made, it becomes my duty and my obligation. At this point, my ideas, thoughts, preferences, and desires are irrelevant to the greater submission. If I say “not, I won’t do this, I don’t feel like it,” then I have withdrawn my submission, and have placed myself in service to my feelings.  If I say “no, I’ve got a better plan,” then I have withdrawn my submission and chosen to follow my own reason.  When I surrender to God, I am no longer answerable to my ideas, emotions, thoughts, feelings, appetites, desires or other allegiances.  I submit wholly and completely to Him.

Action is the other side of service. I focus my whole being on carrying out the will of the master   Action involves work, sweat, thought, imagination, improvisation, frustration, and organization.  When a general commands a army division to charge and enemy camp, he does not issue detailed orders.  He expects the captains and colonels under him to figure out how to best moves their troops over the ridge and attack the enemy. When a movie director is making a movie, he doesn’t design everything himself, but he expects the actors, the computer technicians, the set designer s and costume designers to do their best job in filling in the details.  When God commands us to help the poor, love our neighbor, spread the Gospel, and to bring our lives into submission to Him, He doesn’t give us absolutely every detail, either. Instead, He created us with brains, hands, and hearts to fill in the blanks themselves.  Submission and action must go hand in hand.

 

What does it look like if we have submission but no action? Think of a sloth. Sloths are very slow, stupid animals that hang from the same tree all their lives. They trust the tree, feed off the tree, and live in the tree. But if the tree falls down, the sloth will likely die with the tree. That is why there are very few sloths in the world, because they never get out of their trees.  As a result, the sloth is has never been very prolific as a species. They spend their lives trusting the tree, but not doing anything else.

What does it look like to over emphasize action?  Think of the lemming.  Lemmings are excitable creatures who will every so often get in a frenzy and start running. They don’t know why they are running or where they are going, but they just charge ahead. One lemming excites the other.  In their frenzy to get somewhere, they charge madly forward until they fall off a cliff or run into the ocean. 

 

 

Without action, we are sloths.  Without submission, we are lemmings.  To serve Christ, we must have both.
 

How do we serve Christ?  It takes three things.

First we must choose Christ.  You have a choice of who to give your submission.  You do not have to serve your appetites or worldly goals. God’s Spirit helps you break the power of the goals you already serve. You can be a new creature in Him. On the cross Jesus put to death your old self, so you can follow the new. Once you decide to break your old allegiances, Jesus will help you.

But you must choose Him. There is no substitute for that.  You may not fully understand what that means, but you must choose Him without reservation and without full understanding.

Jesus came to Peter and the fisherman and said.  “Follow.” He came to Matthew and said “Follow”.  He came to Simon the Zealot and said “follow.” He revealed Himself to Paul on the road to Damascus as a blinding light and said “Follow.” All these men were given an intentionally blind choice to follow, even if they did not understand who He really was. 

The first step is always making your choice. 

Next we must know Christ.  Once we have chosen, we must then get to know Him.  In ancient Israel when a man got married he was exempt from military service for one year just so he could get to know his wife.  When a person chooses Jesus, they should not be immediately rushed into the front lines for service. They should take the time to study the Bible, pray, and seek Him.  In time, we get to know Him and know how God wants to use us. 

Third we must Follow Christ.  Once we know what He wants from us, we must do it. but constantly looking back towards Him. Following Jesus is not she same act acting on Jesus’ behalf.

Service is a balance of passive submission and rigorous action.  If we are not balanced, we cannot serve. We must have both to be fully what God intends us to be.