Preached by the Reverend Canon Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral at the 8:40 and 9:50 am services on Sunday, October 8, 2006.
The grace of our Master Teacher — the love of God in the unity of Spirit — be with you all.
Heavenly Parent, from our first breath to our last, we are your children. Thank you for embracing us with loving arms, nurturing us with kindness, blessing us with your grace. Your unconditional love instills the “want to” and the “how to” in our lives.
Yet, like all children, we at times lose our way. Lord have mercy.
We depend on you to help us stay on the path you have prepared. Christ have mercy.
Strengthen us so we may focus on your purposes for our lives. Lord have mercy.
God of mercy, we are once again renewed as we discover again the child within us; helping us to open our minds, and to be ready to receive all you have for us. May we be the instruments of your love as we strive to do what is just, to serve others and to respect the dignity of all human life. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
The Phoenix Affirmations: # 6
The Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers honor the essential unity of spirit and matter by connecting worship and theology with concrete acts of justice and righteousness, kindness, and humility, with or without the support of others.
The LORD God has told us what is right and what is required of us: “See that justice is done, let mercy be your first concern, and humbly obey your God.” So, let justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry.
1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your neighbor’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your neighbor’s eye.
6“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.
7“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; those who seek, find; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
I remember about 20 years ago someone doing their missionary duty called me everything but a child of God. They thought I was a heathen and a reprobate and a godless sinner, etc. This kind soul then informed me that they were simply pointing out my flawed and disordered nature because to do so was the Christian and loving thing to do. Now I’ve been to goat roping before. I may not be able to define love with words, but I know it when I feel it, and that wasn’t it.” My friend assured me that their only intention was to save me from my evil ways, to which I responded, “Stop right there! Please don’t spit on my boots and tell me its rain.” Religion is not a martial art. I shouldn’t be left bleeding after you’ve shared the love of God with me, hello!?!
The point is that many of us have been abused in the name of religion. We have experienced what it feels like when someone values rules that they say come from God more than they value our reality, our feelings, our way of being in the world. We don’t have to judge them for their attempt to judge us, but neither do we have to accept their judgment of us.
A Course in Miracles says, “Every judgment is a self-judgment.” “Judge not…” from Matthew 7:1 means more than that. It does mean that, and it is true, but the phrase “judge not” comes to us today in a larger context.
Jesus’ sermon (The Sermon on the Mount we usually call it) begins with chapter 5 of Matthew’s gospel, and it opens with Jesus encouraging people who felt disenfranchised. In a time when an occupied people are under the sometimes harsh rule of the Roman Empire, the writer of Matthew’s gospel has his literary Jesus empowering the powerless. To those who had been pushed to the margins of society, Jesus is remembered as having a word of encouragement.
If you know your sacred value, then you don’t have to wait until others understand how good you really are before you start living with hope and dignity. Circumstances may not seem to warrant it, but you can choose to know the truth of your being and live in the power of that truth no matter what is happening.
So, Jesus tells the poor that they have untapped riches within them. He tells the bereaved that comfort and consolation will one day come to them. He tells the people who are intimidated that it is actually possible for them to inherit the earth. He praises those who show mercy and says that people who work for peace are actually God’s children. And those who have been persecuted because of their commitment to justice are citizens of heaven, Matthew’s Jesus says.
And that’s how the sermon begins. Jesus continues his speech by affirming his disciples further, comparing them to flavorful salt and bright, warm light. He then asks them to live like the salt and light they are when he reminds them that killing is never the answer to social problems; he goes further by pushing them to consider the attitudes that lead to killing in the first place. Don’t let your anger escalate to rage, he warns, and know that if you become too insulting there may be hell to pay (anyone who calls someone a fool is in danger of hell-fire) – because the insulted may retaliate with a vengeance! By the way, that passage in the Aramaic text reads, “Whoever questions a brother’s masculinity is condemned to hell-fire.” Call someone a sissy? It might get ugly.
Jesus challenges people to honor the agreements upon which they have built their relationships, and he tries to dissuade men from divorcing their wives. Women, in Jesus’ culture had no status apart from a father, husband, or adult son, and so to divorce a woman could mean reducing her to a life of utter destitution. And so, Jesus points out the obvious, that it isn’t good to treat people that way.
Jesus goes on to say that to respond to violence with violence only means much more violence. He offers a more difficult, disciplined, and peaceful means of engaging conflict by actually turning the other cheek.
In chapter 6, Jesus’ sermon continues by saying don’t flaunt your religion in public! And when you pray, remember to pray for those who haven’t given you what they owe you — respect, courtesy, whatever it may be.
And that leads us to the final bit of the sermon, chapter 7. We heard the first few verses of that chapter this morning. Instead of figuring out the sins and character flaws of others, and preaching against them and passing judgment on them and condemning them, it might serve us better to look at our own lives and see what we could improve about ourselves.
If we had read the rest of the chapter, we’d hear Jesus closing by summarizing everything else he had said: Treat others the way you’d like to be treated. He even adds that the spirituality he is advocating isn’t about what you say or what you call him. He says without equivocation, “Not everyone who calls me Lord” are really citizens of the heavenly realm. Who is, then? Those who DO the will of God. The will of God is what Jesus has spent the entire sermon outlining. It’s not about what we say or even what we claim to believe. We’re entitled to our beliefs, especially if they serve us well. But our beliefs are our own. Jesus isn’t trying to make us believe one thing instead of another; he trusted people to find their way. He’s calling people in this Sermon on the Mount to DO something, not believe something. He says, DO the will of God. We can praise Jesus with a lot of lip service, AND we can follow his example; but if we only do one, Jesus seems to prefer that we do the latter. Chapter 7 concludes by saying that the crowds were astonished by this sermon.
It’s still astonishing today, isn’t it, when instead of welcoming others in Jesus’ radically inclusive way, we exclude them by condemning them. We fight to decide who can’t marry, who can’t have certain jobs, who can’t be ordained, who can’t serve their country, which gender must submit to the other, who isn’t saved, who isn’t a child of God, a person of sacred value.
But today we have the opportunity to step back from the arguments and the political battles and the bloody wars and the fear and guilt and condemnation and hear from our bible the message of Jesus:
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are those who work for peace.
Blessed are those who risk danger for the sake of justice.
Treat everyone the way you wish people would treat you.
Don’t seek revenge.
Don’t accost people with your religion.
And don’t be so busy judging others that you forget to improve yourself.
You know why? — because EVERYONE who asks receives, and ANYONE who seeks will find, no matter who you are, if you bother to knock, the door will open. Why bother judging when no one gets left out of the love of God? So instead of perpetuating or allowing injustice, let’s work for peace and justice so that God’s will can be done on earth as it is in heaven. And if Jesus in Matthew’s gospel is a reliable source, God’s will is freedom and equality and fairness for ALL. The Jesus way is the justice way.
The prophet Micah, speaking forth God’s word said, “This is what God wants from you, only to see that justice is done, that mercy becomes your first concern, and that you be humble about how you understand God.” The prophet Amos speaking forth God’s word said, “Let justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry.” And the prophet Jesus, speaking forth God’s word said, “Do not attempt to judge the righteousness of others.” And, the truth is, if we are busy being Christ in the world, doing justice and loving mercy and living humbly with the God of our understanding, there won’t be much time left over for self-righteousness and condemnation anyway.
Being a Christ follower, a little Christ, a Christ-ian, means following Jesus’ way which is the path of doing justice, showing mercy, and living humbly, just as Micah prophesied earlier. The Gospel witness is summed up in today’s Phoenix Affirmation, “The Path of Jesus is found where…[we] connect worship and theology with concrete acts of justice and righteousness, kindness, and humility, with or without the support of others.” Amen.
My hands are God’s hands.
I will work for justice.
My hands are God’s hands.
I will work for peace.
My hands are God’s hands.
I will embrace my good.
My hands are God’s hands.
I will share my good with others.
My hands are God’s hands.
I will rejoice.
And so it is.
