Chris Taylor’s Sermon – 5/25/08
Who’s to Judge?
Psalm 8
Isaiah 49:8-13
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
It is good to be back! It feels like it has been a long time since I last stood here. Our trip to Greece was phenomenal. The names of various cities that have been so much a part of my life came alive in a whole new way as we followed Paul’s footsteps through Philippi, Corinth, Thessalonica, Athens and Ephesus. It was a very powerful to renew our baptismal vows beside the stream where Paul had once baptized Lydia, and to share communion near the stadium where Paul had defended the faith and where Christians later gave their lives for the sake of the Gospel.
We had a wonderful group from this church, and part of the blessing of was having time to be together. We were joined by a congregation from Birmingham Alabama. Their pastor, Ed Hurley, was an old friend dating back to our days as housemates on Capitol Hill and then classmates at seminary. The Fox Chapel group, hanging out at the back of the bus, became known as the wild bunch for all the laughter that kept erupting from their midst.
We will be putting together a presentation to share our experience, and we will be sure to let you know when that gets scheduled.
Amid the busyness of trying to catch up this past week I did find time to join several of our members for a round of golf. My game was fairly typical for me; ranging somewhere between mediocre and truly awful. I think it must be kind of reassuring for our members to see me play – they’ve only got to watch a hole or two to realize there is no way this guy plays a whole lot of golf.
I confess that there are times when I turn to God while I play. It is usually along the lines of “Lord, how is it possible that I can be so bad?” I have not reached the point, however, that the old pro Tommy Bolt once did. It is said that after missing several putts during a major championship he looked up at the heavens and cried out, “Come down and fight like a man!”
There is a connection to our text here. I can’t say that I actually think about when I’m playing golf, but I think Paul’s perspective would be particularly helpful. Listen, again, to what he says (v.3), “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself… It is the Lord who judges me.” I’m not quite there yet. I still feel humiliated at times with just how badly I can play. But I like where Paul is going. After all, how bad can it really be when you are able to walk a gorgeous course, spend time with some great people, and occasionally get in a fairly decent shot? What can ruin the day isn’t the game itself, but our tendency to judge ourselves and beat ourselves up, and our concern with the judgment of others. It is only human to want to impress those we are with.
It is this issue of judgment that lies close to the heart of Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters. The movie offers a glimpse of what it meant to be black in the American south of the 1930’s – to be judged by something as superficial as the color of your skin. In one scene in particular, when the brilliant president of an all-black college is confronted by the poor white farmers whose pig he has accidentally killed, we are confronted with the terrible cost of those judgments – it is there in the humiliation of that gifted man; there in the fear we feel for him and for his family.
We judge ourselves, beating ourselves up for our perceived failures. We fear the judgments of those around us, giving to them a shaping role they were never meant to have. Paul is telling us we’ve got it all wrong. It is not our role to stand in judgment, not even upon ourselves. Nor is it the role of others to stand in judgment upon our lives. We give far too much away when we allow their judgments, their perceptions, to influence the kind of choices that we make.
In The Great Debaters Professor Tolson teaches a kind of catechism to his debate team, forcing them to recite it over and over again. “Who is the judge?” Tolson asks. “The judge is God,” the team replies. “Why is he God?”
“Because he decides who wins or loses. Not my opponent.”
“Who is your opponent?”
“He does not exist.”
“Why does he not exist?”
“Because he is a mere dissenting voice of the truth I speak.”
In a world in which their skin-color relegated them to a kind of second-class status, Tolson was trying to set those students free. He was teaching them that it wasn’t about what others might think of them. The only thing that mattered was God. The only thing that mattered was speaking the truth before this God. God alone is judge because God alone ultimately decides who wins and who loses.
That is precisely the message of our text this morning. It is what Paul is saying there in the fourth verse, “It is the Lord who judges me.” We tend to think of the judgment of God as a terrible thing; as something of which we should be afraid. Paul had a completely different view. Because God alone is judge, we don’t have to worry about what anyone else might think. Because God alone is judge, we really don’t even need to judge ourselves.
Why is this good news? Because this same God has already forgiven us; this same God has already decided in our favor. Listen to the way Paul puts it in Romans 8:31f,
If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justified. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right of God, who indeed intercedes for us.
Paul had no illusions here. He knew that plenty of people were judging him, just as there will always be people in our own lives who are quick to judge or to condemn us. What he was saying, rather, is that because God’s judgment is the only one that really matters (and God has already judged in our favor!), we don’t really need to worry about what anyone else may think.
In some thirty years of studying Paul’s epistles to the Corinthians, I’m still amazed by his perseverance. He had founded the church in Corinth. He had invested eighteen months of his life into these people. But he knew that in spite of everything he had done some of those Corinthians were criticizing him behind his back. They were saying his speech lacked power. They were saying he wasn’t all that impressive face to face. They were saying that another preacher, a man named Apollos, was far better than Paul could ever hope to be.
How do you react when someone betrays you? What do you do when someone criticizes you behind your back? A lot of us would just turn away. We would throw up our hands and have nothing to do with them again. The hurt would simply be too great.
But not Paul. In spite of everything, he stayed with these Corinthians. He kept writing to them, kept reaching out. Where do you find that kind of strength? How do you keep loving someone even when they’ve hurt you?
Paul found it in the same place that Tolson and those students found it. It is there in the conviction that what others think of us will never define us. It is there in the belief that it is the Lord who is our judge, and that his judgment is the only one that truly matters.
How does Paul respond to the charges that he was weak? He doesn’t get defensive. He doesn’t try to prove they’ve got it all wrong. He does just the opposite. He boasts about his weakness, (I Cor. 2:1-3), “When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.”
“It is the Lord who judges me.” God’s opinion is the only one that really matters. Begin to believe that, take it to heart and make it part of your life, and it can set you free – free from the tyranny of what others might think; free from the pressures to appear a certain way; free to live into all that God has created you to be.
This past week the Wall Street Journal carried a piece about Nicolas Berggruen. He is 46 years old and his net worth has been estimated at more than $3 billion. Like Richard Branson and Ted Turner before him, he has begun to shift his emphasis towards investments that will make a difference. “I’m investing in the ground,” he says, “in things that will last for generations and improve people’s lives.”
He has sold his Florida mansion on a private island. He has gotten rid of his luxury condo in New York City. He is about to sell his only car. “Living in a grand environment to show myself and others that I have wealth has zero appeal. Whatever I own is temporary, since we’re only here for a short period of time. It’s what we do and produce, it’s our actions, that will last forever. That’s real value. ”
Whether he realized it or not, Nicolas Berggruen has begun to see this life from a Kingdom perspective – not a kingdom of this world which is all about impressions and appearances; but the Kingdom of God; boundless and eternal.
Who is the judge? Not my neighbors, not my co-workers. The only real judge, the only judge that truly matters, is God. He alone decides who wins and who loses.
Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck estimates that there are about forty million people who regularly play golf. No more than ten thousand of that forty million are capable of scoring par on average. What that means in practice is that 99.9 percent of everyone who plays the game is going to fall short of the established standard.
It doesn’t stop there. Those who play professionally have an even higher standard: one shot below par on each hole (and two on a par 5). Again, what that means is that no matter how well you play, there is always this standard that is just beyond your reach. Perfection, in other words, is virtually unattainable.
My point this morning is that life itself isn’t a whole lot different. None of us are perfect. None of us can meet the standard on a regular basis. That’s why we need Jesus. Scratch beneath the surface of any one of our lives and what you will find are places of hurt, and pain, and struggle. Beneath the appearances, you will inevitably find those broken places that are simply a part of being human.
And like golf, we’ve got a choice. We can choose to beat ourselves up, and make ourselves miserable and throw our clubs into a tree when we’ve made a bad shot. Or we can recognize that no one, not even Tiger Woods, makes every shot every time. We can let go of judgment and remind ourselves what an incredible gift we’ve been given here… remind ourselves what a privilege it is just to be out there, what a delight it is embrace a new challenge and enjoy a beautiful setting and be surrounded for a few brief hours by the wonderful people that God brings into our lives.
With this gift of life God has given every one of us something truly extraordinary. Don’t ruin the gift by standing in judgment on yourself. Don’t ruin it by letting the judgment of others shape your choices. The Lord alone is judge, and in that one great truth there is both freedom and joy.
M. Scott Peck, Golf and the Spirit, (Three Rivers Press, New York, 1999), p. 298
The Wall Street Journal, “Putting His Money Where His Values Are,” May 19, 2008