(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “When To Judge”, originally shared on September 4, 2026. It was the 429th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Do you think that it’s ever OK to judge somebody? Bring an open mind
because, today, we’re going to take a field trip to the counter-cultural
courtroom.
Over 1,000 people are now
confirmed dead as of this writing, and 4,400 people are missing, including 900
workers from the hydropower tunnels in Nepal. Experts say that more glaciers in
that area may still collapse soon.
Did those who died deserve to
die? Were they being punished for their sins?
There were people in Jesus’
days on earth who would have judged that those people deserved what they got.
It was a popular religious view at that time.
Jesus said that that’s
not the way it works with God. God’s ways are often hidden from human beings,
and it is impossible for people to see if there are connections between good
deeds and God’s rewards and bad deeds and God’s punishments.
Once, when Jesus was in
Jerusalem, there had been both an atrocity and a construction accident close
together. We read about it in Luke 13:1-5,
13 At that very time there were some present who told him about the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 He
asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way
they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell
you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4 Or
those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you
think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 No,
I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
It
is hard to know what’s going on in the world, and especially what it
means for us.
I
heard a story once about a Chinese rancher who was visited by his neighbor, who
hadn’t been by for a while.
“How are things going?”
the neighbor said. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.
“What do you mean you
don’t know?”
“Well, he said, “do you
remember the big thunderstorm we had a couple of months ago?”
“Yes.”
“All my horses got
spooked and smashed out or the coral.” “That’s bad, right?” said the neighbor.
“I don’t know,” replied the rancher.
“What do you mean you
don’t know?”
“My men went out to get
them and they found my horses and 5 mustangs.” “That’s good, right?”, said the
neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.
“What do you mean you
don’t know?”
“My son tried to break
one of them and he got thrown and broke his arm.” “That’s bad, right?” said the
neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied the rancher.
“What do you mean you
don’t know?”
“A warlord came by the
next day and conscripted all my men, but he didn’t take my son because he had a
broken arm.” “That’s good, right?” said the neighbor. “I don’t know,” replied
the rancher.
“What do you mean you
don’t know?”
And the story keeps going
on and on like that.
We may not know whether
what happens to us is really good or really bad in life, but we can know the
power of God to save us. It is demonstrated to us in Jesus Christ. It comes
from outside of ourselves. It is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, primarily
through the Bible.
To say that we do know
God’s works and God’s ways would be to put ourselves on the same level as God.
It would make our judgement equal to God’s judgment. Jesus said that this would
be an expression of our self-righteousness and of our hypocritical attitude
toward others. Jesus warns us to fix our own serious faults before trying to
fix the minor faults of others.
Christians hear the words, “Do
not judge, so that you may not be judged” more often as an epithet against us
when our values don’t align with someone else’s values.
We hear them when people are
protecting their own judgements on matters like abortion, sexuality, and
divorce, the hot button social issues, and more.
They call our beliefs
“judgmental” when we disagree with their beliefs. “Doesn’t the Bible say
that we’re not supposed to judge?” they say. But they’re not asking a question.
They believe that they are superior and are judging us. It’s exactly what Jesus
calls us not to do.
They miss the wisdom and the
call for humility by Jesus because they don’t read the verses that follow the
“Judge not!” verse.
Here’s the whole passage of
what Jesus says in Matthew 7:1-5,
7 “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For
with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be
the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your
neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or
how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’
while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take
the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck
out of your neighbor’s eye.
But, at the same time, being
judgmental is part of who Christians are called to be. We just call it what it
is: discernment, accountability to God through a Christian community, and
Church discipline.
In fact, the Bible is full of
places where we are commanded to judge. It’s obvious.
Jesus says, in John 7:24,
24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
Paul’s letter to the Church in
Corinth includes the words, in 1 Corinthians 6:2-3,
2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world
is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do
you not know that we are to judge angels—to say nothing of ordinary matters?
That’s the right kind of
judgement, with which Christians are called to live and to prepare.
Judgment can also tear
Christian communities like Churches apart.
Judgement is like
nitroglycerin. It can blow up bridges, or it can heal the human heart.
Conflict happens even among
Christians.
Jesus witnessed it among his closest disciples.
He
empowers us and leaves the resolution of conflict in the church to
the church.
Why? Do we have divine superpowers? No. The Church is the Body of
Christ, and Christ is the head of the Church. Whatever we decide or do, it is
done in accord with God’s will because who we are is a product of the living
relationship with God given to us in
Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit.
We sometimes experience
conflict, and we learn how to deal with it in the Gospel reading that will be
shared in the vast majority of churches in the world this coming Sunday, Matthew
18:15-20.
We saw that, when Jesus spoke
about the Temple atrocity and the construction accident in Jerusalem, Jesus
took a longer view. He said that the way to deal with sudden, unjust,
and seemingly random death is not to judge those who experience the misfortune,
but to repent, to turn away from our sin. Now. Or we will be unprepared
when death comes to us. Don’t fix the blame, Jesus says. Fix the problem.
When Jesus speaks of immediate
and personal sins against us by members of our Christian community, our church,
Jesus counsels a more immediate and personal approach. He begins with a judgement
against a brother or sister in Christ that starts the whole process of
reconciliation to them.
We see it at the beginning of
this week’s Gospel reading, in Matthew 18:15-17,
15 “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the
fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have
regained that one. 16 But if you are not listened to, take one
or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the
evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If the member refuses to
listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen
even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
There’s the process:
1.) Go to the person who you judge has
done something against you or your beliefs and talk with them, just the two of
you. They may not be aware of the fault and in humility may be grateful for
learning something; but you must be clear, it is assumed, that it is you who is
in the right.
2.) If they don’t hear you and repent,
make sure that you are hearing them correctly via witnesses. Make sure that you
understand what the person who you think has sinned against you has said or
done, and that two or three others from your Christian community hear what they
said or did against you, and if the witnesses agree that you are right, they
are called to encourage the person to repent.
3.) If the person who has sinned
against you still won’t repent, and if the whole community and you are in
agreement that you are in the right, then the one who has committed the offense
has removed themselves. They are not part of God’s community, like a
gentile, and are a betrayer, like a tax collector.
But, remember how Jesus dealt with
gentiles and tax collectors? He didn’t give up on them. He continued to call
them to repent and to be forgiven and to be restored to the Christian
community.
But there is an even more
personal and more immediate path to reconciliation with a brother or sister who
you have judged to have sinned against you.
Does your church practice the
Passing of the Peace in worship?
The Passing of the Peace is not
a time for friendly greetings or to catch up on what’s happening in your lives.
It’s a time to say, “we’re good”, we cast away all animosity and are reconciled
with each other as Christ has reconciled us with God!
It means to be reconciled right
there on the spot, with your brother or sister in Christ, during worship. It
begins with the judgement that someone has done something to us that requires
reconciliation. And we are given a process for that reconciliation.
It comes from Jesus’ words in Matthew
5:23-24,
23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that
your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your
gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or
sister, and come and offer your gift.
Where does the authority to
grant that reconciliation come from?
This week’s Gospel reading
concludes with the answer, in Matthew 18:18-20,
18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 Again,
truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will
be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or
three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
How does that work? It is based
in Jesus’ words, “in my name.”
To say that we are agreeing
with one another to do something in Jesus’ name, or to do something “in the
name of Jesus”, by itself, is not invoking some magic words, like in Harry
Potter where you say something in Latin and it just happens. 😊
To ask Jesus to do something in
Jesus’ name means to ask Jesus to act in accord with his true self. It
means to ask Jesus to do his will, as we pray in the Lord’s prayer, “thy
will be done”, not to get Jesus to do our will.
We act in accord with God’s
will as a natural result of our hearts, our true selves, turned to God. God has
changed us. We resonate with God through
the work of the Holy Spirit, we sense his presence within us and the re-formation
of our truest selves. That internal reshaping is what guides what we do
in response.
What we do, we do even in a
broken world.
Our son James came over to help
me do some yard work this past week.
We were pulling dead grass and
pine needles from the land on one side of our house in order to make sure that
the water sprinklers were clear under the trees.
At one point, I pulled on some
green leaves, which turned out not to be leaves but plastic tape that looked
like leaves wrapped around a box. The only thing that was showing from the box
was a lens! I called the sheriff’s department to report what I found.
Someone had placed a
camouflaged wireless camera in our bushes in order to keep an eye on our
neighbor across the street. Whoever did it was keeping track of when he and his
family were at home and when they were not at home. Our neighbor had already
been robbed twice! The sheriffs said that they were especially targeting Asians.
After the sheriffs arrived, our
neighbor came over and noticed another camera in our bushes! The
cameras, however, may have contained information that will lead back to those
who put them there. When they are found, there will be a path to
reconciliation.
Our world is broken, but the
cross has made whole all who repent and receive a living relationship of faith
with the one true living God
And, Jesus says at the
conclusion our Gospel reading, in Matthew 18:20,
20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
What are the operative words in
that sentence? “In my name”.
To say something, or to do
something, in Jesus’ name, is to do it in the nature of Jesus’ true self. It
means to act in accord with God’s will.
That’s why we can get a weird,
and sometimes wildly misinterpreted, statement that treats Jesus’ words like
magic and not as a miracle.
Jesus is present in our worship
services, but also whenever two or three Christians are gathered
together and are in accord with God’s will!
Why two or three?
Have you ever driven in the HOV
lane on the freeway? HOV stands for “High Occupancy Vehicle”. Do you know how
many people you need to have in a car before it is considered “high occupancy”?
Two. That is, one more than
single occupancy. 😊
It’s the same for the Christian
life. Two is the minimum needed to act in Jesus name because that was the
minimum number of witnesses required in a court of law where Jesus lived on
earth. It’s also the minimum number needed to have a relationship. A restored
relationship with God accomplished by Jesus on the cross is what Christianity
is all about.
And two, plus Jesus present in
the midst of them, is very high occupancy.
That is a presence that we need
to make more apparent as the presence of God.
Today, as the influence of
Christianity is declining in our culture, we seem to be going backwards, and
it’s not difficult to see the consequences.
Today we are concerned about
another land war in Europe, in the Middle East, and in the Far East,
even talking in terms of World War III. We know that that wouldn’t end well.
Albert Einstein reportedly
said, “I know not what weapons will be used to fight World War III, but I’m
confident that World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
We are rightly concerned about
the rise of both fascism and totalitarianism, Islamism, Artificial
Intelligence, toxic politics, crime, the breakdown of traditional families, the
loss of basic civil and social values, education, and of civilization itself.
And we are so afraid of being called “judgmental” that we are afraid to speak
up to resist anything that is not in accord with God’s will for human
flourishing.
Yet, we cannot act as if we can
isolate ourselves from the consequences of our declining influence and even
hostility in our culture.
Instead, we are called to face
those who sin against us and seek reconciliation.
We are concerned about what is
going on in the world and we want to do the right thing, but are we worried?
No. God’s will will be done in God’s time.
When are we called to judge?
When the core values of the Christian life are attacked. Paul gives us a
starting point in Galatians 5:22-23,
22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and
self-control. There is no law against such things.
El Nino is forming. We might
get rain this weekend. Winter might actually be coming to Southern California
this year.
But it will bring good, as well
has harm. We cannot always know whether what happens in our lives is for good or
for evil.
What we can know is that when
we judge rightly, even in conflict, and especially in our attempts to resolve
conflict with repentance and reconciliation, God is with us.
God never abandons us. God
calls us to lead all people to the same reconciliation that we ourselves have
first received from God.
We see it in the one verse in
the Bible that 16th century Church reformer, Martin Luther, called
the Gospel in miniature, John 3:16,
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone
who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
We
judge with the same grace we have first received from God.
