Judgement and Forgiveness

            I have a prayer that I use every time I open myself to God.  I ask God to “curb my judgement”.  I do that because I am a frequent and terrible judge, sometimes when I am watching television and particularly when I am driving.  “That guy on the motorcycle isn’t wearing a helmet!”  “Why did that car pull out in front of me?”  What is wrong with him!” “Why is that car going so fast?” I say that just before I start driving that fast myself.    I’m awful about that stuff.  I even stop myself when I am doing it and try to stop it.  Rosie calls me on it all the time.  Judgement is an easy thing for all of us to do.  It comes with setting the rules for how everyone ought to behave and then watching as people disobey. It is sometimes satisfying, making us feel like we are better than all of those offenders.

           

            After God rejected Saul from being King over Israel, he sent Samuel to the house of Jesse to find the next king.  In the process of this, Samuel found Jesse’s youngest son, David to be the one selected by God and he anointed him to be King.  It was a tremendous moment for the people of Israel.  David turned out to be a great King with a great story.  The great thing about David is that he wasn’t perfect.  He was also a remarkable sinner.  He is the one who lured Bathsheba to his home and seduced her.  The child that was born because all of this did not survive, but after they married, Bathsheba gave birth to Solomon who was a great king who followed David and who built the great temple in Jerusalem where the Ark of the Covenant was stored.  What I like about this story is that being a sinner is not the end of the game. That is the best news that we are ever going to get.  We are not going to lose the love of our creator just because we make some mistakes.

            I have seen this work out in practice.  I have listened to many people who have done things that they regret and are worried that they have fallen out of favor with God because of what they have done.  What I have been able to assure them of is that they are loved by God and are forgiven by God because God’s love is not conditional.  We are loved because we have been created by our God who stands ready to forgive everything that we do that we know is wrong.

            The Pharisees had a curious way of thinking about sin, kind of like me when I am in full judgement mode. They were the rule makers who watched how people obeyed.  When they failed, the Pharisees told them that they were sinners and threw them out of the temple.  This made the Pharisees better than the rest of the people because they were the rulers.  It is fascinating how this worked in the Gospel that we heard about Jesus healing the man born blind.

            The story begins with Jesus’ disciples asking him about the man born blind, “who was it who sinned, was it the man or his parents?”  Jesus answered them by telling them that nobody sinned, that the man was born blind so that the glory of God could be seen through him by his healing.  Jesus then made a paste of mud, rubbed it on the man’s eyes, told him to wash in the pool of Siloam and when he washed, all of a sudden he could see.  This story was told to the Pharisees who were disturbed that this was done on the Sabbath and was therefore a sin.  When they discovered this, they told the formerly blind man of this sin and threw him out of the temple.  Jesus found him and talked to him about what had happened.  The man told him and Jesus asked him if he believed in the Son of Man.  The man asked Jesus who that was and Jesus told him that it was he who was speaking with him.  The man said simply, “I believe.”  Jesus then said I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.  Some Pharisees who were near heard what he said and replied, Surely, we are not blind are we? Jesus told them, If you were blind, you would not have sin, but now that you say “we see”, your sin remains.  This becomes a great discussion of what is or is not sin.  Certainly, the way that the man born blind was treated by the Pharisees in the temple was sinful.  He had done nothing at all wrong.  All that Jesus did wrong when healing him was to do it on the Sabbath, which was against the Pharisee’s rules.  It was only sin to the rulers of the temple, not sin before God.

            The way to stop all of this is by looking closely at ourselves.  Here in the season of Lent we are asked to do just that.  Beginning with Ash Wednesday, we are reminded that we are dust and to dust we shall return, a statement that tells us about our humanity, about our life and that our deaths are a foregone conclusion.  Getting right with God and with each other needs to be our focus and that is what slows down judgement.  Lent proceeds through its Sundays with stories of Jesus’ constant forgiveness featured.  Finally, we get to Palm Sunday, when Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph at first and then is handed over to the authorities, tried and sent to the cross to die.  Here is Jesus giving of himself to counter all of the judgement around him. This is God telling humanity how much we are loved, that he sent his only son to die for us that we might understand the depth of that love.  The way that we are asked to respond to that love is to love one another.  This can lessen our judgement and increase our community.