The Church that Christ Intended: part one (this and other posts to follow come from a series of notes reviewed on one of my other blogs)

Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged

Matthew 7:1-5

“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.”

Perhaps these verses cause confusion. So, I will tell you a story. At a small church in the backwoods there are two pew-sitters. One is named Jake, the other is John. Jake has a decent job, just moved out of his parents house, and is looking to get married. John has been married for thirty-five years, also has a good job, and owns his own home. Jake and John are good friends, since Jake sees John as someone he’d like to grow up to be. Jake and John also deal with a lot of sin. Jake deals with lust and frivolous spending. He’s often in bars on Friday nights. John deals with pornography and has pissed away his savings on alcohol.
Jake goes to John, asking how he can be holy. John tears Jake a new rectum, telling him to stop wasting his money and stop going to bars, to pull his head out of his rear and think about the way this looks to any woman he might want to marry. Jake goes home feeling guilty and hating himself for not being more sensible. John goes home feeling a little self-righteous, until his wife goes to bed and he breaks out the bottle of Jack and logs on to the internet to browse and booze.
One may look at this story and think, “oh, come on, it’s not that extreme.”
Really? Is it not? Don’t we often hate that which we are? Don’t we all take our turn beating down others so we can feel better about ourselves? Isn’t that the one thing that people most hate about Christianity?
To paraphrase a well-used idiom: it’s the hypocrisy, stupid.
We do ourselves a grave disservice. Note in the quoted text, where Jesus says, “by the same measure you use, it will be measured to you.” If we are willing to break someone’s back over a petty sin, while hiding a huge one of ourselves, our own judgment grows exponentially. If we act with unilateral compassion, we will receive the same in kind. We not only serve God and others by acting with compassion, we serve ourselves.
An example-
Jesus was traveling through Samaria, a place considered “unclean” by Israel’s law. He and the disciples stop at a well to rest and find provisions. While there, Jesus sees a woman coming. Now, not only is she a Samaritan and thus considered beneath him, she is doubly wrong because she’s a she. Here is what follows: (John 4:7-41 -slightly edited)

Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

Jesus could have very well said, “I am holy and this woman is beneath me.” But, instead, he treated her with compassion, understanding and respect. He was rewarded by faith being birthed in Samaria, and the woman instead of being an outcast became the mother of faith for her town.
Would that we could learn such compassion and see such results!
Back to our two flawed pew-sitters, Jake and John. John did himself a disservice not only in being judgmental, but because he shut himself out of a true growth relationship. Had John said, “I struggle as well, and this is where-” he and Jake could have held each other accountable, cried with each other, checked up on each other, shared messages with each other. Instead he placed distance and guilt at the center of their friendship. Instead of having a loving and mutually affirming relationship, their relationship became about power and fear.
It is that power and that fear that has killed many a church.

Acts 20:27-29

For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.  Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.  I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.

We must keep in mind that we are called on not to mete out judgment and punishment, but to guard and shepherd each other.  There is no wrong done when we act out of love, and it is done so in the context of true discipleship and accountability.  We need to help each other grow and tend to each others needs.  We need to be watchful of people who would take advantage of Christianity’s call to forgiveness, as well.  Note the amount of predators that come into the church pretending reformation but just looking for chances to abuse.  There is a reason we are called to guard each other- it isn’t only about the need for holiness but also about protection.  It needs to be done with sound judgment and care.