Romans 2:1-4
“Judgment Not Allowed”
By: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor, Grace UMC, Soddy Daisy, TN
To my brothers and sisters from Grace…I know I used this same illustration this morning, so please bear with me…
Members of a Christian theatre troupe spent $90,440 on a full-page advertisement in USA Today that ran nationally a few weeks ago, proclaiming “enough is enough.”
What they are upset about involves a woman named Kathy Griffin.
In accepting the Emmy for her Bravo reality show, “My life on the D-List,” Griffin said that “a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus.”
She went on to hold up her Emmy, make an off-colour remark about Christ and proclaim, “My award is god now!”
Why should Christians be so shocked by this?
Why should Christians take this kind of thing so personally and become angry with Kathy Griffin?
Why should Christians expect the lost to act as if they were saved?
We need a Spirit of compassion toward the lost, not a spirit of angry reaction!
Christians spending over $90,000 to chastise an unbeliever for “persecuting them.”
What could really be done for the Kingdom of God with all that money?
In the passage that I just read from Romans, Paul reminds us that when we pass judgment on others we are showing “contempt for the riches of” God’s “kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance.”
If we are disciples of Jesus Christ, it is only because God has been so rich in God’s kindness, tolerance and patience toward us!
This kindness of God has brought us toward repentance!!!
And we, as the Children of God, saved by the blood of Jesus, are called to be Christ’s Body…
…God’s representatives on this earth!
Part of our job is to extend God’s kindness, tolerance and patience toward a lost and dying world…so that they will be led to repent and follow Christ.
We are the salt of the earth…
…we are the light of the world!!!
We are to love the lost into the Kingdom…
…not get angry at the lost for their lostness!!!
In Ephesians Chapter 2, Paul tells us: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.
Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
God so loved us even when we were steeped in sin…
…in like manner do we so love the world, even as so many are steeped in sin and dead in their trespasses?
And if so, do they know we love them?
Several years ago, I was working on a landscaping crew for the summer.
It was the summer before I entered seminary.
The foreman on the crew was a young woman who happened to be gay.
One day we were doing some landscaping around a strip mall where one of the tenants was a storefront Christian Church.
As we were taking a break on the hill above the parking lot, we witnessed a man, who had…sort of a certain feminine way about how he walked-- drive up, get out of his car and head into the church.
The foreman shot up in amazement and exclaimed: “What is he doing going into a church? Doesn’t he know that Christians hate him?”
Whether Christians really hate him or not isn’t the issue…
…the issue is that this young woman’s perception of Christians has come from somewhere…and it is a wide-spread perception!!!
And it is not the kind of perception that brings people to repentance!
Before His crucifixion Jesus said to His disciples, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this all [people] will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
It is God’s loving kindness, tolerance, and patience which leads persons to repentance and transformation by grace through faith in Christ!!!
It was Jesus Christ’s loving kindness, tolerance and patience that caused the outcaste, the marginalized, the sinful to come to Him.
To the religious leaders of Jesus’ day Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.”
In his book No Perfect People Allowed author and minister John Burke writes about “Sarah, a twenty-something mother of three, [who] had only been married once.
Her husband was the father of only one of the children (there were two other dads in the picture before she married Tom).
Both Sarah and Tom were extremely warm, welcoming people who lived one street over from us.
Their loving nature showed in the way they treated their kids—not to mention how they let Sarah’s sister live with them as she struggled to get back on her feet from a crack addiction.
Tom worked two jobs, as a software analyst and waiter, to afford their modest three-bedroom suburban life.
Burke continues to write: “Kathy and I had built a relationship with Sarah and Tom and invited them to church several times, but this was the first sign of interest in a year.
We have two service, nine o’clock and ten thirty,” Burke said as nonchalantly as possible.
“We’re thinking about coming, but can I ask you a question that might offend you?” she hesitantly inquired.
“Sure! Don’t worry, you’re not going to offend me.”
Burke then writes: “I tried to make myself vulnerable while praying for wisdom for whatever arrow was pointed my way.”
“Well…” She hesistated.
“Are you a loving church? I mean, do you teach people to love others?”
Burke writes: “I laughed, feeling some relief and trying to ease her tension, ‘Of course—that’s the central point of the message of Jesus, ‘love God and love others.’”
“Well…but how do you feel about gays?” she finally spit it out.
Burke writes, “Not knowing why this was so important, I decided to try to both ease her mind and understand more, ‘We feel they are people that matter to God. Is that something you have dealt with personally, or do you have close friends who are gay?”
“No,” she replied.
“I just need to know you’re not one of those hateful churches.
I just couldn’t go to a church that teaches people to hate others.”
To understand just how serious this issue of tolerance is for those outside the church, we need to understand that the real question people are asking is “Are you one of the narrow-minded, bigoted, hate-filled, intolerant types of Christians I’ve heard about?”
What they really want to know is whether we promote love or hatred.
In our language, it might be more like, are we more like the Pharisees or are we more like Jesus?
In a generation raised on so much divorce and disagreement, people long for unity.
They’re tired of being torn apart and divided.
And this part of the tolerance equation is good, because as we know, truly only the God of love can be so tolerant and willing to forgive the most horrible of sins humankind can commit.
And as Christians, who are called to lead others to Christ, we must learn how to communicate just how tolerant and loving God is while not compromising God’s righteousness and holiness.
We may ask: “Why is tolerance so important?”
Well, as we read in the passage from Romans, God is a very tolerant God!
But also, we’re trying to reach a very media-suckled generation!
They have been inundated with news not only of religious scandals and priestly sexual abuse, but also with a slew of press reports painting Christians as judgmental extremists.
Let’s face it.
TV consistently presents us as narrow-minded, uneducated, judgmental people.
In one episode of The Simpsons, Homer sees his born-again neighbor, Maude Flanders, over the fence and greets her warmly, “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks. Where have you been?”
“Oh,” Maude cheerfully replies, “I’ve been away at a Bible camp, learning to be more judgmental.”
How sad that the world sees us this way.
But this is the stereotype we are now facing.
When our arguments for what is true or right are heard outside the context of experiencing the love of God mediated through God’s Body, the church, we are seen in the same light as some of the most bigoted persons of our history.
And the issue of tolerance will not go away soon!
We must be intentional about knowing what the world is thinking about us, and therefore be intentional in our love and patience and kindness and tolerance toward them if we are going to win them to Christ!!!
We live in not only the post-Christian era, but also in the post-modern era…
…and in post-modern minds…
…Truth has gone relative!
A national survey taken by Barna Research reveals that only one-third of Americans believe moral truth is absolute and unchanging.
Author John Burke writes: “I find our generation incredibly open to spiritual truth and dialogue, but they have grown up in a world of competing beliefs.
People just check out when they feel that Christians are arrogant…
…they long to experience something firm and solid that ‘feels’ true.
They don’t resist truth; they resist arrogance.”
My friends, Jesus said, “I am the truth…”
And the best way to help this world to find truth is to introduce people to Jesus!
But remember, since this generation tends to think of Truth as something that is relative, they don’t generally ask: “What is true?”
What the lost and dying world out there is asking Middle Valley Church of God, Middle Valley United Methodist Church and Grace United Methodist Church is: “Do I want to be like you?”
The world sees truth as relational.
What they are basically saying to us is, “If I want to be like you, then I want to consider what you believe.
But if I don’t see anything real attractive in you or your church as Christ-followers, I don’t care how ‘true’ you think it is, I’m not interested!”
A couple nights ago I was sitting in a Christian-small group setting when one of the persons shared that she has been taking food to a battered woman’s shelter “in the name of Christ and Christ’s Church” for about 20 years.
She said that the director of the shelter has always exclaimed, “It’s just so amazing that you folks do this for us.”
The woman related to the small group I was in that the last time she brought a car-load of food to the shelter the director came running out to her and excitedly proclaimed: “Emily, I got saved this week!”
People are looking for Christ, but they must see Him in you and in me.
We are the Body of Christ.
And people experience Christ’s Truth, not just in words, but with hands and feet when His Church “joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
We are to be the Body of Christ to the world!
And Christ brings persons to Himself through the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience.
Should the world expect anything less from you and from me?
