A Fractured Fairy Tale
Introduction
When I was growing up, there was an older cartoon show that I enjoyed watching. It was the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. And while I thought the conflict between the heroes and the villains (Boris and Natasha) was funny what I found really clever was the transition segments the writers used between scenes. Do you remember “Fractured Fairy Tales”?
Fractured Fairy tales would be a short clip that would retell a famous fairy tale but with a twist. There would be something wrong in the retelling of the story. The new story would be slightly off from the original.
I share that illustration because if there is a passage of Scripture that captures the beliefs of today’s American culture, it is found in Matthew 7. And our culture has it summarized in three words -- “Do not judge.”
The recent SCOTUS ruling allowing gay marriages in all 50 states has brought this passage to the forefront of the discussion now more than ever. One can hardly read the newspaper editorials or go on Facebook without someone shouting out these three words. The irony is that some care very little for God’s word or God’s Kingdom yet they have suddenly become “enlightened theologians” and attempt to use these three words to shame Christians.
Don’t judge is the mantra. And Christians who don’t get on board are cast aside as judgmental hypocrites.
My point in this message is not to try and throw fire on the discussion of gay marriage. There is already too much bitter and closed dialogue on both sides of the issue. Instead, I want to talk about the passage that is used by pro LGBT'ers to try and shame us into being quiet about this cultural topic.
And I want to explore the question, “Is the world right in their interpretation of this passage? Or is what we are really seeing is just a fractured fairy tale?”
Goal: Our goal today is to define what Jesus meant when he said, “Do not Judge.”
Text:
Matthew 7:1-5
Context:
In this passage, Jesus is preaching to an audience of Jewish people while they sit on a hillside in the region of Galilee. Thus, Matthew 5-7 gets the name, “The sermon on the Mount.” And in this passage, Jesus is addressing ideas of the Kingdom.
Several times, he says to his audience, “You have heard it taught this way, but I tell you it’s this way.”
He addresses topics such as anger, lust, materialism, service, and prayer - I’d encourage you to read it this week.
In Matthew 7:1 Jesus then addresses the idea of judgment. He says these words.
Matthew 7:1-5
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 “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? 4 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?
5 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.
Church, the world knows this passage by the first three words -- “Do not judge.” And to most of them the text looks something like this. (I had a slide with the words “Do not judge" circled and the rest of the passage scribbled out).
The problem with reading it this way is that it voids context which is so important to interpreting meaning. Let me explain why that’s a problem in case we don’t’ understand.
Illustration of Importance of Context:
Have you ever walked into a conversation and heard a piece of it and thought “Whoa, I just walked in on an awkward part”? You missed context.
When we don’t hear or read context, we can improperly interpret what was said. In this case we could improperly define what Jesus intended to say when he said “Do not judge.”
So we need to explore context.
There are two important contexts we need to see in order to understand Scripture. There is historical context and immediate context.
Historical context is important in order to understanding the speaker or authors intended meaning. Let me illustrate that.
If you are below 18, I want you to tell me what these slang phrases from the 1950s mean. What are ankle biters? (Not small dogs, not biting insects) – Reference to young children. Try this one: That boy is a "bundie." He’s in need of a haircut.
The historical context is important to interpretation of a phrase. It’s the same with the Bible. In this passage, Jesus’ primary audience is Jewish listeners. They believe in the God to whom Jesus refers. Most of them also believe that by virtue of their Jewish heritage that they have it made – that God is on their side – that sin is only a problem for those who aren’t Jewish – the Gentiles. The most fundamental of the Jews, the sect known as Pharisees, even believed that some Jewish people were not savable. They believed that certain people were so badly stained that they were INCAPABLE of being redeemed. In other words, there is no way that God can remove their sins. Like a shirt with an ink stain on it, they threw them out like garbage.
That’s why if you study the gospels you will see this group showing disdain for gentiles, prostitutes, and tax collectors. That’s the historical context. Keep it in mind.
The other context that is important is immediate context. In other words, what do the passages around Matthew 7:1 tell us? What do they reveal?
That’s important. I recently read about a company that produced calendars with inspirational verses from the Bible printed for each day. One of the verses they chose to print was out of Luke 4:7 which says, "If you will worship me, I will give you all this." I thought, "ah, what a nice thought," until I realized the context of Luke 4:7. Luke 4 records the temptation of Jesus while he was in the wilderness, and the inspirational verse they chose records not Jesus words, but the words of Satan. Needless to say the context of a passage is important.
Let me illustrate it another way. One of the political ploys we are going to see played out in 2016 is political advertisements that pull a candidates words out of context. What those ads want us to do is insert the wrong meaning into a candidates message. If you listen to the context of that message, rather than the sound bite, you might get a different picture. It’s the same way with Scripture. If we scribble out the rest of the words of a passage, we will miss the meaning. The passages around a Scripture reveal much about what the passage means.
So rather than interpreting on our own what Jesus meant when he said, “Do not judge”, maybe we should let Jesus make it clearer.
Let’s read the passage again and consider the whole context.
Matthew 7:1-2
1 Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
As Jesus starts out, He is giving us the idea of measure. In the measure you use, it will be measured to you. If you use a teaspoon of judgment, you will get a teaspoon full of judgment in return. If you use a 100 gallon vat of judgment, you will get a 100 gallon vat of judgment in return.
He then expresses that truth in a word picture.
Matthew 7:3-4
3 “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? 4 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?
There’s a measure again. One person has a speck of sawdust in his eye, the other has a 2X4. And do you see how the person with the 2X4 in his eye is ignoring it.
What do you think the word picture of the plank is a reference to? Jesus had just spent time in the previous chapters saying things like, “You think you are doing will when you don’t kill someone. I tell you that if you are angry with your brother, you are guilty of murder in your heart.” You still sin. So context points to the plank and sawdust referring to sin.
You think you are doing well because you haven’t committed adultery. I tell you that if you have sex with a woman in your mind, you have already committed adultery in your heart. You still sin.
Jesus then says here, “How do you see sawdust in someone else's eye, but not see the plank in your own?” The plank has blinded him. This leads to a truth.
One of the ideas we have talked about in the past is that
At the heart of sin is self deception. Sin is based on lies.
Satan is a liar; that is his only tactic. And Satan’s greatest victory is to get us to lie to ourselves. We say things like, “It’s not that bad; I won’t do it again; I can fix this on my own.”
But if we claim we are without sin, we make God a liar and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)
This is important to realize because one of the things that as Christians often do in our zeal for purity in our culture is to ignore the fact that we are sinners ourselves. We see the speck and ignore the 2 by 4; then we condemn people for having a speck of saw dust. What makes it bad is that we often finish off in condemnation by saying, “There’s no way that person is redeemable.”
While we are committing adultery in our minds, we tell gay people, “you can’t be here in our church. There's no way God can redeem you.” While there is bitterness and anger between members within the walls of the building, we tell the person who has served time in prison with our attitude, you don’t belong here. We tell them, “You can’t hear the gospel. You’re stained. You’re beyond any hope of redemption.” We label them sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes.
It should not be so because if we say, “I won’t have anything to do with ‘those people’ because they are sinners”, what is the measure that will come back to us?
One of the ways we will be able to open up dialogue with the world about sin topics is to first admit to our own sin. It is rare that Christians who respond to the topic of homosexuality do so by starting out with the idea that they are messed up too.
So far, the “Do not judge” (only) crowd is silently clapping their hands. You’re right preacher! We are all sinners and we have no right to tell anyone else what to do. Is that what Jesus meant? Does that then mean that we let sin go because we are sinners? I have a plank in my eye, I can’t talk about any sin but my own? Do we then turn a blind eye toward sin? Only God is allowed to judge?
Listen to what Jesus says in verse 5. I think it is very revealing about the meaning.
Matthew 7:5
5 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.
Now if the plank is sin (and context suggests it is) and we remove the blinders so to speak to remove the plank, what does Jesus say happens next? We can then see clearly to do what? To remove the speck from our brother’s eye.
Jesus doesn’t say, you have a plank in your eye, IGNORE the sawdust in your brother’s eye. Just leave them alone. He says, when you and I remove the proverbial blinders, when we can admit to our own sinfulness and our need for Him, we will see clearly. Then we can help our brother remove the speck from his eye. We don't ignore the speck. Jesus finishes this word picture by saying, "After we have cleared our vision, we should then help our brother with his sin problem as well."
Picture it in your mind. If someone was going to do surgery on your eye, would you want them to wear a blindfold to do it? No! You would want them to remove it. And when they removed it they would be able to see clearly. Then they could do surgery.
It's clear that we should not address the sin of others without first admitting we are sinners too. We are broken people in desperate need of Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection. We are not righteous on our own and we are not saved on our own. That's clear.
But it is also clear that Jesus did NOT mean that judgment is calling something that is sinful, sin. How are we to help people turn from sin if we can't define what sin is? Now our culture doesn't get that. They want to use this passage to say, “You can’t say this is wrong" or even worse "you can't say this is wrong because you are a sinner.” That’s how they define “judgment.” That definition is a fractured fairy tale, based sort of on what Jesus said, but with a twist that makes it wrong. It's yanked out of context.
Instead, what Jesus is saying is “Do not judge a person’s VALUE to God.” Do not look at someone lost in sin and say “You are worthless to God. There's no way God even wants to redeem you. Therefore, I'm not even going to try."
Let me illustrate this point a little more with three questions. If you use Matthew 7 to say do not judge sin, what do you do with Scripture’s that were written from the hands of men like Peter, and Paul, and James that give whole list sins that are wrong?
Paul, and Peter, and James, and other N.T. writers would be guilty of judgment by your definition. In every one of their writings, they tell the churches they address to stay away from certain sins. And they LIST them. And they say, “You will die if you don’t stop.” What do you do with the numerous passages that do this? Are they guilty of judgment?
Question Two: What do you do with the cross? If sin isn't that bad, why did Jesus have to die to pay the price? If sin isn't ugly, why the ugliness of the cross? By saying "I don't think this sin is that bad", we make Christ's sacrifice for sin on the cross irrelevant. We rob the cross of its power.
Question Three: How do you respond when someone does something wrong to you? How would you react if someone steals from you? How would you react if someone murders someone you care about? You are probably going to call their actions, "sin." Does that make you a hypocrite? Does that make you judgmental?
No. We all have some sort of standard of right and wrong.
So let me drive this point home in the context of the SCOTUS ruling. Because the natural question is this: Is the practice of homosexuality a sin? Let me start off by saying I am a sinner. Satan clearly lies to me about who I am and who God wants me to be. And sometimes I buy that lie. I know how my sin has impacted my life and those around me.” I do not come with any illusions that I am perfect and sinless. I desperately need Jesus to grant me a new identity in him. I know the struggle with lying to myself about sin. And if you struggle with what has been called a "homosexual identity" please know we do not condemn the struggle. We believe the person who struggles with homosexual thoughts still has immense value in God's eyes. But he doesn't want to leave you there. He wants to grant to each of us a new identify. He died to purify us from our sin so that our lives can be lived for His glory.
I hope you hear my heart when I say that Scripture clearly teaches us that the practice of homosexuality and the celebration of homosexuality is a sin. God clearly sees the practice of homosexuality as a "perversion" of sex. If you disagree, come to me after the service. I will be glad to share with you two passages that clearly define God’s view on the practice of homosexuality. If you still disagree after that, then we don' have common ground. And if you say you are a follower of Jesus, please know it will not be with me that you are disagreeing, but with God who created marriage and sex.
Well preacher, that is just the kind of unloving thing I’d expect to hear from a fundamentalist intolerant, unloving Christian. You must not care about people! (Aside from the fact according to the world, that this is a judgmental statement itself), let me share with you one more brief idea from Scripture. After all it is the truth in God’s word on which I build my worldview.
In 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul writes about the characteristics of love. In this chapter, he summarizes by telling his readers four things that love ALWAYS does. Love always protects, always hopes, always trusts, and always perseveres. These are the noble qualities of love. I think the noblest quality on this list is love always protects. It's an elegant picture. I think about the husband who protects his wife; who would give his life in exchange for hers; I think about a parent who protects his/her children; I think about the service man or woman who loves his or her country and serves to protect it. These are all demonstrations of the noble quality of a love that protects.
So let me ask, “If the practice of homosexuality is a sin (which I believe that it is); and if sin is deadly and dangerous, and ugly; then would not noble love look to protect a person from it? Would not a noble love desire to help a person find their identity – who they are and who God wants them to be – in Christ?
Sometimes the least loving thing we can do is let someone we “love” do something damaging and destructive and harmful to themselves or to others.
Is this judgemental according to Matthew 7? Only if you ignore context. Only if you choose to believe the world's fractured fairy tale version is the truth.
