Saying Yes

"Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.  For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.  Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?  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?  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."

The Gospel of Matthew

******

Dear Kate,

A definition is in order, when it comes to a passage of scripture that is often (mis)used.

Surely Jesus couldn't mean "do not make any judgement."  The very command to "not judge" is asking us to judge, as in to discern, wisely and lovingly.  And isn't it also most obvious that God has created and called us to be moral creatures?

To use the command to shut someone up is in fact to violate it, and that someone could sometimes be ourselves, the shut-up mouth our own.  A good friend wouldn't stop discerning wisely with you and for you, neither would a good parent.  You wouldn't pay a skydiving instructor to let you be.

So maybe, within the context, Jesus was asking us to not condemn, to not "judge" that a person is beyond the reach of God, that the person has been and will forever be saying No to God.

But what if a person does exhibit hellbound behavior, should we not pull him heavenward with the same cancelling intensity?  Every situation demands from us a different situational obedience, to discern wisely, to act lovingly (which always means sacrificially), to, in short, follow Jesus, who will simultaneously give us more burdens to bear and lighten our load.

Still we say, But what if...?  I think it is a fair question, as long as it is one about ourselves saying Yes to God.

Last week I talked about how we, finite and sinful beings, can't really discern like God does, and how true friendship is about keep cultivating a good soil for our friends to come out and play in a garden where we trust God will continue to show up.

We are living in a garden indeed, in the most affluent parts of the world, where there is abundant resource for anyone to flourish.  If, even then, we cannot let go, let grow, and let God, then maybe we are the ones keep saying No to God---and worse, we keep saying our saying No has to do with someone else saying No, as if their No is directed to us, not to God, as if we are the sacrificial Lamb, not Jesus, as if their No has the power to cancel our Yes.

We are all given much, living in a world most conducive to saying Yes to God.  God didn't call me to "judge" if someone else's Yes is good enough a Yes for Him.  God wants my Yes.

Yours, Alex

PS. The Nobel Prizes in Literature will be given out tomorrow.  In the spirit of what I've been sharing with you recently, I really wish the Committee will do the world a favor and award Marilynne Robinson.