The Way of Mercy

Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Well, welcome everyone. My name is Debbie Manning. I'm one of the pastors here at The Table. It's good to be together this morning. Oh boy, what a way to start. Well continue, it's a beautiful way to start. It's part of life when we love well. It hurts, but it's beautiful too.

But we are continuing. Hey, Shea! We are continuing in our series on the Sermon on the Mount that we've been in all fall. Jesus' most well-known sermon series, his teachings, emphasizing humility, forgiveness, being a generous neighbor. What Jesus does in this series is he encourages all people to choose God's way of love, a love that restores God's kingdom to earth, the flourishing of all people, foundational to who we are as Christ's followers.

Last week, Justin talked about worry, that idea of letting go, trusting God. I heard from so many of you, including my own kids, "Wow, we didn't know Justin was so funny." And I said, "Oh yeah, he's funny." And then I'm thinking, "And today, I'm teaching on judgment. I don't got any funny today, everybody." The only thing I got is I am praying that my temporary cap on my front tooth right here that flew off when I bit into a pizza last week doesn't fly off during my message today. So Gino, you said you'd stand in, and what's the phrase? Oh, okay. He's yelled that out. The hot spare. The hot spare. I got a hot spare right here, so if you see my tooth doing this, you'll be coming up, right? You got that. All right.

But today, we're talking about not judging others. Really fun topic. Here we are in Matthew 7:1-5:

Do not judge so that you may not be judged, for the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, 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'll see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.

Jesus continues to counsel the people sitting at the foot of the mount, and what he says is real simple, but not easy. Because exactly what Jesus gives us is three short words: Do not judge. Simple, clear, unforgettable, but really hard to live out. Because let's face it, we live in a culture that's based on judgment. Look at social media in the workplace, in our relationships, in the church. We have this propensity to compare, criticize, categorize. It seems to be part of our human nature, maybe the brokenness in our human nature. Because it is so much easier, isn't it, to point the finger over here than to look back inside of here.

And what Jesus says is that you can play the judgment game if you want, or you can play the grace game. And if you don't want to be judged, then don't judge others. Extend to them the grace that has been given to you. But if you insist, if you insist on playing the judgment game, just know that you will be judged with the same judgment you have given others. It sounds harsh, but I actually think it's hopeful because here's what Jesus is doing. He's inviting us into something new. He's inviting us to build a community of mercy and grace, a community where people are seeing, where people are seeing with the eyes of compassion, not through the eyes of suspicion.

And I think it's important for us to talk about what Jesus means by judging because sometimes I think this text has been misinterpreted, to say that all judgment, that there's a prohibition against all judgment. But could it be that Jesus is actually saying, "You know what? There's a way to judge with care, with compassion." The Greek word for judge can mean discernment or it can mean condemnation. To discern or to condemn. And in this context, he uses the word krinó that's the Greek word, referring to condemning others, treating them with judgmental contempt. He's talking about those times when we decide that, "Hey, you don't quite measure up, that somehow you are lesser than me."

Greg Boyd, pastor around town, many of you know of him. He's famous, he's written lots of books. He's over at Woodland Hills Church in the St. Paul area. And he does, over the years, has had a lot of blogs and talks I've been at, I was actually at a conference once when he talked about this idea of judging. And this is what he says. He says, "To judge another person is to ascribe worth to yourself at the expense of others." Using your own sin and faults and maximizing the sin and fault of another. And he says this, "If you've ever said, like, in your head, well, at least I'm not as bad as that guy or that group of people." He says that you're probably feeding into that idol of judgment.

I was thinking, "Boy, there's a lot to think about when you're studying a text like this and about my own judging of others." And I think that often we judge and don't even realize it. Because I think for most of it, that judging is implicit. It's these biases we might hold deep inside that we're not always even aware of. And it comes out in those thoughts in our head that make a snap judgment on someone, that dismisses someone, that writes them off. And when we write them off without knowing someone's story, without really knowing them, without seeing and understanding them, we're playing God and we're playing God without knowing the whole story.

And what does that come out of for us? And I think it can be a whole lot of things, right? It can be fear, not knowing the other. Our insecurities. Not bringing our best selves to the moment. Our discomfort. Whatever those things are, this is the kind of judgment that Jesus is talking about in this text. In Jesus' words, they do suggest, as you look down in that text, that there is a time and a place to speak up when we see a problem. He is not calling us to blind tolerance. Judgment matters. Truth matters. But discernment without compassion, it can destroy relationship. It destroys community.

And what Jesus is talking about here is tone. And the question we ask is, what is the heart behind it for us? Because what we do when we judge is we forget our own need for grace. And when we remember mercy, when we're filled up with the mercy that we get from God, we can lead with humility. It allows us to meet each other with where we're at. Last spring, I was with my small group. I think we were at Giovannellis’, and we were having a conversation about difficult relationships. We were talking about the hard people in our lives, maybe some of those that we might have a little critical spirit about. And someone in the group said something that has stuck with me. It was a phrase he coined as "generous assumption."

He said, "If we lead with, if we meet someone with generous assumption, that leads us to a place of being able to see and know and love one another." Generous assumption, to give the benefit of the doubt to someone. Generous assumption is assuming the best in another person when you meet. And it sets the tone and our hearts in the right place to actually be in relationship, to be in community, to see one another. And the way to that kind of spirit, to live that kind of life, the ability to lead with love and to lead with generous assumption starts by looking within. And Jesus in this text is clear about this. If judgment blinds us, what is it that helps us to see clearly? And Jesus says, "Start on the path of looking at yourself."

That's the path to clarity. First take the plank out of your own eye. Picture it. Many of us have heard this phrase, but just sit for a minute and picture it. Take the plank, that big old two by four that's in your own eye, before you look at that speck, what's described as a piece of sawdust out of someone else's eye. And while Jesus is actually using some humor here, he is serious. He's serious about this is one of the ways to stay in right relationship with God and with community. Because again, the reality is we're far better at spotting the faults than someone else than we are at looking at our own faults. We're often blind to what's going on here and we focus instead on the minor issues going out there.

And so I think this passage is calling us right now in this moment to self-awareness. And again, Jesus says there's a time and a place to speak up when we see a problem. We can call wrongdoings out in a way that doesn't diminish the humanity in another person. It's speaking love through truth. It's about doing life together, that piece of it. And when I think about that, and of course today on All Saints, I'm thinking about all those that we've loved and lost. And of course I'm thinking about our Lynn Giovannelli who, November 28th, it'll be two years ago that she passed away. And I thought so much about Lynn when I was studying this because she was one of those special people that had the ability to not be judgmental. Everybody loved Lynn because she had this ability to see you, to meet you with open arms.

But she also had the gift of discernment and she wasn't afraid out of love to call you out on that truth, to help you become the person that God created you to be. And I remember there were four of us that would head over to her house for a period of time for we were doing a study together. And one of the women had lost her husband at the time five years ago in a bike riding accident and she hadn't navigated her own grief and loss as she sort of carried that for her kids. And we would meet and Lynn would say to her, "So, have you seen your grief counselor yet? Have you done the work that you need to do?" Lynn had the ability to hold both of those things together without being judgy, but out of love, helping people move toward the wholeness that God calls us to do. And I hope that person has continued to see the grief therapist and is doing great. Thank you, Lynn and God through Lynn, but that's one of my favorite stories. I've got a lot of those for Lynn.

But then back to the text. Notice that it isn't until the final line of the metaphor that Jesus is saying anything about assessing another's behavior that most of the instruction in this text is about the important first step of self-reflection, recognizing, acknowledging, addressing our own failures. It's kind of a humbling process, isn't it? I don't know anyone who loves to do it, but in the doing of that, we're reminded of one thing. Every single one of us in this room needs God because we can't, no matter how hard we try, how good we are at things, how smart we are, how compassionate we are, we cannot do this on our own.

And when we acknowledge our deep need of God, it's from that place of humility that we're less likely to be judgmental of others. We're less likely to think less of others. And rather than being driven by this kind of sense of self or self-importance, our motivation comes out of love, the love that the Apostle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians, a love that believes all things, a love that hopes all things. It's about choosing to see the humanity in every person. To see every person is a creation of God. Jesus doesn't say ignore the speck. All he's saying is start with the plank.

In other words, before you confront someone else, let God confront you because self-examination is not about shame, my friends. It's about clarity. And that kind of clarity helps us live more fully, more honestly, more lovingly. When we can name and confess all of our stuff, it changes how we see others. We begin to see others through grace. And when you know that you're deeply forgiven, it's hard to look down on anybody else. It's the grace that gives us the eyes to see with compassion. And the forgiven become forgiving, and the seen become those that see. And then we see clearly. We're not called to ignore sin, but to approach people with humility, not superiority.

And when we can live this way, we have a community that's full of mercy and grace. And I think more than ever, with what's going on in our community, our state, our country, we need that. We need a community of mercy and grace. Mercy creates safety. It creates a safety where we can take our masks off, we can be who we are, we can be honest about the struggles that we have. It says that you don't have to be perfect to belong here. And grace creates belonging. We can stop competing and start caring about one another. We become the kind of community that people run toward, not the community that people want to run away from. And when we can do all those things, when we can stop the judging what we experience is a freedom that leads us to peace, a peace inside ourselves, a peace within community. The reality is that when we're judging, it drains us. It drains us of joy. It poisons our peace. But mercy releases that burden. And when mercy wins, community thrives.

There's a chaplain, she's a scholar, a commentator, she's out of Maryland, and she says this about this text, "These principles may bring challenges, but also goodness to life and community. In moving away from judgment, individuals may have the opportunity to experience peacefulness within themselves, in their relationships, and with God. The stability and composure can be part of a path toward wholeness, and their fellow travelers and union with God." So I think all that sounds reasonable. It is actually kind of clear. But the hard part is living it out. How do we do that?

I'm going back to Boyd, Greg Boyd. And he tells a story that gives us a practical example of his larger teaching on what he calls the discipline of blessing. Boyd is central to his theology, is this kingdom theology, which is what the Sermon on the Mount is about. Bring in the kingdom here to earth. And what he teaches is that this is an intentional, active, a nonviolent practice that counters the world's judgmental ways. And what he emphasizes is that it's impossible. It's impossible to love and to judge others at the same time. So here's Greg Boyd, this is about a decade ago or so, and he was at somewhere where he was taking in a teaching, and in this teaching they were told that the only way that we can live as people who follow Jesus is to simply express God's love by blessing other people. And that we should agree that each and every human being is worthy of God's love, is worthy of Jesus dying. And this is what Greg Boyd says.

After hearing this teaching, I was committed to trying to do this on a moment by moment basis. With every person I encountered, I would think or whisper a short blessing, something like, "Lord, I agree with you that this person has unsurpassable worth and was worthy of you dying for. Bless them, Lord." As I was driving down the road on the way home from church that day, I thought or whispered a quick blessing on each of the fellow drivers on the road. When a person cut me off, I caught myself instinctively thinking bad thoughts about that person. I laid these judgmental thoughts aside and I prayed a little blessing on their life and on their driving skills. And when I drove past my ornery neighbor's house, instead of remembering all the nasty stuff that she had done toward me and my family over the past two years, I prayed God's blessing on her and her family. And when I went shopping with my wife a little later, I thought or whispered little prayers of blessings over all that I saw. And later, as I mowed my lawn, I blessed whoever I saw or thought about.

For Greg Boyd, the act of blessing is a revolt. It's a revolt against the human instinct to judge others based on a perceived hierarchy of worth. I think that's powerful. I love that. I love the idea of doing that.

But what are a few tangible things that you and I could do to add toward this idea of blessing others? And I think there are these three. When we feel that critical spirit rise up within us, we can pause. Pause before we pronounce. When we feel that impulse to be critical, stop and breathe. Ask ourselves, what might this person be going through that we don't know? What might their story be? I think the second thing we can do is name our own planks. This confession. Because when we acknowledge our own flaws, our own faults, we can be more gracious to one another.

And thirdly, choose curiosity over condemnation. Instead of assuming someone's motives, ask a question. Choose the thing. Curiosity says, "Hey, help me understand." And judgment says, "Ah, I know that. I don't need to ask." Because curiosity is actually the language of grace. Do not judge. It's not about closing our eyes to truth. It's about opening our hearts to grace. It's a call to become people who see as Jesus sees through the lens of love. And when we live this way, this community, our community, becomes a living witness to the gospel. A place where brokenness isn't hidden anymore. It's healed. A place where mercy flows freely. Where grace is the language that we all speak. I'm going to leave you with this song to sit in.

[“The Table” song plays] The church is a family, the family has a table, we’re seated in the presence of the King. Though he truly sees us, he welcomes all our weakness. It says that there's a place for you and me. He says that there's a place for you and me. This is a table of mercy. This is a table of grace. This is a healing place for all who are hurting. We're here to feast on your goodness. You're here to meet us again. This is a sacred space, a table of mercy. Yeah. No privilege or pretense. Everyone is wanting. No one too far lost or too far gone. Nothing held against us. No words to condemn us. The undeserving welcome of your love. Just the undeserving welcome of your love. This is a table of mercy. This is a table of grace. This is a healing place for all who are hurting. We're here to feast on your goodness. You're here to meet us again. This is a sacred space, a table of mercy.