Oct 14 "Judged and Being Judged"

Job 23 Matthew 10:17-31 Of all the personalities, in all the Bible, none are more Judged than Job and the Rich, Young Ruler! Saul who persecuted the Christians, who would not even dirty his hands to pick up a rock himself but held the coats of others while they stoned Stephen to death, becomes the Apostle Paul. Simon who always jumped to the wrong conclusion, Jesus gave all authority for the Church as Peter. Even the Tax Collector Zacheus, because he wanted to catch a glimpse of Jesus is redeemed as a child of Israel. Sarah who laughed at God, became the mother of Isaac and grandmother to all Israel. Mary Magdalene who according to some reports had sold herself for money and possessed became a disciple. But the Rich Young Ruler was shocked by Jesus' words and went away sorrowful. What he represented was what our culture aspires to, he was affluent, influential, powerful, and young, we would guess highly educated from the very best of families. According to his own testimony he was moral and ethical and Church-going, who respected God and loved his mother. The only offense he made was that he sought out Jesus, he came asking what he must do to have Eternal Life? He did not try to buy it as Simon the Magician, he did not try to use Jesus' name, he was not seeking power or authority as James and John had asked wanting to sit at Jesus' right hand. He had not sought justification like Pilate questioning “What is Truth?” He wanted Eternal Life, is this not description of wanting Christian faith? The judgement against the Rich, Young Ruler, the sin of this man, was that he was like us, succeeding at all the world has to offer, he recognized this is not enough, there must be more, and that more is faith, but faith requires giving up everything else. Like it or not, we are continually judging and being judged. Buddhism has a very different starting point than most of us are accustomed to. Pregnancy makes a woman feel ill. Morning sickness makes you want to vomit, giving birth is the most exhausting marathon a body can endure. According to Buddhism, from the moment of birth we are dying. Life is a series of sicknesses as we age and wear out, until we discern that the only way out is to seek a different reality. The ultimate relief in Buddhism is to die, so as to become something else. Like Job's wife, we are left believing that if there is a God, God must be a vindictive merciless evil, and one's affirmation of faith becomes “Curse God and Die!” Judaism and Christianity have a very different starting point. In the Beginning God saw every element as it was made and pronounced it good, saw all of life in completeness and pronounced it very good. The great difficulty of living in a world we believe to be Good, is how we explain judgement and suffering. Job's friends suggest the world is a rational and ordered place. The first suggests: “You must have done something wrong.” Judgement is a punishment for sin. The only obstacle to a right relationship with God becomes confessing what you did, so you can be forgiven. In true works-righteousness, we need to confess our sins, and atone for them to be forgiven. A second friend says, “Well if not your guilt, then the sins of your parents and grandparents.” Like Freudian psycho-analysis we have to search through all our past to find our most deep seated guilt. Our family systems perpetuated from one generation unto the next, repeat broken relationships. The third describes “Job, it is not your fault, it is all humanity. As in the days of Noah, God looked on all the world and saw corruption. Someone had to pay, somebody needed to make things right and God chose you.” This is where our Old Testament lesson for this morning begins. Job is not satisfied with the answers from any of his friends or his wife. One of the great gifts of Judaism to Christianity is a tenacity of faith that does not stop with I'm Okay, you're Okay, let's do no harm to anyone, but a faith which argues with God. Like his friends, Job believes the world is ordered and rational, so what Job desires is his day in court. Job wants his opportunity to face God toe to toe and plead his case. I am not certain if I am like everyone else, but on long drives in the car, I often replay old circumstance from life. If only I had been able to to say... to justify my actions... to present my side of the story... surely I could be vindicated! The difficulty with those one-sided conversations is the ultimate reality that we have been doing all the talking, and in those original circumstance as well as today we probably needed to listen and to hear the other-side. Judgement is a hard reality, because as much as we want to be right, as mortal creatures what we seek in life is consolation, to know that we were not forsaken, we were not thrown under the bus. How often we read the 23rd Psalm, with words of comfort “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” when the psalm just prior is this one, “My God, My God Why? Why have you forsaken me?” These are the words of one who feels judged. These are the words of Jesus on the Cross, feeling the shame of isolation and betrayal. But there is redemption in this Psalm as well, because the speaker does not cry out to an unknown God, but with great intimacy “My God, My God Why?” and this is followed with a recitation that God had always been faithful to our ancestors, and from the moment of our birth, when we were taken from our mothers' wombs and laid upon her breasts, we were cared for, provided for, loved. I think perhaps we have read something into the text of Matthew, that is not there. This man comes to Jesus, falls down before his feet and asks what is needed for eternal life. Jesus does not answer that question, instead Jesus describes The Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus describes what is required to be faithful and this man with honesty describes he has done this all his life. Jesus tells the man what he must do, and the man is stunned, the man is shocked and he goes away. What do we imagine this man did? Because he is male, affluent, well-educated, influential, and young, do we assume he went back to work scoffing “Well that was a waste of time”? Do we imagine suicide, that he just gave up? Actually, the text does not say any of that. Confronted with life changing circumstance, we would be shocked and stunned and go away to think. Receiving notice of a lay-off, or a cancer or divorce, that our child has to undergo open-heart surgery, that our parents or peers are dying. these are not the actual end of the world, but in that moment it can feel like it. Part of our cultural crisis is that we have made transitions too easy, planned for and anticipated. The child leaving their Mother to go to school, first has play-dates, then half-day, so when the full-day of separation comes we expect it. Leaving home and family to travel across the country or the world for an education, begins with smaller experiences. Death itself, instead of working up until the moment we cannot, we retire, then move to assisted living, eventually to Hospice Care where slip away. All of which sounds lovely and painless, but the fact of the matter is, ones whom we have trusted and loved all our lives are taken from us and at some point we need to grieve, we need to wrestle with why Lord? There was an era in American history in which we went straight from our parents' home to that with our husband or wife, and if that ever went poorly we went from one relationship to another never having to face who we are all alone before God. There is an importance to being shocked and stunned and thinking about who we are and what is important. This morning's Call to Confession came from the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews, claiming and affirming that we have a Great High Priest as our intercessor with the Judge of life and death. This priest is Jesus himself, who can empathize with us because he has been fully human, and who will appeal our case before God because he is fully God. All we need do is to love the Lord, follow the commandments, and continually follow him in giving all we are for what is truly important.