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Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Trinity, 2019 (July 14^th)

The Epistle Romans viii. 18. – The Gospel St. Luke vi. 36.

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Sin is always easier to recognize in others than in ourselves. We carry our sins around as if in an invisible backpack, each new one tossed in with the others, the weight of them hunching our backs and ruining our ability to move forward. We look down at ourselves and see nothing amiss yet quickly spot other people struggling with theirs. Our instinct is to see their bent backs, their slow, laborious steps, and define them as that shambling creature. It takes a lot of work to not conflate the sin with the sinner, it takes a lot of work to see them as they really are, without the weight of sin, without the despair, without the suffering, and to imagine them upright and reborn into new life.

Often, the hardest person to see it in is in ourselves.

That means there are times we may need to rely on the judgment of others, and sometimes others may need ours. But how does that work if we’re not supposed to judge? Now the dangers of isolating a fragment of Scripture and treating it as the whole of Jesus’s message would seem obvious, yet, many Christians have taken the admonition to ‘judge not’ in a such a way as to excuse and affirm human wants and desires until what the Church preaches is virtually indistinguishable from the promises of the World.

But why get up early on a Sunday morning, just so you can hear the exact same message that you hear the rest of the week? Why listen to someone preach the same message that anything on Netflix does so much better, and you can pause to go to the bathroom? But if we fear recognizing sin for what it is with the excuse, ‘who am I to judge?’ then we do others a disservice, and belittle the sacrifice of Jesus, for we rob them of the chance at forgiveness.

Here’s the thing, the word, ‘JUDGE’ has multiple connotations. Obviously, the man or woman in a black robe banging a gavel is one kind of judge, just as Samson mowing down Philistines with a donkey’s jawbone is another. But what we’re talking about is the difference between concluding and condemning

judging… as in forming an opinion,

and judging… as in the issuing of a verdict.

When the low fuel indicator, lights up on my dashboard and I judge whether or not I can make it home without stopping for gas is entirely different from judging someone guilty of a crime.

But that doesn’t mean we get to leave here today and go around saying we’re ‘not judging’ in the same way my sister and I used to say ‘I’m not touching you’ while sticking our fingers as close to one another after our mom yelled at us to stop bothering each other.

Our ability to navigate the distinction and ‘hate the sin, not the sinner’ is suspect…at best.

Our call is neither to condone nor condemn, because neither of which is required to love them. As Brigid Hermen wrote, “As in human love and friendship, it is not moral perfection that is required. The most broken soul may enter that magic realm: who ever loved or was loved on account of mere moral excellence?”

We love them so that we might come to understand them as they are in reality, so that they might become who they are in potential. We can’t unloose someone else from their sins, only Jesus is strong enough to lift the sin off anyone, but He won’t act against our will, the sinner still has to let go of the death grip they have on the straps. But those who have already dropped their burden and begun to walk upright as men and women and no longer drag their knuckles does have a part to play. We can help.

We help by being icons, images of what a life in Christ looks like.

As Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard said, “To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”

As Christians, we have taken an evolutionary leap, our very being has been radically transformed (an ontological difference, as someone trying to justify the usefulness of a Masters in Philosophy might put it). We have been reborn into a new life, the very nature of reality has been changed in and through us.

In a few moments, each of us will once again participate in a miracle greater than the parting of the Red Sea or Elijah being taken up into heaven. We will partake of His body and blood and He will be in us and we in Him. Each of us will be filled with His grace, the person to your left and to your right, each of us together, forming a community that transforms and overcomes our individual brokenness and failures, because it is such a community where real relationships are possible. The reality is that relationships only become life giving in Jesus Christ. We no longer need to search for meaning from the things of this world. Instead, we can allow them to be as they are, enjoyed for their own sake and not for our own. Only then will our offer of forgiveness have any meaning, becoming a foretaste of the forgiveness of God, and point to the power of Jesus’s sacrifice.

Sin separates us from God and from others. And as we free ourselves from it, we manifest the Kingdom of God. All that the world can ever offer is a temporary distraction from the inevitable– death. But through us and our relationships we transform the world, not through programs or initiatives, but by the growth of the Body of Christ.

Instead of hypocrites, we become living sacraments, outward signs of the invisible grace that works in and through us. People will only reject sin if they see it, not giving up something but getting something better. As Mother Teresa wrote, “Joy is a net by which we catch souls.”

And in the end, the only thing that brings true joy isn’t one’s possessions, achievements, or legacy, but meaningful relationships founded in love. Beginning with our relationship with God, but then expanding, encompassing our relationships with others.

Love is the one thing that the more you give, the more you have to give. It is then, in love, when we can use our judgment and tell someone our relationship is at an impasse. It is in love when we can identify sin as the obstacle, and righteousness becomes an affirmation rather than a denial. It is in love that we can tell someone that we cannot join them on the path they have chosen but instead, invite them on this better path. A path that is an end of all judgement, all hypocrisy. A path that begins with conquering our own sin but doesn’t end there. As Jesus said;

Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.