Oct 16 | “Calling to Repentance,” (Sermon, October 14th)

‘But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practised, without neglecting the others. ⁴³Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honour in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the market-places. ⁴⁴Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.’

45 One of the lawyers answered him, ‘Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.’ ⁴⁶And he said, ‘Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them.

Luke 11: 42-46

 

Several years ago there was a molestation scandal at Pennsylvania State University involving football coach Jerry Sandusky, who used The Second Mile charity for underprivileged and at risk youth that he founded to locate and groom victims.

What was most shocking about this scandal was the fact that many Penn State authorities had known about it and covered it up. Three school officials – the president, athletic director, and fellow football coach Joe Paterno – were charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, and failure to report suspected child abuse, and Paterno was fired. His dismissal was met with anger and violence by students, who rioted on campus in protest. When the school interviewed a member of student council about it, he said, and I’m paraphrasing, “None of us can really know what we would do in Paterno’s situation. We don’t know that we wouldn’t do the same thing, so we really can’t judge him.”

I’ll always remember that because both my husband and I looked at each other and shouted, “YES WE CAN.”

The abuse had gone on for nearly a decade and no-one alerted the proper authorities. Paterno admitted that he “may have heard a rumour” of Sandusky abusing boys as early as 1998. A graduate student later reported to Paterno that he witnessed an assault by Sandusky of a boy in the locker room in 2001. Sandusky was arrested in 2011. Lives were ruined. Paterno and the others were absolutely worthy of judgement.

What’s the Christian response in that kind of a situation? Are we to judge?

In our first reading we have the Apostle Paul saying the famous “Do not judge, lest you be judged,” which is echoed earlier in Luke. Many well-meaning Christians interpret this passage as a commission to be hospitable and forgiving. At times, though, I have seen this usage give rise to a Christianity that is silent on issues of justice and spurns healthy boundaries, which can leave the vulnerable in the place of proving (to the satisfaction of the powerful) that they are uncomfortable with a situation and need things to change.

And unfortunately this attitude can be taken to an extreme, with some church authorities using passages like these to silence victims of abuse, including children, and force them to forgive their abusers – often to their faces – but without comparable actions required of the abusers. The type of churches where this culture flourishes tend to be secretive and view the “outside world” with suspicion, so they are leery of submitting to any sort of “secular” discipline, which means they often don’t contact police to report these incidents.

Most Christians would obviously condemn that behaviour, but I think it is easy to, on a smaller level, be seduced by an attitude that misuses forgiveness to avoid confrontation with those who have practiced injustice.

I think part of the problem is that we regularly hear these passages out of context. Paul is specifically calling out a largely Jewish congregation who has condemned their Gentile members with idolatrous past behaviour, while papering over the fact that they have engaged in comparably idolatrous behaviours.

And it gets even more complicated, because then we have today’s Gospel reading, which feels like the exact opposite of “Do not judge!” This is such a weird pairing of passages! What could this possibly mean? Are we to leave all of the judgment up to God?

Yes and no.

Luke’s passage does not occur in a vacuum. Jesus has been invited to dinner at a Pharisee’s house! His rant is totally inappropriate to the occasion. But in the previous chapters he has been talking constantly about gaining eternal life through showing mercy, and how true blessedness is hearing the word of God AND doing it, and Nineveh’s repentance after Jonah’s proclamation, and “Consider whether the light in you is not darkness.”

That’s what he says just before he’s invited to dinner. “Consider whether the light in you is not darkness.” That somehow resonates with this Pharisee, so Jesus gets invited to dinner, makes a scene, and is met with hostility.

Good news: Repentance is possible. Bad news: No-one’s interested. As Dave Mustaine of the band Megadeth puts it, “Peace sells, but who’s buying?”

The consequences Jesus faced for calling the world to repentance were grave – much worse than being shunned, or called nasty names, or even losing a job or a friend. But he refused to be silenced. Why? Not because God demands just punishment of sinners by the righteous, but because those who were sinning were “unmarked graves.” That analogy doesn’t translate well to our Western ears. It might work better if, instead of “unmarked graves,” we hear “pitfall traps.” They are a hidden danger to others. They are those who may cause little ones to stumble.

Jesus wouldn’t have bothered to preach repentance if he didn’t think they were capable of being saved.

But they were. They are.

I really think that when Jesus told us to carry on his work, he meant for us to include calls to repentance among our own work. The strong person who willingly embraces weakness can always do more for justice than the weak person devoting every drop of energy toward wiggling out from under the boot.

Are calls to repentance judgmental? Well…yeah! If you’re telling the world that things have to change, you’re telling it the way things are doesn’t work! But we weren’t commissioned to bear bad news. We were taught to model a better way.

A kingdom way.

And I think sometimes we do that with words, and sometimes we do that with our lives.

When you come forward today to receive your Lord and Saviour, let his strength become yours. The best part of this heavy commission is that the work of repentance begins with our receiving.

What a beautiful thing: God’s gift to you becomes a gift for the whole world.

And if you live your life and only manage to proclaim repentance to yourself, do not blaspheme against your good work by saying, “It is not enough.”

In your own repentance, you gift yourself to the world.

What wondrous love. Alleluia.