The Irony of "Don't Judge Me!"
- Todd Hall
- 49 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Perhaps the greatest irony of our present age is the absolute moralism of a culture which rails against institutionalized morality. “Don’t force your morality on me” is often uttered in complete sincerity and without a hint of irony. Increasingly in our contemporary world, this commitment to the morality of moral relativism is becoming manifest in the church. One can often see in the language of these converts to the new morality of the West all the righteousness of the raging prophets, dealing out the fiery judgment of God against those who would dare to “judge others.” This desire to raise ourselves above others—to present ourselves as righteous crusaders for God’s cause—is not new; in fact it is ancient, maybe the oldest impulse of humanity. But it is terribly destructive, and it is symptomatic of a deeper problem: the desire for self-justification (usually in comparison to others, maximizing their “faults” while minimizing our own) is the full expression of a lack of trust in the goodness of God.
Jesus’ way is different. Oh, very often Jesus is invoked by the crusaders of social justice, especially in his raging at the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The problem with this particular reading of the Gospels, though, is the tendency to identify ourselves with Jesus over against the Pharisees and the steadfast refusal to see in ourselves the attitude of the Pharisees.
Two stories from the Gospel of Luke illustrated this point for me recently in my reading. Consider, briefly, these two accounts:
51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. 53 But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 And they went on to another village. - Luke 9:51–56 (ESV)
9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” - Luke 18:9-11 (ESV)
As is almost always the case in the Gospels, the Pharisees are portrayed as Jesus’ major antagonists in the latter text. In some ways, this is unfair, for the individual Pharisees in the Gospels are more the embodiment of the antagonist of the Kingdom of God: self-righteous judgment. The earliest sin, that which shattered the relationship of the Creator and his creatures, was at least related to this desire for self-justification. Adam and Eve did not trust that their Creator had their best interests at heart. They believed he was holding out on them, and thus they ate of the fruit so that they could “be like God.” And ever since then, we humans have longed for justification in God’s sight, and this comes inevitably at the expense of others (think of Cain’s “sacrifice,” and his subsequent reaction to God’s response to Abel’s). This is why the sin of the Pharisees, of “Pharisaism,” is not legalism, per se, but self-righteousness. And it is alive and well today, and often in unexpected places.
Note, though, that disciples of Jesus are not immune to this same sin (and of course, in reading the Gospels, we are not surprised that the disciples are sinful). Luke 9:51 is one of the key texts in the Gospel. It is the moment that Jesus’ mission shifts toward Jerusalem. From this moment on, the cross ever looms in the background as Jesus makes his way toward the fulfilling of his mission. And even here, at this moment—after the argument over who is greater (9:46ff), after the disciples’ concern over someone “cutting in” on their glory (9:49ff)—two disciples belonging to Jesus’ most inner-circle exhibit that nothing in their hearts has changed. Unlike the self-righteous Pharisees, the self-righteous disciples follow Jesus as Messiah. Their confession (9:18ff) has had little to no impact on their positioning of themselves with respect to others. One can almost hear their giddiness in the request to call down fire on this disbelieving Samaritans, not unlike the “true believers” who picked up stones to kill Jesus.
Jesus, though, rebukes them for this, and will go on to illustrate a different way, a heart that is moved by compassion and a will characterized by surrender to the mission of the Kingdom. It turns out that Pharisaism is more an attitude than a particular action, and it is alive and well.
I have long heard stories from others about the ugliness that often occurred in North American Christianity. Churches treated sinners shabbily, even sinfully, driving many away from faith insofar as they offered a horrible vision of God. These Christians, I’ve been told, were judgmental hypocrites, modern-day Pharisees, whose rigid “theology” (such as it was) and morality (and moralizing) led to broken souls being more alienated from God than drawn to him. I have no doubt that this was often true—I have read many of the publications of the 50s and 60s that were incredibly sectarian, judgmental, and legalistic. And I believe, sincerely, that many people who could have experienced the balm of the loving God and father of Jesus Christ were driven away and kept apart from the faith because of this attitude.[1]
But what replaces the attitude of legalism in many converts is, unhappily, not the gracious spirit of humility, self-critique, forbearance, and grace for which Jesus calls. Rather, it is another form of legalism, the flip-side of the same coin. There are many instances in which the condemnation of others isn’t removed, but rather simply pointed the other direction. Put another way, we can take the person out of the fundamentalist cult, but we can’t take the fundamentalist cult out of the person. Not without recognition that they, too, are broken. That they need God’s forgiveness just as much as the person they’re judging.
What Jesus wants, what Christianity is meant to embody, is humility before God’s gracious patience and presence. We are called to be a balm for the broken—even those who don’t know they’re broken. Jesus’ interaction with Simon the Pharisee, for instance, is meant not only for the forgiven woman’s benefit, but for Simon’s as well. Jesus came to call sinners—heathen, hedonist, pagan, legalist, and Pharisee—to enter into God’s life and live accordingly. We ought to remember that when we talk to each other—from whichever side of an issue we find ourselves. There are certainly some things in the history of our churches for which we need to repent. But in the same way that we are to extend grace to those we understand to be sinners now, let us also extend it to those who came before us and lived within their own contexts. This is the call of Christ to his church: to stand humbly before God, living in his forgiveness and inviting everyone around us to do the same.
[1] This is, though, a caricature of Christianity as it was lived in the States. My grandfather, for instance, served as an elder in a congregation in southeast Texas for many years. The church there was conservative, theologically, as was my grandfather. But I challenge you to read through the history of Jesus’ church to find a more compassionate, loving, self-sacrificing man than he. You did not know him, so let me spare you the time: you will not find a soul, save Jesus himself. And there were many like him, almost all of the men and women that I knew (and know) from that congregation and from that generation would have given the shirts off their backs—and their very lives—on behalf of others, regardless of creed, religion, race, or sex.
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