TRINITY IV 2010
St. Thomas of Canterbury Fr. W. R. Andrist
The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.
Announcements: Meeting following church, next Sunday is Independence Day.
Today's Gospel from St. Luke comes to you from the portion of Jesus' teachings in scripture that is called the "Sermon on the Mount". Many of the historical writers will tell you that the sermon on the mount is not a complete teaching lesson of Jesus given at one time but a compilation of many lessons arranged and put together in one place in scripture and we have come to think of this as having occurred at one time and place. What ever the case may be one lesson or many placed together they are good lessons for us.
It is the point of today's Gospel that you receive the admonition against making a judgment based upon a human concept of fairness. "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged:" It is with great hardship and difficulty that each of you strive to be true disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ; because it is by becoming those true disciples that you are brought to the end of your earthly journey to salvation. You must strive to be good disciples of Jesus Christ, but that is not an easy task. How often in your daily lives do you judge others? Ex.
As you see in today's gospel passage that even the original disciples made mistakes and they had the distinct advantage of the presence of the flesh and blood person of Jesus Christ in their midst. Jesus you see had to admonish them that they must not judge others. The reason for this is simple: if you as an individual judge another you separate yourself from the one that you have judged. You put a barrier a block between them and yourself. And in so doing in fact, you have put a barrier or a block between yourself and Jesus; because Jesus is in each of you.
The potential goodness and meaning of a disciple's life lies in his fellowship with Jesus Christ. You are righteous only because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ within each of you. When you attempt to judge others and steal the righteousness of Jesus you must fail because you sever your relationship with Jesus. This occurs not only in judging others but in judging oneself. Jesus is the one who through His Righteousness can judge us.
So it is that Jesus is the Judge; for if you judge you do so with your own standards your own set of values, and not by the standards of Jesus Christ. And your standards are by far inferior to those of Jesus Christ.
By judging another you bring disaster down upon yourself, for in doing this you no longer live on and in the grace of Jesus Christ, but wholly without and outside of Jesus Christ for you have staked yourself out on your own standards of good and evil.
It is not for you to judge ones shortcomings or wrongdoing it is for you to be truly Christian and show forth your Christian love towards one another and forgive that person unconditionally.
The end results of your judging others is that you blind yourselves to your own evil, but far greater than that is that you blind yourselves to the Love Grace and Forgiveness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
If you judge another you think that the real motive is to destroy evil, but you should remember that you cannot see the mote of evil in another when your sight is impeded by the beam of a false and unworthy standard in your own eye.
Remember that if you assume Christ' authority in making judgments on your own, you separate yourselves from Jesus, and without Him you have nothing, and are nothing.
Therefore "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged."
AMEN