"Seeing Beyond Judgment"
Julie Madden
Sunday, March 28th 2004

When Father George and my husband and I were in the Middle East we met with an American Israeli who lives in a settlement in the West Bank. Michael asked him about the Israeli government’s policy of collective punishment of the Palestinians and continued occupation of the Palestinian territories. He replied: “But they started it.” It is so hard to put down our stones.

This past fall, we hosted two members of Bereaved Families for Peace, an organization of Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost loved ones to the conflict and are now united in calling for an end to the spiraling violence. Our beloved Rami, who lost his daughter, and Ghazi, who has lost two brothers, traveled the United States together, sharing their hopes for peace, and calling each other “brother”. They showed us it is possible to put down our stones.

In today’s gospel, a crowd is gathered to stone a woman caught in adultery, as the law of Moses demands. When he is asked to comment, Jesus doesn’t judge the accuser or the accused. He says: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” One by one, they put down their stones and walk away.

We all come here this morning holding tightly to our own stones of judgment and we believe the targets in our sights are deserving of our stones. And Jesus says to us: “Let you who are without sin cast the first stone.” And we say: “But the law says I should throw this stone….But the Bible says I should throw this stone….But if I could just get their attention with this rock, I could make them see how wrong they are.”

And Jesus says: “Let you are without sin cast the first stone.”

We realize that Jesus gives us an invitation to free ourselves and others from this cycle of judgment. He came to bring us a new way of being in the world. Where before the highest value was placed on fulfilling the law, the highest value is now placed on being a people of love and compassion, a people who recognize our common frailties and our common humanity.

Mechtild of Magdeburg wrote: “If you love the justice of Jesus Christ more than you fear human judgment, then you will seek to do compassion.”

We can see beyond judgment, to compassion, when we choose to put down our stones and acknowledge what Otto Rank calls the “equality of human souls”. We can see beyond judgment to compassion when we see that our targets are children of God.

And what a relief it is to put down our stones! Peter Russell tells us that the original meaning of forgiveness is “ ‘to let go’. When we let go of our judgments of others, we let go of the source of much of our anger and many of our grievances.”

Recently, our political and religious leaders have diverted us from the true threats to humanity and the rest of creation: The threats of economic injustice, war and occupation and environmental degredation are real.

Instead, the prime target of stone throwing today is the illusion of the threat posed by loving, healthy, committed relationships among Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people. This is wrong and unjust, and we will continue to oppose legislation that systematizes discrimination and restricts civil rights. We will do this work in a spirit that invites everyone to put down their stones.

What all of you - particularly the gay and lesbian community within St. Joan of Arc - have taught me is how to step out of a cycle of judgment. You’ve taught me that our job is not to throw stones at those who call for exclusion. Instead, our job as Christians is to model radical, loving inclusion. We must be agents of transformation of the systems that are unjust.

As Matthew Fox says: “Jesus calls all persons to be compassionate prophets, transformers of society and of pain and suffering.”

Last summer, SJA was targeted on a website along with other parishes which had identified themselves as being welcoming to GLBT. I looked at that list along with Cathy Heying, my dear friend and counterpart at the Church of St. Stephen and we said: “This is a good list.” And we knew we should all be in the same room together. We called representatives from those parishes and other like-minded ministries to a meeting and we launched a parish based network called Inclusive Catholics, to help us become more of what we were accused of being.

We collaborated on a mass in November that many of you attended, to proclaim a vision of church that celebrates with gratitude the gifts of GLBT Catholics and welcomes everyone to the table as equals. It was really heavenly – an experience of the Kingdom of God.

Now we are embarked on a 3 part speaker series called The Role of Human Experience, Conscience and Tradition in Developing a Catholic Sexual Morality. Wow, lots of words you don’t often hear in the same sentence. Our intent is to provide a place for discussion that helps us all to understand the evolution of our faith around these issues and to learn more about ongoing theological reflection regarding the gift of human sexuality, in all its diversity.

The second discussion is scheduled for April 15 – it’s in the bulletin and there are flyers in the gym vestibule.

Inclusive Catholics is proof to me that judgment can be transformed into healing.

In addition to teaching me about transforming judgment into healing, no one has taught me more about the value of celebration than St. Joan of Arc and I come to you today to share with you news worth celebrating. The Twin Cities GLBT Pride Celebration, held every year the last weekend of June, is the 3rd largest Pride celebration in the country and this year the Pride Board has bestowed the 2004 Community Pride Award on the Church of St. Joan of Arc. I think it’s a first. We will march together down Hennepin Avenue and you are all invited to help us model radical inclusion and transforming love, and we will have the opportunity to extend that love to many people who believe there is no place in this church for them.

Each day we have an opportunity to see beyond the illusions of judgment that separate us. The amazing part is that when we put down our stones, our hands are free – free to reach out to one another this morning to pray the Lord’s Prayer together, free to heal and to celebrate and free to reach out to bring all our brothers and sisters into the circle; to be the compassionate prophets we are meant to be, born to be and called to be. This is blessed work and it’s an honor to be on the journey with you.

Amen.