"Dangerous Stories: Judgment"
Fr. George Wertin
Sunday, March 25th, 2007

It’s hard to believe that it has been more than a year and a half since I left St. Joan’s as pastor. It has been both an enriching and a challenging time for me. Three things have happened in that time:

1. I have learned how important it is to nurture HOPE - both in myself and in others,
2. I have recognized how important it is to be a part of a community of faith – something that I had always taken for granted before when I moved from parish to parish. But now I have to be intentional that St. Joan of Arc is still my spiritual home – even in retirement. And I value this community.
3. I have discovered how important it is to continue to grow – spiritually, intellectually and socially.

Let’s begin with the dramatic story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman who had been found to be in adultery. This is serious business because in the Jewish tradition stoning – not crucifixion – was the method of capital punishment. Jesus confronts her accusers and says, ‘Let you who are without sin cast the first stone.’ The focus shifts to judgment. Judgment is insidious. It divides us into ‘we’ and ‘they.’ It is a label. Jesus’ response challenges the accusers and us to be inclusive. We are challenged to know the person, not the image or stereotype. It is a lesson we have not learned in 2,000 years.

In his compelling presentation last Sunday, Neal Hagberg told us dangerous stories about how judgment can be self-righteous and hurtful. Judgment creates categories: women vs. men, gays, vs straights, believers vs. the unsaved, etc. We see the telltale signs all around us. Ministry in the church is based on gender not on the charisms and abilities of the person. People are excluded from the Eucharist because of their sexual orientation, All are equal – except those Arabs and Muslims in our terror preoccupied and fearful society. There are THE poor, THE disabled, THE unemployed, THE gays, THE liberals/conservatives, etc.

Nevertheless we continue to spout the politically correct rhetoric. We continue to sing the songs that ‘all are welcome’ and the ‘we are all one in Christ Jesus.’ It is easy for all of us to be self-righteous in our claims to be accepting, inclusive and non-judgmental. My cousin Steve tells me he thinks it is important for him to talk to at least one person each day with whom he disagrees on social or political issues. Not a bad practice! I often find it hard just to read the op-ed page of the newspaper.

But let’s move on to Holy Week. Next Sunday, Palm Sunday, we will have the dramatic reading of the passion of Jesus. We have to ask what does it mean for us? Do our preconceptions about Jesus’ suffering and dying ‘for the sins of the world’ that we grew up with filter out important insights?

Consider Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. It was hardly triumphal. It was rather a ragtag procession of Jesus’ followers who were staging a demonstration drawing attention to Jesus message about ‘the kingdom of God’ that Jesus had been proclaiming in Galilee. And it contrasted drastically with the procession of Pilate into Jerusalem on the other side of the city with his legion of soldiers and the crest of the Roman emperor and golden eagle in the lead. He was coming from Caesaria Maritima to Jerusalem at the Passover festival to assert the domination of the kingdom of Caesar. (It was just as inevitable as the presence of the Park Police on horseback at every peace rally in D.C.) Passover was the annual commemoration of the liberation of the Jews from Pharoah in Egypt generations before. Jesus came to Jerusalem to assert the rights of the poor Jewish people who were dispossessed of their land in his day. The peasants weremade to pay tribute and taxes to support the Emperor Tiberius and all the local leaders who collaborated with him. Jesus was challenging the oppression of poor Jewish people in his own time.

Was Jesus a political figure? Most Christians disavow such an assertion. After all, we are for separation of church and state’! But haven’t we read the Scriptures? Jesus preached about a new Kingdom – the KINGDOM of God. Isn’t ‘kingdom’ a very political word? Aren’t the beatitudes politically charged statements about poverty, oppression and violence. Didn’t Jesus make a political statement by whom he ate with – and his association in public with women? Wasn’t it because he was seen as challenging the Roman oppression that he was put to death? Or was Jesus sentenced to death ‘to atone for our sins,’ as the traditional interpretation has it? Was Jesus death a sacrifice to atone for our sins? Was he a substitute for us to free us from our sins? We need to reread our Scriptures. This is a much later theory enshrined by St. Anselm which spread through the Middle Ages. Jesus, on the other hand, invites us to follow him – be his disciples. He asks us to bring about the Kingdom of God. Listen to Jesus in Mark’s Gospel:

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forget their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? (Mark 8:34b-37)

What does it mean to claim Jesus as my personal savior? I know what it means to have a personal banker or a personal trainer. But a personal savior? – That’s to domesticate Jesus.

The disciples didn’t get it. Peter rebuked him, the disciples argued about who would be the greatest in the Kingdom. And they betrayed him, denied him or abandoned him during their time in Jerusalem. So, I guess, we shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t get Jesus’ message either.

Perhaps you have heard that there are three kinds of people:

1. There are those who make things happen.
2. There are those who let things happen.
3. And there are those who don’t know what’s happening!

Jesus was a prophet and political agitator. He was also a mystic and wisdom teacher manifesting God’s love for all creation. We need to enter into a conversation with the dangerous memories that make up the Gospel of Jesus with the social situation we find ourselves in today. It is the only way we will really learn what an empowering Liberator we have in Jesus.

Non-Scripture Reading
An excerpt from an essay by Nicola Slee:

Like the parables, (the Jesus story) is a story characterized by elements of shock, surprise,, extravagance and reversal which disrupts the horizons of normalcy and compels the reader to come to decision and judgement. And like the parables, it is a story that is open to multiple interpretation, thus respecting both the freedom and creative imagination of every reader… The story of Jesus disallows slavish imitation or mere repetition and compels the hearer to take responsibility for its narrative development in her own life and times; the story provides a framework of shared beginnings which can only be completed in the hearers own words and ways. And like the parable it refuses every attempt at final closure.