The Christian life begins and ends with mercy

Sermon for Trinity 4

Romans 8:18-23  +  Luke 6:36-42

We’re once again confronted today with that most famous of Bible passages, “Do not judge!” Amen. Sermon’s over. You can go home now.

Right? That’s what many people seem to believe the Bible’s only message to be. “Do not judge!” But you know better. In fact, that little command of Jesus has nothing to do with most people who quote it. It has nothing to do with unbelievers. They have no business even citing it. It wasn’t spoken to them. It was spoken to believers, and it’s a part of what it means to be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. It’s part of the broader teaching in today’s Gospel as Jesus teaches His disciples to have mercy like the mercy of your Father in heaven.

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Notice the phrase, “your Father”? Jesus is talking to the children of God here, to Christians. And when I say Christians, I’m including the faithful Jews of His day who were trusting in God’s promise to save them from sin and death through the promised Christ. He is talking to those who are already in a covenant relationship with God—through circumcision for the Jews of His day, or for us, who are in a covenant relationship with God through the New Testament form of circumcision, which is Holy Baptism. He’s talking to the Jews of His day who were practicing their religion, and to Christians of our day who are practicing ours.

If that’s not you, then the rest of Jesus’ words aren’t meant for you either.

For those who are still outside of God’s baptismal covenant, He has no teaching about judging or condemning or forgiving or giving. No teaching about beams in your eyes or specks in your brother’s eyes. None. For those who are outside of Christ, God has one message: “You are already lost and condemned as you are now. And there’s not a single thing you can do to change that. No command you can obey. No instruction you can follow. Already you have despised the true God in your thoughts, words, and actions. Already you have selfishly failed to love your neighbor as God commands. You don’t know Me at all, and I have no part with you.” But, as we saw in last week’s Gospel, God wants to have a part with the lost; He wants them to be found, to know Him and believe in Him; He is willing to be their God. He has gone WAY out of His way to make atonement for their sins and to purchase entrance into His kingdom for them and to have His Gospel preached to them. So after telling them the truth about their sins and their lostness, He also calls out to them in His Word to repent and believe in Christ and to be baptized in His name so that they do come into a covenant relationship with Him, where He is their God and they are His people.

So if anyone ever tries to throw Jesus’ words in your face, Do not judge! You can answer, “Oh, I see you want to talk about the Son of God and mankind’s only Savior, Jesus Christ, and His instructions for His holy, blood-bought Christians. Are you one of His disciples, too?” If they say, “No,” then insist on talking first about Jesus’ message to unbelievers: “God’s judgment is coming, and there is no one righteous before God. So repent and believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, so that you will not perish eternally in the judgment!” If they have no desire for that, then don’t waste your time arguing about the commands Jesus gives to His own disciples. People who don’t want to live in God’s house have no right to throw the rules of the house in the face of the people of the house.

But to you who are members of the house, disciples of Christ, children of the heavenly Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, baptized into His family and into a covenant of grace and forgiveness of sins, then Jesus does have something to teach you here in today’s Gospel, as you learn the rules of the house and how to become imitators of God.

It begins and ends with mercy. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Mercy is pity for the wretched. Mercy is charitableness for the needy. Mercy stands above someone who has been knocked down, whether by their own fault or by someone else’s, and instead of ignoring that person, instead of trampling that person deeper into the dust, mercy seeks to help. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you—a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be placed into your lap. For with the same measure you use it will be measured back to you.

Do not judge. That isn’t a blanket prohibition from ever doing any judging, any deciding if something is right or wrong. Christians are to do that every day. No, it means, don’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong, to jump into other people’s business if your vocation doesn’t call for it. Don’t pretend to know other people’s thoughts or motives, as if you could see into their hearts. Don’t assume the worst of your neighbor’s words or actions or silence, but assume the best. Don’t make yourself the judge of other people, if you have not been called to that position. Would you want other people to sit in judgment of you? Would you want your heavenly Father to judge you according to the strictness of His Old Testament Law, constantly pointing out your every flaw, your every errant thought, your every inexact word? I don’t think so. And to those who are in Christ, He doesn’t. He isn’t constantly judging you, weighing the perfection of every thought, word, and deed. You are accepted in Christ Jesus, so that even your imperfect good works are still considered good for His sake. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

Do not condemn. If you are not to judge, you certainly are not to condemn. Our sinful flesh has a tendency to expect perfection of others. We see it on display in the statue demolitions and school renamings. If people find what they consider to be an egregious fault in someone who lived decades or centuries ago, then, of course, they have to be condemned. Their memory erased. Their good deeds all branded with the stain of their misdeeds. It’s just another manifestation of the sinful tendency to view yourself as flawless, or mainly flawless, and to condemn any who don’t reach your standards of goodness.

But we also see it in the home. And in the church. And in discussions on social media. Notice a flaw in another person, and it’s ready, aim, condemn! But that’s not what your Father in heaven does. He could rightfully condemn every single one of us. He could be condescending toward us, He could write us off as incorrigible and hopeless. Instead, He shows us mercy, each and every day. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

What does God, in His mercy, do with us, His beloved children in Christ? He daily and richly forgives all sins to me and all believers in Christ. So forgive. Forgiving is the opposite of condemning. Again, this isn’t a blanket command to forgive everyone all the time. There are times when God Himself does not forgive, when a person remains impenitent. But where there is repentance, God gives forgiveness. He doesn’t keep holding a person’s sins against him. In His mercy, He absolves. He forgives, for Jesus’ sake. He intentionally overlooks our flaws. He smiles a fatherly smile on the penitent, and He expects His children to do the same.

And also to give, free of charge, to the one in need. Be generous, not just on the outside, but from the heart. Again, that’s what your Father in heaven does. It’s what Jesus did here on earth. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

To all these commands, Jesus attaches promises of great rewards. You will not be judged. You will not be condemned. You will be forgiven. And to you it will be given in the same measure that you give. Those are incentives God offers, because He knows that we carry around our Old Man, who fights against us to keep us from obeying God’s commands. These incentives to obedience are just another part of God’s mercy to us as He helps us and pushes us along to be more like Him.

Jesus concludes His instruction in the Gospel with some short parables, starting with the insanity of a blind man trying to lead a blind man. In order to be of use to someone else, you have to be able to see. So make sure you know the Lord’s will from His holy Word. Make sure you know what’s right and wrong, and also what’s wise. Your personal opinions may or may not be correct. But if you walk by the light of God’s Word, then you can help your neighbor and your brother.

A disciple is not above his teacher. A disciple doesn’t get to do more than his teacher or less. He doesn’t get to condemn more or less. He doesn’t get to be more forgiving or less. He also doesn’t get to suffer less, either. At best, he becomes like his teacher. So study the life of your Teacher, Jesus, to see how He helped others, how He didn’t go around pointing out everything that was wrong in society, even though He is the Judge of all; how he didn’t condemn sinners nearly as often as He could have. And He freely gave forgiveness where there was even a hint of faith. And He freely gave, not money, but of His time, of His attention, of His compassion, of His teaching, and of His healing. If you’re a disciple of Jesus, then learn to be like Jesus.

Finally, we have the parable about the foolishness of trying to remove the speck from your brother’s eye while you have a large beam in your own eye. Before you ever go to help your brother in Christ fix a problem, always begin by examining yourself, to make sure you’re not guilty of an even greater sin. The Pharisees criticized their brothers for the tiniest thing, for taking a few too many steps on the Sabbath, for not fasting properly, or for picking grains of wheat to eat as people were walking. But they missed the bigger things they themselves were guilty of, especially the grievous sin of not showing mercy in the first place.

It really does begin and end with that. God’s mercy went out and sought you and found you and brought you into His house, like a shepherd finding a lost sheep. Like a woman finding a lost coin. Now He teaches you in the Gospel how to show mercy to others as you yourself have received mercy from Him. God grant us all His Holy Spirit to mold us more and more into the merciful image of our Brother Jesus, and of our merciful Father in heaven. Amen.