For God Shows No Partiality

The Epistle Reading: Romans 2: 1-11
The Gospel: Matthew 7:1-5                  

For the next four weeks, I am choosing to focus on the Letters from Paul. These readings appear in the Lectionary (the prescribed scriptures for the week) periodically, but with an old testament reading, a psalm, and a new testament reading the usual, these often get left out. I decided it was time to give Paul his due.

Paul was the self-proclaimed apostle to the Gentiles in the Messianic Era. He was the one who would fulfill the expectations of the prophets to bring the Gentiles to worship the God of Israel. In Romans 1:5 he says, “I have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith…among all the Gentiles, including yourselves.” The Gentiles were the non-Jews. The disciples were focusing on converting the Jewish people to the teachings of Christ, or what we now call Christianity, so Paul saw his opening with the Gentiles.

Paul had already undergone his own transformation from a Pharisee who persecuted new Christians, to now recruiting them. This came after God revealed Christ to him on the road to Damascus (in Acts) or in Damascus (referenced in Galatians). In Acts and Corninthians it was referred to as a bright light - one that might even have temporarily blinded him, that was the risen Christ. In Galatians 1:16 Paul says, “God revealed his Son to me.” Either way, Paul was changed and felt called to the specific task of converting non-Jews to belief in Jesus Christ and the God of Israel. He worked at this task for over 30 years.

As a frame of reference, Paul was born as a Jew in Tarsus about the same time as Jesus. As a Pharisee, he believed in the Resurrection and all of the laws and traditions of the Jewish people. While the Pharisees of his time were tolerant of the Christian Movement, as they would have looked at it, Paul was not, by his own admission. That is until he had his encounter with the risen Christ.

Once converted, Paul became just as zealous in converting people to Christianity as he had been in persecuting Christians. He saw his time as short. He believed the second coming of Christ was imminent and he needed to recruit as many Gentiles to Christ as he could before that happened. Therefore, he traveled extensively teaching the Gentiles about Christ and trying to establish churches. By the time he writes the Letter to the Romans, about 20 years into his work, he has already established churches in Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece. Paul was headed to Jerusalem to bring an offering of money but also of the knowledge of the Gentiles he had converted to Christianity. He was worried about how he would received both by unbelievers who might hurt him or by the “saints”/Jesus’ disciples who might not accept him and his converts. In his letter to the Romans, he asks for their prayers that he will be successful.

Paul’s letters follow a pattern: a Greeting from him to the receiver, a prayer of Thanksgiving for efforts and successes of the receiver, the body of the letter - his message to this group, and then a closing and final blessing.

Romans, listed first in the Epistles of Paul because it is the longest even though it was written later 52-58 CE,  was written to Jewish and Gentile Christians converted by someone else. Paul had not been there yet. He praised their faith and asked them for prayers both for his mission to Jerusalem but also Spain, where he intended to go after. He tells the Romans he hopes to get there, eventually.

Some scholars say this letter is the most comprehensive, containing the majority of Paul’s theology expressed in a general way. Paul was also the first to write down the stories of Jesus. He was writing between 48-64 CE and the first Gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke) were written down between 85-90 CE.

This week, I am focusing on Paul’s words about judgment in Romans, but with the support of the Gospel of Matthew, which Paul would have known through oral histories.

Jesus is calling out hypocrites and so is Paul. They are noting human nature, to somehow make ourselves feel better by saying someone is worse than us. We might refer to that as a “holier than thou” attitude. Jesus says it clearly, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but not the log in your own?” Paul concurs in language that is even more clear: “you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on others, you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” 
And yet we humans judge all the time, don’t we? We judge people by what they wear, who they hang out with, where they live, what their habits are, who they vote for, even what they eat or don’t eat. It seems to be human nature to judge and yet - we are called not to do that as Christians. That is a tall order.

I admit, I too judge. I notice someone who is doing or saying something I disagree with and I find myself inwardly recoiling from them or what they said. But I am trying to practice non-judgment. When I get that initial reaction, I immediately say in my head “Don’t judge!” By making this statement, I metaphorically step back from that first judgment and I look at the person for who they are: a fellow human made by our loving Creator, equally beloved despite how they dress, where they live, what habits they have and who they vote for. They are beloved by God and if God loves them, who am I not to?

When I step back in this way, I can also begin to see them for the whole person they are. They are just trying to make it through life’s challenges like the rest of us - just maybe in a different way, maybe with fewer resources, maybe with more. My job is not to judge but to seek to understand their circumstances or motivations. I do not have to agree with them, but Jesus tells me I do have to love them, even if they are my enemy. Of course, if I take time to step back and try to understand their motivations, then I am probably not going to see them as an enemy, even if we disagree. The point of not judging is to recognize that we are all different and that we all make mistakes. We all need to work on the specks or even logs in our own eyes. And if we are working on those, we will not have time to judge others.

As Maren Tirabassi pointed out in our Living Psalm today, our justice system is not God’s. God’s judgment always leaves open the possibility of forgiveness and change, we just need to ask. As Paul says, “Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” The fact that we confess and are given an assurance of pardon each week does not mean that we can go out and have a fun week of sinning just to wipe it away the next week. It is a gift that offers the chance of a new beginning. That forgiveness should be received in gratitude inspiring work at doing better this week. It does not come with the promise of perfection. If we were perfect, we would not need to confess our shortcomings each week. No, but just as we admit our mistakes and receive forgiveness, we work on being a little bit better this week: not judging as much (and that applies to judging ourselves as well as others), being more patient, getting outside our own challenges to help others.

Father Richard Rohr questions, “Why do humans so often presume that shaming voices are always from God, and grace voices are always the imagination? If something comes toward us with grace and can pass through us and toward others with grace, we can trust it as the voice of God. “

As I ponder this image of passing grace, this unmerited forgiveness: this gift of love, I get the image of a children’s game of telephone. Do you remember that game where the first person in a line whispers something in the ear of the person next to them that gets passed down? By the end of the line, the message was almost always different. But what if the message was so simple yet profound that everyone got it right? Imagine having a tough day:  feeling overwhelmed, judged, frustrated, sad or  maybe even angry and someone whispers in your ear: “Relax: you are loved - pass it on.” What a difference would it make in the world if we passed on love rather than judgment or hate? I think this is a message we could remember, if we can only internalize it. If we know that we are loved even when we screw up, wouldn’t that inspire us to do better next time? I hope so. If we know we are loved, don’t we have a bit extra to pass on to others when they need it? The ripple effect could be amazing if we all learned to pass on love rather than judgment.

Many years ago, I had a colleague at State Farm Insurance in California who modeled passing on love, even if he did not realize it. Any time you ran into him and greeted him with the almost rhetorical question, “How are you?” expecting the generic “fine”, he would instead respond with “Amazing, could not be better!” or “Outstanding, positively terrific!” this response was so over the top that it always made me smile and has stuck with me over 35 years later. I am sure his life was not perfect, but he chose to answer in this way every single time you asked the question. His positivity was a gift of grace - passing on a message of love and hope that if he could be positive, so could the rest of us.

Paul’s ministry was to the Gentiles, but it included the Jews as well.  He emphasized that God was the God for all: “For God shows no partiality” he said. God does not choose a side between the rich and the poor, the sick and the healthy, between gender or gender-identity, between nations or races, or even between political parties or candidates. God instead wants us to welcome all, support all, seek justice for all, and to love all. As we move about our lives we are called as people of God to live into this in the way we act towards one another, reach across differences and even how we vote.

Ruth Haley Barton says, “Love is the deepest calling of the Christian life, the standard by which everything about our lives is measured. Any decision-making process that fails to ask the love question misses the point of the Christian practice of discernment.”

So that is what it all comes down to, what Jesus and Paul were both saying. It isn’t about judgment, it’s about love - pass it on. Amen. 

​Pastor Michelle Fountain

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