JUDGE NOT AND YE SHALL NOT BE JUDGED

Jesus said unto His disciples, Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful. Judge not and ye shall not be judged: condemn not and ye shall not be condemned: forgive and ye shall be forgiven. Luke 6:36.

Friday, July 7^th, marked the anniversary of the bombings in London. One of those bombs, on the Underground near Kings Cross, was exploded on the line our daughter Annette used to go to work, and the timing was within half an hour of her normal travel time. That was as close as I want to see any member of my family get to such a dreadful event.

To the best of my knowledge, no one in this congregation had a relative or friend involved in the carnage of July 7^th, 2005. For that we give thanks to God.

Even so, those events, to many at least, seemed remarkably close at hand. And so they should, because they are indeed as close as the ongoing war, that great and fatal struggle between good and evil, which is waged constantly around us and within us.

The text I quoted from Luke 6:36, says judge not and condemn not, which may seem difficult precepts in respect to such cowardly acts as the London bombings.

I myself, have said some harsh things about the perpetrators of indiscriminate violence. There is no redeeming feature to the deliberate, premeditated and carefully planned slaughter of unsuspecting people going about their legitimate, daily business.

Or is there?

Jesus says, Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Those words tell us that even in the most appalling circumstances the Christian is required to stop and think.

When we do that, we must inevitably conclude that in every act, even those of murderous violence, there is a “what” – the act itself; and a “why” – the motivating force behind the act. Jesus made that distinction. When Judas came with the soldiers to betray Jesus, even then, St. Matthew tells us, our Lord addresses Judas as “friend”. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Jesus knew that the scriptures had to be fulfilled and He knew the role Judas had to play in that. He also knew the motives in the man’s mind. Perhaps he saw that those motives were not without some mitigating factors. In any case, the use of the term friend, implies forgiveness.

Yet He made it very clear that the consequences of the act would be severe. Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! Good were it for that man if he had never been born. Mark 14:21.

Now to any sane, rational human being, Christian or otherwise, the “what” is generally easy to categorise as right or wrong.

It is wrong to betray a friend.

Splattering the DNA of 52 strangers over the walls of the London Underground and the streets of the city is wrong. Period.

Killing abortionists with a sniper rifle is every bit as wrong as the massive butchery of unborn babies. Period.

The wholesale torture and murder of millions of people in Nazi death camps and Communist gulags was wrong. Period.

When Nero and other Roman emperors martyred Christians to protect the religions of the Empire, or just because they were Christian, that was wrong.

When Catholic Christian inquisitors sent their victims to the rack or to some cruel death, that was wrong.

When Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake that was wrong.

But when we turn from the “what” and consider the “why”, we Christians find ourselves in very different territory. We are placed in that territory, and it is radically different, by Jesus Christ.

There, as fallen human beings, with all our imperfections, we will find ourselves from time to time in an agony of conflicting emotions. We will range through the whole kaleidoscope from fear, to anger, to hatred and lust for revenge.

And in that storm wracked ocean, we will forget, even if momentarily, the teachings and presence of Jesus Christ. But we need to find Him again, fast, because He and He alone can restore perspective to such dreadful events as the London bombings.

Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch? Yes, they will. That is why, in rejecting Jesus Christ as the way, the truth and the life, Mohammedanism is ultimately doomed.

That is why Christian churches which stray from orthodoxy, allow the defilement of the Sacraments and fall into apostasy are ultimately doomed.

Jesus alone can keep us from falling into the ditch, because He alone sees all things with perfect clarity.

Our part is to strive to see Him through the crystal lens of the Gospels. Our part is to yearn for fellowship with Him in unity with His Love. Then we may find things in the “why” of the London bombings and the like which surprise us.

On a recent visit to the head office of The Voice of The Martyrs, I spotted a small book, the title of which intrigued me. It is called, Jesus, Friend to Terrorists. It was written by Radu Valentin, a priest from Romania.

The very first words in the book are, I believe it is totally wrong to consider anyone totally wrong. That got my attention, coming from a man with first hand knowledge of persecution.

The first Bible quotation he uses is from John 16:2, yea the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.

The Mohammedan, in the act of detonating his bomb, usually does so to the cry of Allahu akbar! – God is great! He believes he is killing for God.

Valentin points out that the Fascist terrorists in his native Romania, called legionnaires, were fanatical, orthodox Christians. Before killing the prime minister, Calinescu, they spent the whole night stretched out on the floor of a church praying that God might bless their endeavour. Like the Mohammedans, “their zeal for God”, as Valentin says, “was commendable. What they knew about God and His will was insufficient.”

The same can be said about the most famous terrorist written of in the New Testament. Saul, the devout Jew of Tarsus was so fired with love of God that he made it his personal mission to seek and destroy Christians, who he regarded as a contradiction to and danger to orthodox Judaism.

Saul was involved in the murder of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Each man had a burning love of God, but from a very different perspective. Stephen came to God through Jesus Christ and for Jesus Christ he died. Saul was taught in the strict Jewish ways and described himself, through them, as being zealous towards God.

Later of course, Saul himself came to Jesus Christ and he, too, died a martyr’s death for his beloved Saviour. What a wonderful meeting in heaven that must have been, Stephen and Paul in the embrace of Jesus Christ.

The thing is that in the “why” of their actions was actually the point of contact, love of and dedication to God. Thus, if we allow ourselves to think of terrorists as killers and nothing more, we are in serious error. At the very least, we will not look for points of contact, but rather for positions of difference. We will never break down the walls or bridge the gaps.

Some other examples, all drawn from Radu Valentin.

Lenin started the Russian Communist revolution and was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people. He claimed he wanted a better future for mankind. None of us can argue with such a goal.

In fact, as Valentin quotes, it was said of Lenin that, “he loved mankind so much that he was ready to kill all men for the benefit of humanity.”

When you consider the mess we are making of God’s world, you have to admit that Lenin had a point, in the “why” of what he did, at least.

Stalin, early in his career, attacked a vehicle carrying a large amount of money. He kept none of it, but handed it all over to the Bolsheviks to help fund the revolution. Stalin was caught, jailed and then exiled for 12 years, suffering for what he considered was right. I cannot fault him for that and I hope that if I am called upon to suffer similarly for Jesus Christ, I will be ready to do so.

Stalin was initially motivated by a desire to help the poverty stricken, oppressed masses of Russia. His tragedy was that in power, he became worse than any of his predecessors, eventually killing millions of the very peasants he set out to help. Along with them, he killed his own family.

Hitler, often seen as the ultimate monster, genuinely believed that he was doing good for the fatherland he loved. He thought the killing of Jews, gypsies and German dissidents was a necessary part of that.

His motive was not blood lust, or selfishness, but a horribly perverted love for the fatherland.

That kind of love, surfacing in the Inquisitors, Stalin, Hitler, Lenin and in modern terrorists of any stripe, is both crippled and crippling. The shackles which bind it lead to the very acts of perversion and evil I have mentioned.

But in considering it; even in recoiling from it, the Christian must tune his ear to the words of Jesus Christ. Judge not and ye shall not be judged: condemn not and ye shall not be condemned. If nothing else, we will find redeeming features in what evil and evil acts can teach us to help in our own journeys towards sanctification.

Jesus died on the Cross for all men. That removes from us the option to show contempt for any human being, no matter how bad we may perceive that person to be. Jesus is indeed the friend of terrorists and we can best show our love for our Lord by showing our love for everyone for whom He died.

Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful. Judge not and ye shall not be judged: condemn not and ye shall not be condemned: forgive and ye shall be forgiven.

Peter Jardine+

Trinity IV, 2006