March 6, 2011
Distinguishing Ourselves - Matthew 7:1-20
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadSurely we have arrived. If Charlotte, North Carolina, USA is not a big city now, then it never will be. We’ve got a professional football and basketball team. I heard the other day that we’ve got the eighth largest airport in the world. We host a major golf tournament in the PGA (which is just around the corner). We’ve hosted the NCAA basketball final four. We’ve hosted the NBA all-star game. We’ve got the NASCAR Hall of Fame. We are the home of the largest spectator sport in America. And if all of that wasn’t enough, if all that wasn’t enough to make those egotistical airheads in Atlanta recognize us as a big city, then surely landing the 2012 Democratic National Convention will. We have now, for the record, distinguished ourselves. America has two major political parties. Both of those parties meet once every four years to nominate the most powerful man in the world, the President. The Democrats will nominate President Barak Obama for a second term a mere eight miles from here. The eyes of the entire world will be on Charlotte. That’s big time. For a city that has been dying to be big time for its entire life, we have finally, surely, by now arrived.
Part of that quest to become a great city, or as some city planners recently put it “green, great, and global,” is annoying. During the Cold War there was a joke that if Russia launched twenty nuclear warheads to America’s twenty largest cities, Charlotte would be the only city in the country to be disappointed that it wasn’t hit. But I’ll have to say that I admire Charlotte’s ambition. Charlotte is what we all are. We all want to distinguish ourselves, to make the big leagues. What boy does not imagine himself playing professional baseball? It’s in our DNA. I’ve long since given up on professional baseball, but I do want to go down as a very good, if not world class, preacher and pastor. I do not want to be “just another one.” I want to make the big leagues. It’s even biblical. There were twelve disciples, if you remember. In Mark 9 and in Luke 9, they argued about how to distinguish themselves. Who wants to just be one of twelve? It even goes back further, much further actually, to Genesis 11 when people tried to build this great tower so they could reach God, so they could be like God. And it even goes back further, all the way to Eve. God told Adam and Eve to stay away from that tree, and they did stay away from it… until this serpent told Eve that if she ate that apple that she would be like God. That did it.
And that does it for us, too. In fact, that’s largely what sin is, the refusal to live as God’s children. We don’t want to be children. Jesus is telling us here, though, that we are children, that we’re not in the big leagues (as it relates to God), and that’s fine. So remember that, Jesus said, when you judge others. If you read this passage carefully, you’ll see that Jesus did not tell us not to judge. We judge others all the time. When we pick teachers to teach our children, do you want us to judge them, or should we just put any old warm body in there? When I became your pastor, did you not judge me? I certainly judged you, at least as best I could. If you’re on drugs, or unfaithful in your marriage, or if you’re abusing your family, am I supposed to just let it be? Doesn’t forgiveness assume judgment? How can we forgive others without acknowledging that what they did was wrong? It’s easy for us to say that we’re not supposed to judge. It’s even popular these days to “live and let live.” But isn’t it judgment if I say you’re guilty of judging?
Jesus never told us not to judge. He just said to take the log out of our own eye before we do it. He just reminded us that we’re not in the big leagues, which adds a whole different dimension to it. I was a bad student in school all the way up to the eleventh grade. I was, at best, average, but to be honest, I was worse than average. I specifically remember failing tests and having the teacher chastise me in class. That happened more than once. I was a poor student. But then I went to the Brevard Music Center one summer between the tenth and eleventh grade. I played the piano at the time, and somehow by God’s good grace, I got accepted in Brevard. Brevard is a prestigious summer music program. I was the worst pianist there. But I probably played the piano at least six hours a day. I lived, breathed, ate, and slept music. By the end of that summer, I was good at the piano. I improved more in six weeks than I otherwise would have in sixyears. And I had never been away from home that long. And I made friends up there, and socialized, and had girlfriends, and realized that I was a pretty decent kid. I specifically remember that I had signed up for a physics class my junior year, and the teacher told me to take an easier class, that physics was too hard for me. And I went back to school my junior year and made an “a” in that class. I made an “a” in all my classes that year. I went from being a bad student to being a good student because of grace, which came in the form of the Brevard Music Center.
If you don’t think that arts education is important, then I’ll judge you and tell you that you’re wrong on that count. And I’ll also tell you that I have a soft spot in my heart for children who are struggling in school. So when I encounter bad students, then whatever I do, I cannot point my finger down at them. I can surely tell them that a “d” or an “f” is really bad grade, and a “c” isn’t good either, and “b” is decent, but an “a” is ideal. I can and will make that judgment. I can also tell them that they are not doing as well as they should or could do. I’ll make that judgment, too. But having been a bad student myself, the one thing that I can never do is to condemn them as just stupid or a waste of time.
Maybe that’s what Jesus is saying here about judgment. We’re sinners ourselves. We were once just as lost as we say that others are. So having been lost ourselves, we’re not in any position to condemn. That makes a big difference, doesn’t it? I’m a child of God, too. I get lost on occasion, too. So come with me, and by God’s grace, we can get through this thing together. If God’s grace could save a wretch like me, then you’ll be alright. Maybe that’s a little closer to what Jesus had in mind here. We’re not in the big leagues, we’re not distinguished when it comes to our standing before God. We’re God’s children just like everybody else.
That’s where we get it all wrong sometimes. We think that we have to distinguish ourselves in order to get God’s attention. If I’m in the big league, if I am the first among the twelve disciples, then I’m in a better position to influence Jesus. I’ve got more clout. But Jesus said that’s not true. I’ve got three children, neither of whom has ever been hungry. But if they were, I would do everything in my power to feed them, not because they have distinguished themselves. I would not say to Julia, for example, that I would feed her because she’s learned o color between the lines, and then let the other two go hungry. I would do everything in my power to feed all three, because I love all three more than they could ever imagine.
Jesus said that God deals with his children in the same way. You don’t need to distinguish yourself as first among equals before God. In fact, when you do, then you end up leaving somebody out. You end up hurting and condemning somebody else. In a way, you end up condemning yourself. God is on our side. God loves us. God is rooting for us. God has saved us. God wants us to flourish. Unlike human parents, God can do something about it. Human parents are very limited as to what they can do for their children. God is not limited. God has given us not just life, but abundant life. But we don’t have to distinguish ourselves in order to have that abundant life. We don’t have to get to know the right people or check all the right blocks or pay our dues. All we have to do is just put our hands out. All we have to do is ask, in the same way that my children ask for cereal in the morning. It’s not about the big leagues. It’s about grace.
The odd thing is that when we live like that, we end up being a distinguished people. This is the last Sunday that we’re discussing the Sermon on the Mount. If the Sermon on the Mount does nothing else, it distinguishes us as Christians. It makes us a City on a Hill. The irony, though, is that only when we quit trying to distinguish ourselves do we become distinguished. Maybe another way to say that is when we find ourselves, we lose it, and when we lose ourselves for Jesus’ sake, then we find it. The world doesn’t need another famous person. We don’t need to make a name for ourselves to get God’s attention. We already have God’s attention. God has already given us more that his attention. God has already distinguished us as His children. That’s the only distinctive characteristic that we need. So go out there and live like it.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
