No condemnation
Sermon for Holy Trinity, year B
Bible reading: John 3:17
When I think of the word ‘condemn’, a number of things come to mind.
Foremost is the image of a condemned building. Years ago, as teenager boys growing up in a boring rural town, we were attracted to condemned buildings like iron filings to a magnet.
I remember one old house in particular. The sign on the boundary written in large, scary letters “BUILDING CONDEMNED – KEEP OUT” only increased our curiosity. Despite rumours that the owner of the land had threatened to shoot trespassers with salt, we just had to get in to that old building and explore it, and maybe help out a little with the demolition before leaving. Sure enough, we paid a few visits to the site. And though we deserved it, we never got shot!
There was always something melancholy about that old building, something lonely, as though the very life of the place had departed with its last occupants. It was an empty shell, reeking of rat droppings and dust, shrouded in overgrown rose bushes and ivy. Apart from the twitter of starlings and sparrows, it was silent as a grave. What once was warm and clean, smelling perhaps of bacon and eggs and coffee in the morning, filled with the sound of voices, was now lifeless, no sign of love or care. Doomed to be razed to rubble.
Do you ever feel like that condemned building? Do you feel empty, bereft of love? Not only neglected by others, but sometimes even harshly judged by them? People are experts at judging others, putting them down, condemning them. We start doing it from a very young age.
Why is that? Why do we so need to judge, to set upon each other like leaning on a tottering fence, as Psalm 62 puts it, in order to thrust people down from their eminence?
And we Christians are no less judgemental than those outside the church it would seem. All this despite Jesus’ warning to judge not, lest you be judged. All this despite his command to leave vengeance to God.
And still we look for flaws in others, weak spots, vulnerable points in which we insert our accusations like sticks of dynamite strategically placed in the walls of a condemned high-rise. We press the trigger and watch with some satisfaction while the other person crumbles and becomes an emotional pile of rubble.
What drives us to condemn others? Well fear for starters. We are afraid of others who seem happier, smarter, or more attractive than ourselves. We are afraid they will make us look small, weak and insignificant. Anyone who stands in the way of my importance has to go. If I can bring them down, I can feel better about myself again.
What else? Deep hurts that have never been resolved. Others have hurt me recently, or in the past. I may not even realise it, but when I accuse others, I am really unleashing dormant anger. My judgement is misdirected. Since I can’t have retribution where it is needed, I’ll settle for a closer, more accessible target – wife, husband, child, parent.
What else? Pride. The refusal to see my own short fallings, my own sins, makes me hypercritical. Anyone who slips up just slightly will earn my disapproval fast.
People are constantly looking for flaws in others to highlight and condemn. And we wonder why society grows increasingly violent, paranoid and litigious!
To make matters worse, behind all of this need to attack others is the deep fear that God is gonna get us in the end. People see God primarily as the big judge in the sky who’s gonna crack down his mallet on them when the time comes for them to die.
And doesn’t the bible say so? Doesn’t it tell us that he is a jealous God who will punish the father’s fault in the sons the grandsons and the great-grandsons of those who hate him? Doesn’t it talk about judgement day? God is described as a sovereign God, a supreme God, an all-powerful Ruler and judge. Surely the reason we are so nasty is because we sense that the whole world is doomed. With nothing to lose, we might as well make ourselves as little gods over those who annoy us.
But wait. Have we not forgotten the most important attribute of God, the quality that far outweighs all these? We have forgotten that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. We have forgotten the cross, even though it stares us in the face every Sunday. We have forgotten the suffering of God in Jesus, so near to us in the memorised words of John 3:16, and yet evidently so far from us too.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.
While this world still stands, the only one who has the right to judge and condemn holds it back, sends his Son into the world, and even makes that judgement fall on him. He made him who knew no sin to become sin for us. He was condemned to die in our place to spare the world from eternal judgement and condemnation. That was his purpose. That’s why he came: For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
Jesus didn’t come to judge but to save. There was one occasion where this became blatantly obvious: Several men were ready to stone to death a woman caught in the act of adultery. The ancient law allowed it. They brought her to Jesus to see what he had to say. Jesus said to them, Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
One by one they left the scene. Jesus turned to the woman: Woman, does no-one condemn you? Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.
John 8
Neither do I condemn you.
Those who have been baptised and believe in Christ have the same words resounding through the corridors of their life. The action of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit has put a protective fence around you, has taken the ‘condemned’ sign off your shoulders and put it on Christ the crucified.
St Paul in that great chapter of Romans, chapter 8, tells us that:
there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death … Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is it to condemn?
No condemnation before God, all fear is gone – for perfect love casts out fear. Consequently all calloused anger softened into forgiveness for those who have offended you. All pride shattered and giving way to tears of amazement and joy, that God’s grace is able to take the most dilapidated lost soul, and restore it to wholeness. Instead of demolishing, he renovates. The Father has drawn up the blueprint; the Son has become the new foundation stone, replacing the salt-damp of sin with the permanence of his atoning body and blood; the Holy Spirit declares you not condemned, and binds you to Christ through the gift of faith, and sustains you through word and sacrament.
How then will you see those around you? Christ has died for them too. God no longer condemns you, so how can you condemn them? Won’t you rather joyfully participate in the Triune God’s restoration work, clearing the ivy of shame and neglect by loving those whom God has placed in your life? Or as Luther puts it, defend them, speak well of them, explaining their actions in the kindest possible way.
When God begins to work through his people in this way, accusations and judgements soon become replaced by patience and forgiveness, a desire to protect the reputation and dignity of others. Even when unconfessed sin requires discipline and correction, that is carried out in an orderly and God pleasing process, and always with the intention to save and restore the other person, not to demolish them.
With the same intention, Jesus Christ still knocks on the door of countless souls, longing to enter and transform from within. To those who believe, who welcome him in faith, he has this promise:
For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed … O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of agate … and all your wall of precious stones.
—Isaiah 54
Today – Trinity Sunday – as always, we worship the three-in-one God. Mysterious? Majestic? Yes! But most importantly for us, this God has become familiar with us and shown his concern for this world. Not content to stand by and give ascent to its total destruction, he entered into our sphere as Jesus Christ and took the death sentence for us.
Rising to life again He defeated death, sin and the devil – the evil trinity is judged, forever undone by the Holy Trinity. And we, ecstatic at having passed from judgement to eternal life, forever offer God our thanks, praise and worship, and reflect his amazing grace in our daily lives. Amen.