We Must All (by Jason Micheli)

By Jason Micheli

As Sarah Condon noted in a recent post at Mockingbird, pastors of late seem consumed with the question “Will my sermon be newsy enough this week?” Often, this concern is couched in the mandate for preachers to be prophetic. Thou Shalt Preach This Issue, Sarah rightly observed, is a law pastors have been laying on each other with increasing fervor since the election of Donald Trump to the White House, adding from our pulpits to the chorus of shoulds and ought available 24/7 on our social media newsfeeds and cable channels.

Make no mistake, there is a place for the prophetic in the Church’s worship life. Though, too many preachers seem to have forgotten that the prophetic in the Old Testament is a mantle thrust upon unhappy vessels against their own volition. It is not one happily taken up as a calling. Likewise, I fear that preachers on the left have made the same error as preachers on the right in confusing the Church with America, for the prophetic posture is most often directed today at the ‘Powers’ (the federal government) whereas the Hebrew prophets directed their godly ire at God’s own people and did so, more often than not, for the sin of idolatry of which injustice etc. were but symptoms. It’s true that the Hebrew prophets also prophesied against their leaders, but, again, Israel was a theocracy, made explicitly so by God.

     I, for one, am uncomfortable with any use of the prophetic that relies upon the same construal of America as Israel as employed by that charlatan pastor in Texas whose choir sings ‘Make America Great Again’ in Sunday worship.

What seems to be missing, however, in the urgency to prophesy God’s judgement against galling abuses at the border and other issues is the humility that as Christians, we’re supposed to put ourselves first under God’s judgment.

As much as we’re called to be prophetic- indeed perhaps more so- Christians are called to place ourselves first before the rest of the world under God’s judgment.

Because we’re the only ones who know not to fear the Judge.

Christians like to say that every Sunday is a little Easter, but, every day—every day is Ash Wednesday, where we bear the judgment of God on behalf of a sinful world.

It was a debate over politics and identity. It was an issue of “Us” vs. “Them.” The community in Paul’s Rome had split into factions, drawn lines, created competing tribes whose divisions had calloused and calcified into contempt. Sweep the dust off this argument and you see that the community in Paul’s Rome was no different than the community in the Rome we call America. Carnivores vs. Vegetarians. It’s different in form but not in function from Democrats vs. Republicans.

Meat-Eaters vs. Non-Meat-Eaters—it’s the same dynamic as Black vs. White, Conservative vs. Progressive, Racist vs. Righteous. Every time, in each instance—it’s like Pink Floyd said; it’s Us and Them.

And to them all, the Apostle Paul admonishes: “Do not judge…for we will all stand before the Judgment Seat of God.”

“Judgment begins with the household of God.”

Paul isn’t arguing that there are “many sides” to every issue.

Paul isn’t asserting that every possible practice or perspective is permissible.

Paul most certainly isn’t urging acceptance for acceptance’s sake or tolerance for tolerance’s sake.No, when Paul implores the Christians in Rome not to cast judgment, he’s instead instructing them to bear it.

To bear judgement.

Upon themselves.

When Paul reminds them that we will all stand before the judgement seat of God, he’s not warning them of coming condemnation. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Paul isn’t preaching fire and brimstone. Paul’s pointing to their baptisms. He’s reminding them of their calling, their commissioning. He’s exhorting them to imitate Christ.

We talk all the time about imitating Christ, about being his hands and feet, and doing the things Jesus did. Most of the time we’re talking about serving the poor, forgiving another, or speaking truth to power. But if the most decisive thing Jesus did was become a curse for us, taking on the burden of judgment for the guilty, then the primary way Christians imitate Christ is by bearing judgment on behalf of the guilty.

The primary way Christians imitate God-for-us is by bearing judgment for others.

Don’t you see—that’s how this is good news. It’s us. We’re the good news.

We’re the good news of God’s judgment. We’re the followers of Jesus Christ who, like Jesus Christ, mimic his willingness to bear the judgment of God on behalf of the guilty. We’re the good news in this word of God’s judgment.

In a world sin-sick with judging and judging and judging, indicting and scapegoating and recriminating and casting blame—we’re the good news God has made in the world.

Just as Jesus said, the first will be last and the last will be first.

We who are baptized and believing, we who are saved and sanctified- we who should be last under God’s judgement thrust ourselves to the front of the line and, like Jesus Christ, say “Me first.”

Rather than judging, we put ourselves before the Judgment Seat. Rather than condemning and critiquing, we confess. We bear judgment rather than cast it.

We listen to the guilty. We never stand self-righteously at a distance from them. We never forget that “there but for the grace of God” we’d be just like them, and that it is them, not us, them—the ungodly—for whom God died.

We bear judgement rather than cast it.

We confess: our own sinfulness and guilt, our own racism and violence and pettiness, our own apathy and infidelity and failures to follow.

Knowing that there have been plenty of times we’ve seen Jesus thirsty and not given him a drink, plenty of times we’ve seen Jesus an immigrant and not welcomed him.

Knowing that even when we have seen Jesus hungry and fed him that doesn’t change the fact that even our good deeds, our best deeds, are like rags, for not one of us, really, is righteous and there is no distinction, really, between any of us.

We bear judgment rather than cast it. Because we know we can come before God’s Judgment Seat expecting to hear the first words spoken when God came to us: “Do not be afraid.”

We’re the good news in this word of God’s judgment.

In other words, I would argue that as much as the Church might need prophetic voices in its midst it also needs voices willing to confess their own sins of racism and nativism. Bearing judgement upon ourselves, we’re more likely to see grace as available to the ungodly among us.