By Jason Micheli<\/p>\n
Ash\u00a0Wednesday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Every Day<\/u>\u00a0\u2013 Romans 14.1-12<\/b><\/p>\n If you\u2019re all caught up on\u00a0Game of Thrones and Bachelorette in Paradise, and\u00a0<\/i>you\u2019re looking for something new to watch, then I suggest you check out\u00a0Stalker<\/i>, a dark, dystopian science fiction film from the 1970\u2019s. I discovered it on\u00a0Netflix<\/i>\u00a0after I\u2019d binge-watched all 7 seasons of\u00a0Californication<\/i>.<\/p>\n Stalker tells the allegory of 3 men who journey across a post-nuclear wasteland.<\/p>\n Shrouded in mystery, the character called Stalker guides two other characters, who are cryptically named Writer and Professor, across the burnt out remains of a devastated civilization. Stalker is leading them to an apocalyptic oasis called the Zone. Stalker has promised them that at the center of the Zone is a place called the Room.<\/p>\n In the Room, Stalker tells them, they will achieve their hearts\u2019 desire. In the Room, their dreams will come true. In the Room, you will get exactly what you truly want.<\/p>\n Initially, it sounds like a promise worth a journey. Only, when they arrive at the threshold of the Room, Writer and Professor get cold feet. They\u2019re overcome with second thoughts as the frightening thought occurs to them: What if we\u2019re stranger to ourselves?<\/p>\n \u2018What if I don\u2019t know what I want?\u2019 Writer and Professor, in turn, ask Stalker.<\/p>\n \u2018Well,\u2019 Stalker explains to them, \u2018that\u2019s for the Room to decide. The Room reveals you, it reveals all, everything about you: what you get is not what you think you wish for but what you most deeply wish for.\u201d<\/p>\n At the edge of the Room, what had sounded like a dream starts to feel like a nightmare. Rather than escaping the ruins of God\u2019s apocalyptic judgement, it feels like they\u2019re about to enter into it.<\/p>\n Anticipation turns to dread as Writer and Professor both have an epiphany that terrifies them: What if they don\u2019t want what they think want? In other words, what if they\u2019re not who they think they are?<\/p>\n In a book about the film, critic Geoff Dyer says:<\/p>\n \u201cNot many people can confront the truth about themselves. If they did, they\u2019d take an immediate and profound dislike to the person in whose skin they\u2019d learn to sit quite comfortably for years.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Eventually, Writer and Professor run away, terrified at the prospect of standing before the Room and having their true selves laid bare.<\/p>\n Watching\u00a0Stalker<\/i>\u00a0this dark, dystopian sci-fi flick from the \u201970\u2019s, you\u2019d never close out\u00a0Netflix,\u00a0<\/i>check it off on your queue,\u00a0<\/i>click off the clicker, and say to yourself\u00a0That was a happy story.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n You\u2019d never leave a review on\u00a0Rotten Tomatoes\u00a0<\/i>to\u00a0<\/i>evangelize strangers\u00a0You\u2019ve got to check out this story about the Room \u201cto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secret is hid\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n You might say it\u2019s a good story, a good flick, a good scare. But you\u2019d never say it was good news.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n So how is this passage next up in Paul\u2019s queue,\u00a0\u201cWe shall all stand before the judgement seat of God,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0how is this good news?<\/p>\n Judgement?<\/p>\n This sounds like bad news.<\/p>\n But the Apostle Paul left the bad news behind back in chapter 3.<\/p>\n Back when he said that\u00a0\u201c\u2026all are under the Power of Sin\u2026there is no one righteous; not one\u2026all have turned aside and stand condemned.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n That was 11 chapters ago. The bad news was 11 chapters ago.<\/p>\n Since then, the Apostle Paul\u2019s message has been Gospel- the good news that we are justified not by anything we do but by what Christ has done.<\/p>\n For us.<\/p>\n That what matters is not our faith (or lack thereof) but Christ\u2019s faithfulness.<\/p>\n That what counts- what God reckons- is not our unrighteousness but Christ\u2019s righteousness.<\/p>\n It has been good news for 11 chapters.<\/p>\n Paul\u2019s apostolic announcement has been about freedom:<\/p>\n Freedom from the Law.<\/p>\n Freedom from having to do right.<\/p>\n Freedom from the burden of human performance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For 11 chapters, it\u2019s been the good news of our freedom:<\/p>\n Freedom from judgement because, Paul told us, \u201c\u2026while we were yet enemies of God, God in Christ died for the ungodly.\u201d<\/p>\n Freedom from guilt because, Paul told us, \u201c\u2026Since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; we are now justified by his grace as a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n Freedom from condemnation because, Paul promised, \u201c\u2026There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus our Lord.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n But-<\/p>\n If there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus<\/p>\n If nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus<\/p>\n If nothing we do can separate us from the love of God- nothing:<\/p>\n Not our participation in persecution or war<\/p>\n Not our habits that lead to hardship or distress<\/p>\n Not our apathy that enables nakedness and peril and famine<\/p>\n If nothing we do-<\/p>\n If nothing we turn a blind eye to-<\/p>\n Can separate us from God, in whom there is now no condemnation, then how is this\u00a0good<\/i>\u00a0news: \u201cWe shall all stand before the judgement seat of God?\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n I can tell you nothing tightens the sphincters of east coast mainliners quite like a verse such as this one: \u201cWe shall all stand before the judgement seat of God.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, even if the verse doesn\u2019t make you fret with holy fear or sweat with sudden self-awareness, even if this verse doesn\u2019t bother you, you still have to square it with the 11 chapters that have come before.<\/p>\n You still have to square this \u201c\u2026everyone will come before the judgement seat of God\u201d with what Paul said 4 chapters earlier that \u201c\u2026everyone who confesses with their lips that Jesus Christ is Lord will be saved.\u201d<\/p>\n Which is it? Everyone will be judged? Or everyone will be saved?<\/p>\n How does \u201c\u2026all will stand before the judgement seat of God\u2026\u201d square with chapter 11 where Paul said that all will be saved, that God will be merciful to all.<\/p>\n Judgement. Mercy.<\/p>\n Which is it, Paul?<\/p>\n It can\u2019t be both\/and can it?<\/p>\n That everyone who confesses Jesus Christ will be saved\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0everyone will stand before the judgement seat of God?<\/p>\n How do we square it?<\/p>\n Because you have to do something with it.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t just dismiss it as a throwaway verse because the Apostle Paul doubles down on it in verse 12: \u201c\u2026each of us will be held accountable before God\u2019s tribunal\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, Paul repeats it almost word-for-word to the Corinthians: \u201cWe must all\u00a0appear<\/i>\u00a0before the judgement seat of God.\u201d<\/p>\n And you can\u2019t dismiss this verse about judgement because the Apostle Paul here sounds like Jesus everywhere- all over the Gospels, Jesus warns of the Coming Day of Judgement.<\/p>\n As in his final teaching before his Passion, Jesus promises that he will come again to judge the living and the dead, gathering\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0before him.<\/p>\n Not some.<\/p>\n All<\/i>:<\/p>\n unbelievers\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0believers<\/p>\n unrighteous\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0righteous<\/p>\n the unbaptized\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0the born again<\/p><\/blockquote>\n All- not some-\u00a0all<\/i>, Jesus says, will be gathered for judgement.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 The \u201csaved\u201d are not spared.<\/b><\/p>\n And all will be reckoned according to who fed the hungry and who gave water to the thirsty and who clothed the naked and who welcomed the immigrant.<\/p>\n And who did not.<\/p>\n \u201cAll shall stand before God for judgement,\u201d Paul says.<\/p>\n Just like Jesus said.<\/p>\n And according to Jesus\u2019 Bible that reckoning will be a refining.<\/p>\n A refining fire, says the prophet Malachi, where our sinful self- even if we\u2019re saved- will come under God\u2019s final judgement and the the Old Adam still in us will be burnt away.<\/p>\n The corrupt and petty parts of our nature will be purged and destroyed.<\/p>\n The greedy and the bigoted and the begrudging parts of our nature will be purged and destroyed.<\/p>\n The vengeful and the violent parts of our selves will be purged and destroyed.<\/p>\n The unforgiving and the unfaithful parts of us, the insincere and the self-righteous and the cynical- all of it from all of us will be judged and purged and forsaken forever by the God who is a refining fire.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, keep in mind- purgation is not damnation.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Purgation is not damnation.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n But neither is it pain free.\u00a0Neither is it pain free.<\/b><\/p>\n Again, how is this good news?<\/p>\n What\u2019s Paul doing saying this\u00a0here,<\/i>\u00a0in chapter 14?<\/p>\n Paul left the bad news behind, back at the beginning.<\/p>\n But the promise that you will stand before the judgement seat of Almighty God- stripped and laid bare, all your disguises and your deceits revealed, naked wearing nothing but your true character- admit it, it sounds awful.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t sound at all like anything to which you\u2019d say:\u00a0\u2018Amen! Me first.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n A couple of Fridays ago, my oldest son and I milled around Charlottesville. I went to college there and now we have a house nearby.<\/p>\n Alexander and I walked around Charlottesville\u2019s Downtown Mall and UVA\u2019s Grounds just before the tiki-torch-bearing scare mob descended from the Rotunda shouting \u201cblood and soil\u201d and \u201cJews will not replace us.\u201d<\/p>\n We saw the empty Emancipation Park snaked with metal barricades and draped with police tape.<\/p>\n We saw homeless men looking dazed and curious about the stage craft and street theater setting up around them.<\/p>\n We saw the lonely-looking white men-\u00a0boys-\u00a0<\/i>wearing white polos and khaki cargo pants, whose faces, illumined by flame and fury, we\u2019d later recognize in the\u00a0Washington Post<\/i>.<\/p>\n We grabbed a coffee and a soda just off the side street where Heather Hoyer would be murdered the following day.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, some of my clergy colleagues were in an adjacent church training for non-violent protest, learning how to lock arms, how wash away tear gas, and how roll over to protect your liver when you\u2019re being kicked or beaten.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an elementary school near the park there in Charlottesville, most African American kids. I used to work there in their after school program, Monday through\u00a0Friday<\/span><\/span>, when I was an undergraduate.<\/p>\n Walking around the park with my son, I thought of Christopher Yates, the boy who had no father at home, whom I took to Long John\u00a0Slivers<\/i>\u00a0on occasion.<\/p>\n Back then, he had no idea there were people in the world who looked like me who hated people like him simply because they looked like him.<\/p>\n Walking around that park\u00a0on Friday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0with my son, who is not white and is growing into an ugly but necessary awareness of that fact, I thought of Christopher.<\/p>\n And I got angry- righteously angry- at those who would fill the park the next day.<\/p>\n \u201cGod damn them all,\u201d I whispered, making sure my son could hear.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n That\u00a0Sunday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0I led the long pastoral prayer in my congregation.<\/p>\n And what I prayed\u2026I prayed about\u00a0them<\/i>.<\/p>\n I prayed about\u00a0them<\/i>, those whose thoughts and actions betray allegiance to the gods of bigotry.<\/p>\n I prayed about\u00a0them<\/i>, those whose apathy and excuses and silence tolerate hate and harm.<\/p>\n \u201cBring your judgement to them, O God,\u201d I prayed.<\/p>\n \u201cBring judgement to those who embrace terror, racism, and violence\u2026\u201d I beseeched.<\/p>\n Bring your judgement I begged.<\/p>\n Bring your judgement- upon\u00a0them<\/i>.<\/p>\n God damn them all.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n It was a good prayer, I thought.<\/p>\n Not everyone agreed.<\/p>\n One man, whose mother I buried and whose kids I confirmed, fired off an email complaining about \u201cthe Stalinist regime of [my] ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPlease don\u2019t use this event as an excuse to ram progressive orthodoxy down our throats. More religion and less politics!!!!!!! Please!!!!<\/p>\n At least he said the magic word.<\/p>\n I read his email and sighed and, under my breath, I said \u201cBless his heart,\u201d which you might not know is a southern euphemism for \u201c@#$% @#$\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/i><\/p>\n Still another worshipper took me to task for my prayer that\u00a0Sunday<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n Frank is in his 80\u2019s, a retired Old Testament Professor from Greenville College. He and his wife moved to my parish a few years ago to be near his daughter.<\/p>\n After the final\u00a0Sunday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0service had finished and the crowd had petered away and the ushers were cleaning up the pews, Frank shuffled up to me.<\/p>\n He was hunched over as he always is, a knobby cane in one hand and a floppy bible in a carrying case in the other hand.<\/p>\n He stopped, I noticed, to face the altar wall and, with his cane in his hand, genuflected the sign of the cross, tracing it across his lips and then his chest.<\/p>\n Almost always Frank has nothing but unfettered praise for me, which makes him not only the President of the Jason Micheli Fan Club but it\u2019s only member.<\/p>\n Almost always Frank has nothing but praise. Not this time.<\/p>\n Shaking my hand, he shook his head in a \u2018there you go again\u2019 kind of way.<\/p>\n And he said: \u201cWell, Reverend, you certainly were bold to pray for judgement on them.\u201d<\/p>\n I was already beaming.<\/p>\n Ignoring my self-satisfied smile, he added: \u201cYou just weren\u2019t nearly bold enough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cProfessor, I don\u2019t know what you mean\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n He cut me off with a \u201cTssskkk\u2026.\u201d sound between his teeth.<\/p>\n \u201cYou only prayed for\u00a0them<\/i>. You didn\u2019t pray for\u00a0our<\/i>\u00a0judgement.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut\u2026\u201d I started to protest, \u201cI was there.\u00a0We<\/i>\u00a0weren\u2019t the ones with hoods or tiki-torches.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone in this country is sick with judging- judging and indicting, posturing and pouring contempt and pointing the finger at someone else,\u201d he said, pointing his finger at me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He raised his voice a little as well as his hunched-over posture:\u00a0\u201cAs Christians, we\u2019re supposed to put ourselves first under God\u2019s judgement\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201c\u2026Because we\u2019re the only ones who know not to fear the Judge\u2026\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0I completed his sentence for him.<\/p>\n He smiled and nodded, like I\u2019d just passed his exam.<\/p>\n \u201cChristians like to say that every\u00a0Sunday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0is a little Easter, but, every day- every day is Ash\u00a0Wednesday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0where we bear the judgement of God on behalf of a sinful world.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n He tapped his cane on the carpet and lifted up his bible by the straps as if to say:\u00a0It\u2019s all right here if you\u2019d just read it.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/i><\/p>\n And it is- all right here.<\/p>\n The Apostle Peter makes Paul\u2019s same point when he writes in his letter that\u00a0\u201cJudgement begins with the household of God.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The household to which Paul writes, the church in Rome, was divided against itself over issues of food and worship.<\/p>\n It reads in Romans like an obscure, arcane issue, but wipe the dust off their dispute and you discover it\u2019s really the same debate you see spun out all over social media, on CNN and Fox News, and across the front page of your newspaper (if you still trust them enough to read them).<\/p>\n It was a debate over politics and identity.<\/p>\n It was an issue of \u2018Us\u2019 vs. \u2018Them.\u2019<\/p>\n The community in Paul\u2019s Rome had split into factions, drawn lines, created competing tribes whose divisions had calloused and calcified into contempt.<\/p>\n Sweep the dust off this argument and you see that the community in Paul\u2019s Rome was no different than the community in the Rome we call America.<\/p>\n Carnivores vs. Vegetarians.<\/p>\n It\u2019s different in form but not in function from Democrats vs. Republicans.<\/p>\n Meat-Eaters vs. Non-Meat-Eaters \u2013 it\u2019s the same dynamic as Black vs. White, Conservative vs. Progressive, Racist vs. Righteous.<\/p>\n Every time, in each instance- it\u2019s like Pink Floyd said; it\u2019s Us and Them.<\/p>\n And to them all, the Apostle Paul admonishes: \u201cDo not judge\u2026for we will all stand before the Judgement Seat of God.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJudgement\u00a0begins<\/i>\u00a0with the household of God.\u201d<\/p>\n Pay attention now-<\/p>\n Paul isn\u2019t arguing (a la The Donald) that there are \u201cmany sides\u201d to every issue.\u00a0Paul isn\u2019t asserting that every possible practice or perspective is permissible.\u00a0Paul most certainly isn\u2019t urging acceptance for acceptance\u2019s sake or tolerance for tolerance\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n No, when Paul implores the Christians in Rome not to cast judgment, he\u2019s instead instructing them to bear it.<\/p>\n To bear judgement.<\/p>\n Upon themselves.<\/p>\n When Paul reminds them that we will\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0stand before the judgement seat of God, he\u2019s not warning them of coming condemnation. There\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.<\/p>\n Paul isn\u2019t preaching fire and brimstone. Paul\u2019s pointing to their baptisms.<\/p>\n He\u2019s reminding them of their calling, their commissioning.<\/p>\n He\u2019s exhorting them to imitate Christ.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n Frank smoothed his tie underneath his jacket but it flopped out again as he hunched back over and shuffled out of the narthex.<\/p>\n He turned around a few steps later, pushed his glasses back up his nose, tapped his cane on the carpet, and then pointed its end at me.<\/p>\n He said:<\/p>\n \u201cWe talk all the time about imitating Christ, about being his hands and feet, and doing the things Jesus did. Most of the time we\u2019re talking about serving the poor, forgiving another, or speaking truth to power.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cBut if the most decisive thing Jesus did was become a curse for us, taking on the burden of judgement for the guilty, then the primary way Christians imitate Christ is by bearing judgement on behalf of the guilty.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n The primary way Christians imitate God-for-us is by bearing judgement for others.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t you see- that\u2019s how this is good news.<\/p>\n It\u2019s us. We\u2019re the good news.<\/p>\n We\u2019re the good news of God\u2019s judgement. We\u2019re the followers of Jesus Christ who, like Jesus Christ, mimic his willingness to bear the judgement of God on behalf of the guilty.<\/p>\n We\u2019re the good news in this word of God\u2019s judgement.<\/p>\n In a world sin-sick with judging and judging and judging, indicting and scapegoating and recriminating and casting blame- we\u2019re the good news God has made in the world.<\/p>\n We who are baptized and believing, we who are saved and sanctified- we who should be last under God\u2019s judgement thrust ourselves to the front of the line and, like Jesus Christ, say \u201cMe first.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rather than judge we put ourselves before the Judgement Seat.<\/p>\n Rather than condemning and critiquing, we confess.<\/p>\n We listen to the guilty. We never stand self-righteously at a distance from them. We never forget that \u2018there but for the grace of God\u2019 we\u2019d be just like them, and that them not us, them- the ungodly, are the ones for whom God died.<\/p>\n We bear judgement rather than cast it.<\/p>\n We confess: our own sinfulness and guilt, our own racism and violence and pettiness, our own apathy and infidelity and failures to follow.<\/p>\n Knowing that there have been plenty of times we\u2019ve seen Jesus thirsty and not given him a drink, plenty of times we\u2019ve seen Jesus an immigrant and not welcomed him.<\/p>\n Knowing that even when we have seen Jesus hungry and fed him that doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n We bear judgement rather than cast it.<\/p>\n Because we know we can come before God\u2019s Judgement Seat expecting to hear the first words spoken when God came to us: \u201cDo not be afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019re the good news in this word of God\u2019s Judgement.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n Stalker<\/i>, that dark, dystopian sci-fi flick from the \u201970\u2019s about a Room to whom\u00a0all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secret is hid\u2026\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>it\u2019s a disturbing, unsettling, thought-provoking film.<\/p>\n It received hundreds of positive reviews.<\/p>\n It helped inspire HBO\u2019s\u00a0West World<\/i>.<\/p>\n The British Film Institute ranks it #29 on its list of the 50 Greatest Films of All Time.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a good movie.<\/p>\n But you\u2019d never call it good news.<\/p>\n You\u2019d never call it good news.<\/p>\n Not unless the cast included a few more characters, people who thrust the terrified Writer and Philosopher aside at the threshold into the Room and said to them \u201cMe first.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jason Micheli Ash\u00a0Wednesday\u00a0Every Day\u00a0\u2013 Romans 14.1-12 If you\u2019re all caught up on\u00a0Game of Thrones and Bachelorette in Paradise, and\u00a0you\u2019re looking for something new to watch, then I suggest you check out\u00a0Stalker, a dark, dystopian science fiction film from the 1970\u2019s. I discovered it on\u00a0Netflix\u00a0after I\u2019d binge-watched all 7 seasons of\u00a0Californication. Stalker tells the allegory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Just as Jesus said, the first will be last and the last will be first.<\/h3>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 We bear judgement rather than cast it.<\/h3>\n