Monday, April 7, 2014

In line for judgment purposes

The other day, a group of seven Louisiana pastors got together. Nothing was thrown or broken, but coffee was drank. It was a gloriously warm early Spring day in the state, which simply meant the humidity that is Godzilla come summer in Louisiana had not grown much out of its shell.

We stand in line at coffee shops, and we don't even share our thoughts with those in front of us or those behind. We stand in a pile at the receiving area of coffee shops and we don't care what people are thinking around us, though they are talking and sharing with others tales of their lives that we could use to open the doors and get just a few toes into it. We don't even particularly care about the conversations that are building up like fog as we sit in our chair and sip our coffee, when we certainly know enough by now about those around us to strike up a conversation about what is meaningful in their lives.

We won't "fix" the problems with our disagreements on big issues in our neighbors lives till we begin to walk into the shallow end of their lives that is built upon having conversation. The pastors in a light-hearted conclave, talked about what had been working at our churches, and we talked about what was thought to be a great idea but it had clearly not come out of the great idea boxes unbroken for it not working for all of us. We drank our coffees as if they were elixirs that would fix us. We talked, we laughed. It was a great afternoon.

This morning I was reading outside, one of the last opportunities before humidity Godzilla slams one of those itty bitty front paws against his shell and completely enters our world.

What I read came from Luke's Gospel. He was writing about Jesus, what all of us religion writers do from time to time. Jesus was on the plain, teaching, and he said this: "Don't judge, and you won't be judged. Don't condemn and you won't be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. A good portion -- packed down, firmly shaken, and overflowing -- will fall into your lap. A portion you give will determine the portion your will receive."

There are lots of stuff there to unpack, but we're not going much past the first sentence.

That, coming from Luke's Gospel as part of his sermon "on the plain" is a magnificent piece of work that has, I'm afraid, lost its flavor over the years.

While Jesus taught those who literally listened to the work that day or those days on the hillside or the plain, we (those who have read the teaching but were never truly taught in the first place) must read with new eyes each time we come across the material or it serves us little good.

Again we read, "Don't judge, and you won't be judged." The teaching is, don't make a judgment against, well, anyone. And if you do, there will be equal retribution.

Do you, or did you, really get that. Unpack it. Share it like freshly ground coffee?

Nah, didn't figure. The reason I didn't figure you, me any of us did is we have been given a lot of absorb over our lives but nothing harder than this "don't judge, and you won't be judged," business. If anyone could do that, consistently, daily, lives -- heck, nations -- would change.

The reason it is so difficult is that we don't care anymore if we judge, and we don't particularly care if we are blamed for judging someone else. Why? We don't even care, sadly enough, if someone judges us because we don't give a, uh, flip what people think any more.
he
We just don't.

We judge by clothing we wear.
We judge by hair styles.
We judge by age.
We judge about the color of our skin, the way we walk, the way we talk.
We judge by the way we stand, the way we look at each other, the way we listen or don't to each other. We pour up a heaping cup of judgment just what coffee shop we go to or what we order when we get there.

Who we are isn't dictated by what coffee we drink, but my goodness we can reach a wrong conclusion about the other person just standing in line at Starbucks (oops, I gave out more info that I intended).

And those are just the outward signs.

Spend an hour in conversation, real conversation, conversation in which we have given up our  brothers and/or sisters or an even more telling conversation in which we talk about our religious beliefs or our political beliefs or how we want to raise our kids or just our hopes and dreams and what we will find in some form or fashion is a judgment.

The good news is we can acknowledge those weaknesses that are judgments and we can begin to move forward.

I will never be ______________________
I can never _________________________
I am incapable of ____________________

With God's incalculable power, I can _____________________

Judge that, after I've done it.

And order me a Vanilla Latte, from anywhere.

No comments: