Judgment Day -- Sermon #8 on the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 7:15-23

“Judgment Day!” Don’t these words sound ominous? Perhaps suggesting the end is near, they create in us the urge to get our affairs in order, just in case. If Hollywood is any guide, judgment can take many forms. You might remember that the 1938 Orson Welles radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds caused a nationwide panic as people pondered their fate in the face of a Martian attack. Maybe you remember the 1980s TV miniseries entitled The Day After, which may not have caused a panic, but did reinforce our fear of nuclear annihilation during the height of the Cold War. Then there are the movies and miniseries about earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroids, climate change, and even a Mayan calendar, all themes that are suggestive of divine judgment. And if that’s not enough, when a war breaks out or a major disaster hits, the TV preachers announce that this is a sign of divine judgment. Yes, a certain amount of anxiety over our impending doom seems to continually ripple through our world – whether the cause is of divine or human origin.

When it comes to the issue of divine judgment, there are plenty of biblical texts to ponder. There are texts that speak of divine wrath, judgment, punishment, atonement and more. For those of us who affirm the principle that God is love, this can be a bit disconcerting. Even if we affirm that God is also a just God, all of these texts that deal with wrath and judgment can be a bit overwhelming. So what should we make of these words about judgment and justice?

In our text this morning, which is drawn once again from the Sermon on the Mount, we hear two different, but related words. The first speaks to the importance of discernment. Even if we’re not supposed to take up the job of being a judge over others, we must discern between good and evil, light and darkness. The second word speaks to divine judgment. This is a task that we dare not take up, for we’re not equipped to handle the job. But, Jesus seems to believe that we need to be aware of the judgment of God, and the basis upon which God makes this judgment.

1. The Fruit and the Trees

Although it might not be appropriate for us to be judges – unless we are without sin – that doesn’t mean we should be naive about the world in which we live. There is a place for discernment in the Christian life. As they say, don’t believe everything you hear (or read in an email). For instance, if someone from Nigeria sends you an email asking for you to send a $100 check in exchange for a million dollars, you might want to be just a bit skeptical. And if you get an email from a bank – especially if it’s not your bank, asking for your personal ID, you might want to hit the delete button. And if someone sends you an email suggesting the President was born in Kenya or Indonesia, you would be wise to ignore it as well.

As Jesus reminds us, we live in a world where vicious wolves like to dress up as sheep. Therefore, as he says in another place – “be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves” (Matt. 10:16). In other words, don’t let yourself be taken for a fool.

The good news is that we can discern the difference between sheep and wolves, false prophets and prophets of God. Jesus says – look at the fruit of their lives. After all, good trees don’t produce bad fruit. So, don’t expect to find grapes growing on thorn bushes and thistles that produce figs. These are weeds that are destined for the fires.

When it comes to discerning the good fruit from the bad, we might want to use the Beatitudes as a guide – think of the kinds of people who grieve, are humble, merciful, peacemakers, and more. We might also look to Paul’s description of the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. On one hand there’s the flesh or our selfish desire, which lead to hate, violence, immorality, jealousy and drunkenness. On the other there is the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against these signs of the kingdom, Paul says, there is no law (Gal. 5:16-26). If we attend to these qualities of life, then we’ll know the difference between light and darkness, good and evil.

2. Divine Judgment

Even if we’re called to be discerning but not judges, God does have the job of being the judge. Scripture has a lot to say about judgment, though as we learned last week, we can trust in the judgment of God because of God’s character. We start with the premise that God is love and that God is good.

As we consider this word from the Sermon on the Mount, we hear Jesus say that on that day – judgment day – not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a prophet or a preacher or that you cast out demons in the name of Jesus – if you don’t obey the will of the Father, then on the day of judgment you’ll hear the words: “I never knew you: Go away from me you evil-doers.”

The basis of this judgment isn’t revealed in this passage, but we can turn to Matthew 25 to find out more about divine judgment. In that passage, we hear Jesus speak of God dividing sheep from goats based on how they treated the least of Jesus’s brothers and sisters. Did they feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, or visit those who are sick and in prison? It’s on this basis that Jesus decides who enters the realm of God and who experiences punishment. We may not like this word, but it’s there for us to wrestle with.

When it comes to the matter of divine judgment, the Scriptures often focus on social structures and relationships. Even when the focus is on sexual immorality, it seems quite evident that the issue is one of exploitation of the other. Sometimes we dwell on the idea of punishment, but that’s not the point of divine judgment, which is focused first and foremost on reconciliation. Rather than focus on satisfying God’s honor, the focus is on setting things right, what some call restorative justice. Consider this word that Jeremiah gives to the son of Josiah:

He (Josiah) judged the cause of the poor and the needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? Says the Lord. But in your eyes and heart are only your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence. (Jer. 22:16-17).

According to Jeremiah, King Josiah understood that his primary role as king was to protect the weak, the poor, and the marginalized, but the son of Josiah ruled through oppression and violence, something God would not bless.

If the ultimate purpose of divine judgment, is focused on setting things right and reconciliation, then our call as Disciples to be “a movement of wholeness in a fragmented world,” fits this calling very well. We may not be judges, but we can participate in God’s work of healing and reconciliation, an effort that extends beyond this world to the cosmos itself. As theologian Jürgen Moltman puts it, God is concerned about the “universal reconciliation of human beings and the bringing again of all things into the new eternal creation.” This is because, as Moltmann puts it: “otherwise, God would not be God.” [Jurgen Moltmann, The Sun of Righteousness Arise! (Fortress, 2010), p. 141] Since God is intent on reconciling all things to God’s self, we needn’t fear the day of judgment. Even if we don’t know how or when all of this will happen, we can live in the hope that God will reconcile all things to God’s self. But not only that, but we get to participate in this act of God by being Christ’s ambassadors of reconciliation. Our primary calling in life is to bear witness to the world in our words and deeds that God is present in our midst working out our salvation, which is what it means to be reconciled (2 Cor. 5).

None of this is easy. This path is full of twists and turns, which is why we’ll be tempted to either take the easy way or simply give up. If we wish to participate in this work of God in the world, then we must keep focused on Jesus. That’s because he knows the way and is willing to reveal it to us – that is if we’re willing to discern the will and purpose of God.

The biblical picture of judgment day might not be as dramatic as the typical Hollywood production, but it’s a reminder that God is committed to making things right. So, when judgment day does come, if we’re paying attention, then we can join with all of the creation in praising God, shouting out:

Say among the nations, ‘The Lord is king!

The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.

He will judge the peoples with equity.’

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;

let the sea roar, and all that fills it;

let the field exult, and everything in it.

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy

before the Lord; for he is coming,

for he is coming to judge the earth.

He will judge the world with righteousness,

and the peoples with his truth. (Psalm 96:1-13)

 
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Pastor, Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Troy, Michigan
5th Sunday of Lent
April 3, 2011

Disaster and the Rhetoric of Sacrifice -- Sightings

The ongoing disaster in Japan has caught the imagination of the world.  It has given the world a new perspective on Japan and its people.  We see people seem to take things in stride, don't loot, follow directions, etc.  Of course there's another side -- a culture that includes principles of honor/shame has made it difficult for the government and corporate leadership to be forthcoming about the real threat of the damaged nuclear plants.  It goes to show you that cultures are complex!  We've also been watching as a small group of volunteers risk their lives to try to fix the damaged plants.  There is a cultural element to this as well that raises questions of how we understand and honor those who sacrifice their lives for others.   Beyond all of this we've heard words about divine judgment from American and Japanese figures.  Yuki Miyamoto, a Professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University helps us understand the complexity of the situation in this Sightings piece.  I invite you to read and respond.

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Sightings 3/24/2011

Disaster and the Rhetoric of Sacrifice

-- Yuki Miyamoto

Nearly two weeks have passed since a catastrophic earthquake and violent tsunami devastated northeastern Japan. Officials are struggling to calculate the still-mounting death toll and to assess the full scope of destruction, while efforts to avert meltdowns at crippled nuclear power plants intensify. Natural disasters, so often worsened by human failures, activate our religious imaginations.

Too often in times of crisis explicit religious expressions are appalling. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina stimulated an outpouring of hateful sentiment; the hurricane was deemed by some to be God’s punishment for homosexuality in New Orleans. In 2010, Pat Robertson infamously attributed the earthquake in Haiti to the Haitians’ “pact with the Devil.” Now, in connection with Japan’s current plight, right-wing firebrand Glenn Beck has speculated that the quake and tsunami were a “message from God.” To this he added, with telling ambiguity, that he is not “saying” that God caused the earthquake, but also not “not saying” it.

Religious rhetoric has also cropped up in Japan. Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara has claimed that the calamity is a “divine punishment.” “Japanese politics,” Ishihara remarked, “is tainted with egoism and populism. We need to use the tsunami to wipe out egoism, which has attached itself like rust to the mentality of the Japanese people over a long period of time.” Ishihara, a conservative politician whose troubling record also includes racist and sexist comments, later retracted his remarks and offered an apology.

More subtle than such explicit remarks, however, is the religious aura developing around the group of Japanese persons working to contain radiation and incapacitate nuclear reactors on the verge of meltdown. Dubbed by the Western media as the “Fukushima 50,” (though the group comprises more than fifty workers), these volunteers are dousing the burning reactors with water at close range. As the Guardian has put it, the Fukushima 50 “are the nuclear power industry's equivalent of frontline soldiers, exposing themselves to considerable risks while about 800 of their evacuated colleagues watch from a safe distance.” Here aptly analogized with soldiers, these volunteers evince a will to sacrifice themselves on behalf of their country.

As Chris Hogg of the BBC notes, Japan is fond of “heroes who sacrifice everything for the greater good,” in this case a country steeped in a tradition that holds the nation as sacred. Dying for the nation thus evokes a religious sensibility. For example, a Japanese newspaper reported that one woman sent a text message to her husband on the team, saying: “Please be a savior (kyuseishu) of Japan.”

The risks of the Fukushima 50 are indeed of heroic proportions, a fact I appreciate all the more from my comfortable vantage point here in Chicago, thousands of miles from the accident site. At the same time, an unsettling feeling has crept upon me—a feeling that recalls the unease I have experienced at the Yasukuni Shinto shrine in Tokyo, where soldiers who died for the “sacred” Japanese nation-state, which emerged in the nineteenth century and is embodied in the deific emperor, are enshrined. Deifying soldiers who have given their lives on behalf of the country, however, has the effect of glorifying and upholding, rather than challenging, the conditions giving rise to the disasters of war.

Within this religio-political tradition, civilians may also be granted the status of deity after death in Japan. For example, in the Saga prefecture of southwest Japan, one shrine is dedicated to police officer Masuda Keitaro, who devoted himself to treating those suffering from cholera in 1895. He himself eventually fell victim to the epidemic he was fighting and passed away. Since containment of the disease coincided with Masuda’s demise, the officer’s death was deemed a sacred sacrifice, and he was enshrined as a protector of the villagers from disease.

The present threat of illness is of a different sort, but like Masuda, the Fukushima 50 are widely hailed as “sacrificial” heroes for their noble and necessary endeavors. Without wanting to diminish the genuine dedication and risk of this group, however, one might call critical attention to the problematic religious underpinnings of the worshipful attitude with which they are being treated, for such attitudes may mask a latent nationalism that sees the nation as sacred and therefore infallible; such attitudes—hardly unique to Japan—may explain in part the Japanese government’s reticence about the full extent of the threat of nuclear disaster.

Whatever the case, the religious tradition and sacrificial rhetoric that inform such attitudes threaten to divert attention from investigations of what “necessitated” the risk, and potential deaths, in the first place. The glorifying rhetoric of sacrifice in service of the greater good potentially deflects attention from the task of interrogating the conditions that gave rise to disaster—in this case, the matter of nuclear power: its threat to individuals, communities, and the global environment.

We do not know, of course, if the Fukushima 50 will someday be enshrined as deities for their sacrifices. But perhaps the best show of gratitude we might now offer would be to turn a critical eye to our own complicity in the disaster to which they respond. Japan has for too long relied on uranium and plutonium for energy, notwithstanding the fact that there is no safe way to dispose of nuclear waste, nor to make the power plants that convert these elements into usable energy entirely secure.

In gratefully considering the risks and efforts of the Fukushima 50, we must move beyond potentially-distracting religious rhetoric and sensibilities to remind ourselves who is accountable for their lives, and why we have so far failed to choose a safer energy alternative that would not require such risks.

References

Max Blumenthal, “Blaming Katrina on Gays, Israel, and Man-on-Horse Sex,” Huffington Post, September 5, 2005.

Nicholas D. Kristof, “Some Frank Talk about Haiti,” New York Times, January 20, 2010.

Elizabeth Tenety, “Glenn Beck: Japan earthquake ‘message’ from God,” The Washington Post, March 15, 2011.

Tania Branigan and Justin McCurry, “Fukushima 50 battle radiation risks as Japan nuclear crisis deepens,” Guardian, March 15, 2011.

Chris Hogg, “Japan Hails the heroic ‘Fukushima 50’,” BBC News, March 17, 2011.

“Tokyo shōbō chō: Hibaku to tatakai hōsui—kazoku ‘kyūseishu ni’” (“Tokyo Fire Department: Watering and battling against radiation exposure—‘be a savior,’ said the wife,”) Yomiuri Online, March 21, 2011.

Komatsu, Kazuhiko. Kami ni natta hitobito: Nihonjin ni totte “Yasukuni no kami” towa nani ka (People who became gods: What ‘Yasukuni Deities” means to Japanese) (Tokyo: Kobunsha, 2006).

Yuki Miyamoto holds a PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School and is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at DePaul University. Her book Beyond the Mushroom Cloud: Commemoration, Religion, and Responsibility After Hiroshima is forthcoming from Fordham University Press.

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This month’s Religion and Culture Web Forum is written by D. Max Moerman and entitled “The Death of the Dharma: Buddhist Sutra Burials in Early Medieval Japan.” In eleventh-century Japan, Buddhists fearing the arrival of the "Final Dharma"--an age of religious decline--began to bury sutras in sometimes-elaborate reliquaries. Why entomb a text, making it impossible for anyone to see or read it? And what do such practices teach us about the meaning and purpose of texts in Buddhism and other religions? Max Moerman of Barnard College takes up these questions with responses from Jeff Wilson (Renison University College), James W. Watts (Syracuse University) and Vincent Wimbush (Claremont Graduate University).

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Why so much concern about Hell?

I've yet to go to Hell and back -- Hell, Michigan that is!   

With that bit of humor I thought I'd weigh into the big debate surrounding hell and universal salvation that has been stirred up by Rob Bell's yet to be released book entitled Love Wins (Harper One, 2011).  I've yet to read the book, so all I can go on is the video, which I've already posted, and the Harper publicity efforts that promise a provocative read (one thing people need to understand about the publishing industry is that if they hope to sell books in this day and age, then publishers have to get provocative). 

With that said, I'd like to ask a question:  Why are people making such a big deal about Hell (not the village in Michigan this time)?  Why do some people think that without a doctrine of Hell the Christian faith crumbles?   

    

If you read the New Testament closely you'll notice that they give at least some attention to an afterlife.  Resurrection is an important doctrine in early Christianity.  The promise of union with God in the heavenly realm figures prominently in the gospel proclamation.  If heaven is part of the equation, so is judgment. 

From the earliest days of Christianity there have been differences of view regarding God's ultimate purpose for humanity.  Some voices seem to hold out the promise of a universal reconciliation (e.g. Rom. 5:18), while others believe that at the very least those who do not believe in Christ will cease to exist (annihilation) if not eternal torment in hell.  I won't go into details here about the nature of all these positions, lets just all agree that there are texts in Scripture that promise judgment and punishment (whatever that may entail).  I will only add that the picture that is in the minds of many as to what this eternal punishment owes more to Dante's Inferno than to Scripture. 

I understand that there are texts that seem to promise eternal punishment and that theologians have taught it down through the ages.   I've been part of the conservative evangelical community.  But, having that said this, I want to ask the question:  why all the fuss about Hell? 

The answer most will give has to do with God's justice or God's honor.  Some might even ask why Jesus even needed to come to earth if there is no hell to rescue people from.  When I was teaching this to college students years ago, one of the responses was simply -- if there's no hell then why bother being a Christian?  I mean if there is no threat of punishment why bother with religion?

I'll confess here and now that I don't believe in hell and I've not believed in hell for close to 30 years.  I abandoned this belief a long time ago (back when I was studying at an evangelical seminary) for several reasons, one of which was that I didn't find the idea of an immortal soul present in Scripture.  Therefore, if one experiences judgment, and then fire, then shouldn't you cease to exist?  But ultimately there was another reason why I could no longer abide the idea that God consigned human beings to eternal punishment in hell.  I could not square this belief with the confession that God is Love.   

So, although I've not read the book, I'm in agreement with the title of Rob Bell's book -- Love Wins.   Think about it for a moment.  Jesus tells us to love not just our neighbors but our enemies (Matt. 5:38-48).  If God expects us to love our enemies and do good to them and for them, then should we expect less of God?  If we believe that a parent's love should be unconditional (yes there's room for discipline, but discipline is designed to restore not exclude) then should we expect less of God?  I simply cannot fathom the idea God's sense of honor or justice is somehow enhanced by the eternal punishment of someone for simply because they either didn't hear the gospel or didn't find it compelling (because of our lives and presentations of it).  If Jesus rejects the "proportionate justice" of an "eye for an eye" then what manner of evil does it take on our part to deserve eternal punishment in a place called Hell?  How does this enhance God's majesty or glory or honor?   If this is heresy, then so be it? 

In closing, let me put it this way:  The argument for universal salvation ultimately rests not on a specific set of biblical texts, but rather it rests upon one’s definition of God’s nature.  If it is assumed that God is love, then is it possible that God would, in the end, discard anyone?  To put it another way, if God is portrayed as a loving parent, can we truly believe that God would reject one’s own child – no matter what they had done?