May 11 2025
Matthew 6:33, 7:1-12
One of the things that surprises people when I tell them about myself is that my uncle, Harlan, was a common pleas court judge in Tuscarawas County. He grew up on the family farm but decided that he wanted to become a lawyer and he went on to be the county prosecutor before being elected judge. Now when I got that notice in the mail that I had been selected for jury duty in my uncle’s courtroom, I thought that this was going to be an easy out. So, yes, I did try and plead my case that there might be an issue of impartiality because of my relation to the judge but the judge had other thoughts and said I should just stay put. So I got to not only do my civic duty but I also got to see my uncle in a different light, no longer just my uncle but a judge who had to see that the case that came before him ended with a just and right verdict.
In this series that we are in, called, “The King’s Way’, we are looking at the way that Jesus lived his life. But not only how he lived his life but also how he gave up his life for us when he died upon the cross. What we now know about Jesus since he has defeated death is that he now is our righteous judge, as Paul explains. Now this may not be for us a great way of thinking about Jesus because when we think about who a judge is, most of us think of people like my uncle. The judgment that judges like my uncle give to those who came before him usually come with a price that has to be paid. But the judgment of our righteous judge named Jesus is not like that at all. As it will hopefully become clear, the righteous judgment of Jesus brings forth righteous people.
Well the way that Jesus has become known to us as our righteous judge is that Jesus took on our judgment and in exchange gave us the boundless mercy that the wisdom from above calls for. This is what we heard Paul tell the church at Corinth as we find in the first chapter of the first letter he wrote to them. Paul reminded the members of this church that their church was founded on one message-Christ and him crucified. The reason why the cross was the focus of Paul’s message is that at the cross was seen the wisdom of God and the power of God. So as we look at that One there upon the cross we must have no doubts that right here, on this old, rugged cross, is a different kind of wisdom, a wisdom from above. And here too on this cross, was power, yet this was a peculiar force, a strength that was demonstrated to us by this One who served us all, there upon the cross. The life which ended up on the cross lived by the wisdom from above, a wisdom which is described for us at the end of the third chapter of James. This wisdom is, “…first, pure, then it is peace seeking, gentle, confident, overflowing with mercy, bearing the fruit of goodness, impartial and sincere”. If you listen closely, it is easy to hear James describe to us the very life of Jesus.
If this wisdom is taken to its ultimate end then is should be no surprise we hear Paul make his drumbeat -Christ and him crucified. And Paul concludes his teaching about this wisdom by revealing to us that this wisdom is experienced by us through the acts of redemption, righteousness, and holiness. These three terms speak to us of the three-dimensional life of our king named Jesus, the three ways that our king called Jesus makes himself known to us.
Now, as we look over these three aspects of the wisdom from above we find that a good place to begin is with the subject of redemption. Most of us know that redemption is what was given to us at the cross, there where the life of Jesus was offered up for us, his blood shed for us. When we go deeper in our study of this idea of redemption, what we find is that one of the best examples given to us in scripture concerning redemption is that of the kinsman redeemer. A kinsman redeemer is defined for us in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, where we are told about a family member who finds themselves a slave because they couldn’t pay off their debt. They know that there is a good chance they will never live long enough to even make a dent in all that they owe, so what are they to do? Well, the Law says that they can find someone in their family, their next of kin, you know, an uncle, or a cousin, any close relative, who will pay off their debt and obtain their freedom. This is what it means to be a, “kinsman-redeemer”, a kinfolk who is willing and able to restore one of their family to a life of freedom.
With this in mind, listen to what Jesus tells his disciples in the weeks before he goes to Jerusalem, as heard at the end of the tenth chapter of Mark, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”. Jesus knew that he had come as one of us all so that his life might be given as payment in what can only be considered as being a cosmic hijacking. Imagine it, he entered into our humanity as a baby all so that, through the blood that flowed through his veins, he could look at anyone of us and call us his kinfolk and be our redeemer. Jesus came to put himself in between us and the worst this world could do to us, all so we might know the best heaven offers to us. There at the cross Jesus heard the cries of those he calls his sisters and brothers, those who languished in the slavery of their sin and he was moved to do the unthinkable, becoming for us, our kinsman redeemer. Jesus paid the price, giving his own life so that we might receive our life back and at last find freedom as his people.
As we consider the cross, it should come as no surprise that Paul would first and foremost refocus the attention of this church by taking them to see Christ upon the cross. You see, this church at Corinth had become divided into four camps of differing views, quarreling and infighting was the norm. This quarreling is, as James tells us in the fourth chapter of his letter, a symptom of an inner uneasiness, a quarrel within ourselves that comes out in the judgmental ways of the church at Corinth. This discomfort found in the inner life of these church members was caused by chasing after worldly desires, an inward focus which comes from living life by the world’s wrong-way wisdom. This is why Paul takes these who would chase after the world and he places them before the cross so they can have a long, hard look at the wisdom from above that is displayed there. We can almost hear Paul speak those words he spoke to the church at Rome as found in the eighth chapter of that letter: “He, the Father, who did not spare his own Son but handed him over, handed him over for all, how will he not freely give him, and then freely give us everything else as well? This is what the cross does, it shatters this inward turning of our lives to focus our gaze upon this one offered up for us, and if Jesus the Son of God has been freely given for us, why in the world would we refuse to believe that our Heavenly Father would give us all that we need for life.
So, instead of chasing after worldly concerns, we are to be those who imitate Jesus, by becoming a kinsman redeemer, listening for the cry of the stranger, those who have no kinsman redeemer to call upon in a strange land. As God heard our cry when death and the fear of death had enslaved us, so too we are to hear the cries of those who are enslaved by fear, and set them free through allowing our Father to use us to redeem them.
When the redemption given to us by Jesus leads us to become focused on others we can sense that we are moving to be people of righteousness. This is the way it seems that Jesus is leading us as we hear in our scripture for today. This scripture follows a teaching of Jesus which calls us to rely upon the faithfulness of our Heavenly Father for all of our worldly needs. You see, when we become absolutely certain of the faithfulness of our Heavenly Father, when the cross marks forever the truth about our Father’s care for us, then Jesus says we are ready to turn our focus outward and listen for the cries of our kinfolk.
In our scripture, Jesus calls this serving of others, the seeking of his kingdom, the pursuit of the righteousness of God. Now this seems pretty straight foreword, doesn’t it? I mean, shouldn’t all of us be able to say that we have been working hard all week pursuing the kingdom of God and searching for his righteousness? Well, if we are serious about following Jesus then we need to lean in and listen to what he has to tell us about righteousness.
Jesus begins by stating that the first order of business for us, is that we absolutely have to be done with judging people. This means that we must cease living our lives by those three criteria of worldly wisdom, as we find at the end of the second chapter of the first letter of John. No more are we to run around chasing after the desires of our flesh, the desires of our eyes or whatever might increase the pride we find in our possessions. You see, these criteria have to go, and when they do then we will cease using those criteria to determine just how useful someone might be to us. This is why, at the beginning of the seventh chapter of Matthew, Jesus, in no uncertain terms, states, “Do not judge, then you will not be judged”. This seems to be pretty straight forward doesn’t it? I mean its not as if Jesus mumbled and we couldn’t hear him clearly. No judging, any other questions? You see this order is given because we simply do not have the ability to judge each other correctly. If you think otherwise then consider the rest of what Jesus said, that we are fair game to have the judgment we use for everyone else be for us the very judgment others can use to judge us. How will that feel to have others judge us according to the same standards that we expect of everyone else? What we discover when we consider how we judge others is that we, more often than not, regard ourselves holding some kind of position of greatness, which we find is just an illusion the moment our judgment is used to judge us. When we discover that we are really not able to hold ourselves to the high standards we hold everyone else to, then at last, we are able to agree with Jesus who wisely observes, we are terrible at knowing our own limitations. Jesus gives us this cartoon where we are portrayed as one who has pulled someone aside to examine them in the hopes of removing some small flaw, all the while having a very large wooden beam protruding out of our own eye. Isn’t this so true, that we are so often bothered by the tiny imperfections in others all the while never concerned by our own judgmental attitude which often clouds our judgments.
Jesus has brought us to this point of realization about our own attitudes so that we might consider how these attitudes affect how we seek first, the kingdom of God and then chase after his righteousness. Jesus, earlier in this Sermon on the Mount teaches us that our righteousness must be greater than the righteousness of the Pharisees, and one must wonder if Jesus, in his teaching here, is giving this righteousness of the Pharisees, a subtle wink. What Jesus says is, “Do not give dogs what is holy and do not throw pearls before pigs because they will trample them into the dirt and then turn and attack you.” As we look to scripture to unravel this odd teaching of Jesus it is easy to remember the encounter Jesus had with the Canaanite woman, as found in the fifteenth chapter of Matthew, where Jesus addresses her with the common slur, calling her a dog. He does so in order to address the disciples own judgmental attitude toward foreign woman. And pigs were a symbol of the people of the nations, eaters of a dirty, disgusting, unclean animal. So perhaps what Jesus is saying is that if when you attempt to bring the holiness of the Temple out to the common folk, you ought not to look at them as if they are some, filthy, good-for-nothing animal. Yes, you may have some wonderful pearls of great wisdom but if you try and force those on people you hold to be bottom feeders then don’t be surprised that at some point, those people will get tired of you and turn on you just to prove you right. Most of us, have probably experienced some well meaning person who looked down their nose at us because we simply did not have the good sense they were supposed to have and you know, I never want to listen to a word such people have to say because their attitude says it all.
So if we are serious about first, pursuing the king’s way of life, and looking for the righteousness of God, then we must put to death all those urges we might have to classify some people as being those who are less than us. No, instead we are to, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and it will be found, knock, and it will be opened to you. For all who ask will receive, and the one who seeks will find, and the one who knocks to them the door will be opened. You see, those who are asking, or those who are searching for something or even those who stand before a closed door and are asking to be let in, all of these are persons who know they stand in need of something and are not afraid to do what it takes in order to obtain it. What we need so desperately, as Jesus goes on to explain, is the goodness only our Heavenly Father can supply. This means we must be those who ask our Father for this good, and we must be searching for where this goodness might be found and also we must be those who pound on closed doors in order to find just where our Heavenly Father may be displaying his goodness. Right here is a good place for us to pause and consider what we know so far about finding the kingdom of God and the right way of living. First, Jesus states that we must stop judging. We must stop being a source of evil in a world where people are continually looked down upon. After this we are to ask our Heavenly Father for what is good. We are to seek, longing to find just where our Heavenly Father is working out his good in this world. And we are to knock on every closed door so that the good that only our Father can bring, might enter into that space.
Finally, Jesus teaches us the third aspect of our searching for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, which is this: “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do so also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Here is where the judgment of our righteous Judge comes into play. You see, instead of relying upon our own faulty judgment we are to instead trust in the judgment of Jesus. As Paul tells us, the righteousness of God is manifested through faith in Jesus for all who believe, for there is no distinction all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God and all are given life by the grace, the free gift given to us by God. So, every face we look at is someone who has been declared equal to us, this is the righteous judgment of Jesus. When we look at any person on the planet we can instantly know this person for their life is just like our life. Their life an be known to be just as deserving of grace as we are. This is why we can rejoice when they rejoice and we weep when they weep. This is the life Paul tells us that we must believe is true, for what we are called to believe in is resurrection life, a life united together in love.
This then is how we find the kingdom of God and his righteousness, by first being done with judging others. God has appointed a righteous judge and his name is Jesus. Instead of judging, let us ask our Heavenly Father as to where his goodness might be found, and there find a face in need of hope. We are to look upon another face and see our own selves staring back at us. This united life is not only a righteous life but it is the resurrection life our faith declares is true. Praise God, evil has been defeated through the righteous judgment of our king Jesus upon the cross. May we live out this truth, now and always! Amen!
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