Sermon
Judgment
Day
The
Rev. Jack D. Bryant
First Reading:
Malachi 4:1-3 See, the day is coming,
burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble;
the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will
leave them neither root nor branch. But
for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing
in its wings. You shall go out leaping
likes calves from the stall. And you
shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your
feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.
Acts
2 Peter 3:4,7:
Knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking
according to their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His
coming? For since the fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation… But the heavens and earth which now exist are
kept in store by the same word, reserved for fire until the day
of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
Romans 14:11-12:
For it is written: As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue
shall confess to God. So then each of us
shall give account of Himself to God.
Matthew 12:36-37:
But I say to you that for every idle word
men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of
judgment. For by your words you
will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.
Second
A
man passes for that he is worth. Very
idle is all curiosity concerning other people’s estimate of us, and all fear of
remaining unknown is not less so. If a man
knows that he can do any thing — that he can do it better than any one else —
he has a pledge of the acknowledgment of that fact by all persons. The world is full of judgment days, and into
every assembly that a man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and
stamped. In every troop of boys that
whoop and run in each yard and square, a new comer is as well and accurately
weighed in the course of a few days, and stamped with his right number, as if
he had undergone a formal trial of his strength, speed, and temper. A stranger comes from a distant school, with
better dress, with trinkets in his pockets, with airs and pretensions: an older
boy says to himself, ‘It’s of no use: we shall find
him out tomorrow.’ ‘What has he done?’
is the divine question which searches men, and
transpierces every false reputation. A
fop may sit in any chair of the world, nor be distinguished for his hour from
Homer and Washington; but there need never be any doubt concerning the
respective ability of human beings.
Pretension may sit still, but cannot act. Pretension never feigned an act of real
greatness. Pretension never wrote an
Iliad, nor drove back Xerxes, nor christianized the
world, nor abolished slavery.
Sermon
I
watched the
But
regardless of the political merits of what happened, I found the whole process
fascinating – especially because Arnold Schwarzenegger was running – because
what was playing out in
The
idea of a “Judgment Day” is a persistent theme in our culture. It is an idea that has its roots in the
concept of history. For most of human
history, people have perceived time as circular. You solve life’s problems by going back to
the beginning and starting over. But
three thousand years ago the people of Yahweh – the people who became the Jews
– invented history. Instead of time –
and the world – going in circles, they envisioned a world in which time was
linear. There was a beginning, and – if
not an end – at least a direction towards which everything moved. And that direction, the course of history,
was under the control of God.
There
was only one problem. Because they
understood God as being in absolute control of the world, they could not
understand why the world wasn’t perfect.
They couldn’t understand why good people suffered and bad people
prospered. At the time of Jesus, the
Jews couldn’t understand why the
This
led some people to speculate that while history was linear, that it was moving
in a straight line, that somehow the world had gotten off track. The solution, they decided, was the
apocalypse – an intervention in the world by God, which would set everything
right. The right way, the godly way,
would be revealed, and the world would start going in the proper
direction. The word apocalypse was the
term used to describe this sudden change in the world – a word that means – in
the original Greek – a pulling back of the curtains, a revelation of what has
been hidden. And because the world had
been going in the wrong direction, it would, of course, be necessary for the
world to be judged in light of the truth that would be revealed in the
apocalypse. There would be a judgment
day – and after that day – after the world had been judged, all would be as it
should be: The good would prosper and
the wicked would receive the punishment they deserved; God would be in her
heaven and all would be right with the world.
It was against the backdrop of this kind of thinking that Jesus lived
out his ministry and his followers, after his death, fashioned the religion
that we know today as Christianity – a religion that shaped and molded western
culture.
During
the first century it was believed that the end of the world, the apocalypse,
would come within the lifetime of those then living. However, it still hasn’t happened. Not that some people aren’t wishing for
it. Do you remember the Y2K
business? This time three years ago you
could get a really good deal on unused generators and emergency food
supplies. But not to be denied, many
people have substituted the idea of individual judgment for a worldwide
apocalypse. Hence the widespread belief
that on the day you die you will find yourself being judged before almighty God
herself – or her designated agent.
One
of my favorite cartoons on the subject of personal judgment is one I saw just a
few months ago. It shows a man standing
before the heavenly bench of justice with a surprised and uncomfortable look on
his face – surprised because it is a woman sitting in judgment – uncomfortable
because he recognizes her. He looks at
her and says, “Why, Margaret, fancy meeting you here.” She stares back at him without a word, but
with a withering look that says the man is about to receive a judgment he
richly deserves.
That’s why I believe most people want to
believe there is some kind of judgment day coming. We may laugh and make jokes about it, but I
believe there is something inside us that likes the idea. I think that’s what is behind a story I
recently read. I forget the source, but
it was a Methodist minister talking about an interfaith conference he
attended. He asked a Muslim participant
what was the most comforting aspect of his religion. To his surprise, the man responded it was the
Islamic teachings about judgment day.
Those teachings made him feel good, they gave
him a sense of peace to know that no matter what happened in this world, that
there would eventually be justice for all.
But on reflection, is it really surprising? I believe much of our lives are lived out in
the pursuit of justice, in the desire to see justice done. We want judgment day to come.
That’s
what I think was behind the
And
Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over
him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions
in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him
away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their
iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the
wilderness.
That’s where the term scapegoat comes
from. For the ancient Israelites it was
a way of transferring all their problems unto a goat and sending it away. But there’s an important difference between
what the Israelites did and what we tend to do today. I believe the Israelites knew they were
performing a symbolic act. Today, we
don’t seem to realize that. We believe
if we can just pass judgment on someone we will be able to get rid of all of
our problems. I believe that idea –
which grows out of apocalyptic and judgmental thinking – is a significant part
of why we have witnessed such a profound polarization within our society
today. I believe it is also
self-defeating – because when we think that kind of judgmental, scapegoating
behavior is literally real, then we no longer have to deal with the real
problems of the world – they will all be washed away by the kind of judgmental
behavior that acts as if we can literally send a goat into the wilderness with
our problems.
One
of the solutions, of course, is to reject the idea of being judgmental. Just accept people for what they are. Don’t question, don’t judge, it isn’t
nice. As Jesus once said, judge not lest
you be judged yourself. I think that’s
the tendency in liberal religion. We’re
too nice – or we want to think we’re too nice – to go around judging
people. But that sort of behavior has
some unpleasant consequences. Sometimes its trivial – as in the example I encountered about four
years ago, when I overheard a conversation between a group of people from
several different Unitarian churches.
One of them was explaining the practice in his church of allowing a
member to play the piano for the service even though the person couldn’t play
well and made frequent and glaring mistakes.
When another person asked why they allowed this, it was explained that
the person insisted on playing and they allowed it because it showed how
non-judgmental they were. The person
went on to make pointed remarks about the moral deficiencies of churches that
would not allow this practice. [This is
a good time to point out that we are blessed with exceptional musicians in our
church.]
To be capriciously judgmental can be
destructive, it can be a simplistic effort to blame a problems on a single
person, group of people, or ethnic or religious group that we might avoid the
difficult and dirty task of actually dealing with the challenges of life – be
it in our home, our church, or the world.
But to avoid judgment can be just as destructive. I believe the challenge is to find a way to
be honest. Most importantly, I believe
the challenge is to find a way to be honest about ourselves – because – as
Jesus said, we need to examine the beam in our own eye before turning to the
speck in the eye of our neighbor. This,
I believe, is what lies behind something I heard recently about
leadership.
One of the primary characteristics of a
leader is that he – or she – follows the rule of DWYSYWD – which means, “Do
what you say you will do.” First and
foremost, a leader is a person who does what he says he will do. But there’s a second part: A leader is also a person who will hold
others accountable to do what they say they will do. A leader is a person who first judges himself
or herself – and is then willing to judge others – but not in order to be
judgmental, not in order to turn another person into a scapegoat to which one
can attach all their problems. The
challenge is to be honest – the first and most important aspect of leadership –
that we might learn from our mistakes, that we might know, honestly know, when
we have done well, that we might honestly know when we need to change our
path. If we aren’t willing to do this,
how can we ever hope to achieve our dreams?
Michael Durall, who some of you heard
speak at a conference held here in
I wish my church changed lives or
accomplished great things.
I wish we weren’t so well established in
the middle of the road.
I yearn for a church that lives more boldly.
I wish my church had a more significant
community impact.
The answers he hears resonate with
another list – a list put together by Paul Wilke (Excellent Protestant Congregations) of the traits of excellent
churches:
They share a vibrancy and excitement. They are not bound by tradition, but view
what they are doing as part of a continuum.
They constantly re-evaluate themselves by asking hard questions like,
“Are we performing in a holy and honorable way?”
All of these statements are about
churches – but couldn’t we also apply them to our own individual lives? Isn’t it true that we yearn to live life
boldly and to accomplish great things?
Don’t we want to have an impact on the world around us? Aren’t we hungry to feel connected to the
rest of life? And most especially, don’t
we have a human desire to feel that we are performing in a holy and honorable
way?
I believe our church can never become
what we want it to be, we can never become the people we want to be, unless we
are willing to confront ourselves, to demand much of ourselves – and in turn,
to demand much of others – not that we might blame someone else for our
problems – not to create a scapegoat so we can pretend we have magically
banished, or recalled, our problems – but to embrace our problems that we might
learn from them and be the kind of people, have the kind of families, and
become the kind of church that we want to be.
“The
world is full of judgment days,” said Emerson.
And he was right. Every day is
judgment day. “’What has he done?’ is
the divine question which searches men, and
transpierces every false reputation.” . . . “Pretension never feigned an act of
real greatness. Pretension never wrote
an Iliad, nor drove back Xerxes, nor christianized the
world, nor abolished slavery.” So if we
are to avoid pretension, then let us embrace judgment – not as the Judgment Day
of the apocalypse, but as the willingness to search our own souls, that our own
souls might grow into greatness.
Amen.