Don'ts and Dos
Dont’s and Do’s by Rev. L. John Gable
October 9, 2022
In our Sermon on the Mount lesson this morning Jesus’ teaching gets very practical. He gives us two “don’ts” and two “dos”.
His first “don’t” has to do with our judging of others and in a word He says, “Don’t”. Why? “Do not judge others so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” That sounds a bit to me like a saying our family had when I was growing up, and still refers to, “fair to fair and same to same.” Being the youngest of four and the only boy, my “same to same” didn’t always look like my older sisters’, but my parents made every effort to treat us “fair to fair.” So much so that when we were older I’d look at what my brothers-in-law were wearing when we got home for Christmas because invariably I knew I’d be getting the same flannel shirt they were wearing.
So, when Jesus applies this “fair to fair and same to same” principle to our judging of others He is not saying we shouldn’t have courts of law, or judges or juries; nor is He saying we should abandon our critical faculties of discernment distinguishing truth from error, goodness from evil, and right from wrong. What He is saying is that we are in no position to judge one another, at least not in any spiritual or eternal way of condemnation. Who are we to know God’s final verdict on anyone? Christ alone sits in that chair and He came to save us.
Jesus here is speaking to us on an individual basis regarding our interpersonal relationships. He is teaching us how we are to view one another, and says, quite plainly, “Don’t be so harsh and critical in your estimation of others, instead be more understanding and generous with one another.” This really is a rephrasing of His earlier teaching in the Beatitudes when He says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” and in the Lord’s Prayer, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Fair to fair and same to same, measure for measure. If we hope for God’s mercy and forgiveness of our sins and transgressions we must also be merciful and willing to forgive the sins and transgressions of others. Our relationship with God influences our relationship with others and, conversely, our relationship with others influences our relationship with God. If we hope to be forgiven we must also be forgivers.
One morning after preaching a sermon on the parable of the talents a woman shook the pastor’s hand and said, “Thanks to your message, I have discovered my talent.” “Really?” he asked, “What is it?” “Criticism”, she said, “I am really good at finding fault in others, so what should I do with it?” and without missing a beat the pastor said, “Go out and bury it!”
Jesus gives the example of the critical spirit when He talks about seeing the speck in our neighbor’s eye while having a log in our own, ending with His instruction, “You, hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” We know our own human nature well enough to know that we tend to be far more critical of others than we are of ourselves, particularly regarding those things we know are our sins and faults and foibles. There is great truth to the saying, “We don’t see things the way they are; we see things the way we are.” So, Jesus commends us first to do the necessary self-examination and log extraction from our own eyes before we look too closely at the speck in another’s, and ironically, having done so, we often find that that speck we noticed in the other’s is hardly worth mentioning.
So, in this teaching is Jesus saying we should not be discerning or discriminate of others and their actions? Absolutely not. To the contrary I think He is insisting that we should be in His second “don’t”. When He says, “Do not give to dogs what is holy or throw your pearls before the swine”, admittedly a difficult teaching to unpack, I believe what He is saying is we must be discerning with our words and our actions towards others. Knowing when to engage and when not, when to speak and when to keep silent. There is a right time, a right place, a right way to speak the truth, to step in to help, even to share the Gospel message. Falling in line with what He has just said about judging others, we all know there are ways we can speak the truth to someone else in less than a loving way, offer advice or assistance to another in a way that is more critical than helpful, and even speak the blessed Good News of the Gospel in a way that sounds more like condemnation than the gracious gift of salvation. We are called to be discerning enough to wait for the right time to say the right word or take the right action in the right way, so that it will be gladly welcomed and received as the great treasure it really is.
Putting a finishing touch on His “don’ts” He offers us two “dos” beginning with “do ask, seek, knock, for everyone who asks receives and everyone who seeks finds and for everyone who knocks the door will be opened.” Plain and simply, this is Jesus’ invitation and encouragement for us to pray. About what should we being praying and for what should we be asking? He doesn’t say, perhaps because it doesn’t really matter. He has told us earlier that we don’t need to heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles do who think that they will be heard for their many words, so we don’t need to badger God with our prayers, but we are encouraged to ask, to seek, to knock. Simple asking receives, simple seeking finds, simple knocking opens doors. Consider this: we lie awake at night and think about our problems. We talk with our friends about our concerns. We muddle through our difficulties, but do we pray? Jesus promises us, unconditionally, an audience with the Father, and all we need do is ask.
Admittedly, we all know people who have asked, sought, and knocked and then been disappointed when they don’t receive what they asked for; we are such people. I have sat with many faithful people, as have you I’m sure, who have offered fervent, heart-felt, desperate prayers, which seemingly were not answered, or at least not in the ways they wanted. I wish I had an answer for that, but I don’t, or at least that is a topic for another day. The question of the unanswered prayers of the faithful is one of the great mysteries of our faith, but Jesus doesn’t seem concerned about that here in this teaching from the Sermon on the Mount; rather He seems more concerned that His followers aren’t bold enough or confident enough in their faith to take advantage of one of the great privileges and blessings of being a child of God – the privilege of prayer. “Oh, what peace we often forfeit! Oh what needless pains we bear! All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” So do pray on, child of God, pray on!
Jesus’s final “do” in this lesson really could be the capstone conclusion to the entire Sermon on the Mount when He says, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the Law and the prophets.” This sums it all up. In a very similar way you have heard me say, “When in doubt do the loving thing in the loving way”, so we can take Jesus’ teaching to say, we can know the will of the Father for others most of the time by consulting the desires of our own hearts. When you aren’t quite sure what to do or what to say to another who is going through a difficult time, try asking yourself, “What would I like someone to do or say to me if I was going through the same?” That may prove to be the most helpful, loving thing you could ever do.
I’ll close with a story which I believe captures the essence of these “don’ts and dos” we’ve talked about this morning. In his book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning tells the story of Fiorello LaGuardia, the mayor New York City during the worst days of the Depression and all of World War II. He was a colorful character, only 5’4”, who always wore a carnation in his lapel, but he was undaunted enough to ride the New York City fire trucks and raid the speakeasies with the police department. He was known to take entire orphanages to baseball games and whenever the New York newspapers went out on strike he would go on the radio and read the Sunday comic strips to the kids.
One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, Mayor LaGuardia turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. The mayor dismissed the sitting judge for the evening and took over the bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told the mayor, now judge, that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick and her two grandchildren were starving. Despite her pleas, the shopkeeper from whom the bread had been stolen refused to drop the charges. “It’s a bad neighborhood, your honor”, the man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.”
LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said, “I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions-ten dollars or ten days in jail.” But even as he was pronouncing his sentence he was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into the top hat he was famous for wearing, saying, “Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal a loaf of bread so that their grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.”
The following day the New York City papers reported that $47.50 was turned over to the bewildered woman who had stolen the loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being paid to the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations and New York City police officers, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.”
So often we think of judgment of others in a negative, critical, demeaning way, so that’s how we practice it. But what if we thought of our judgment of others in a positive, uplifting, life-giving way, as God does us? Of course Jesus says, “Don’t judge at all”, but if we must, let us judge others as our Heavenly Father who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” has judged us. “For with the judgment we make we will be judged and the measure we give will be the measure we get.” Fair to fair and same to same.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN