Preacher, Chris Ayers

On Judging the Judge

Luke 18:1-8

 

When reading the parables of Jesus, generally, we are able right off the bat to identify a character we deem to be good.  And typically the good character is taken to represent God or some aspect of the divine intention.  For example, in the parable of the prodigal son, the always loving, forgiving, looking for his son to come home over the horizon, throw a party when he does come home father we take to represent God.   The father is good and his goodness reflects God. 

 

In addition to the good character, Jesus’ parables also include bad or evil people, the you had better not be like these people characters.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan the bad guys are the priest and Levite who pass by a half-dead man and do not assist him, refuse to help him get back on his feet.  Here’s a man whose very life depends on their good will and they turn their heads the other way.  That’s bad and they are bad.

 

In Jesus’ parables a line is drawn in the sand between moral and immoral, righteous and sinful.  It’s a sharp dichotomy.  So much so you might say Jesus’ parables are like an American western.  There’s John Wayne on one side and then there’s all the crooks, all the rascals, all the low down, dirty, good for nothing pistol whipping criminals on the other side of the corral.

The interesting thing about Jesus’ parables, however, is who turns out to be good and who turns out to be bad.  That is, Jesus’ parables have a surprise element to them.  With Jesus’ parables the thing to expect is the unexpected.  We find ourselves engaged by the parable and then it is almost as if we realize we have been hijacked, booby trapped, taken out of our cozy lives and comfortable theologies, and dropped on a hotbed of self-examination.  And horror of horrors, we learn John Wayne is the devil incarnate.

 

That is the typical way of hearing and reading Jesus’ parables and the way I think Jesus intended his parables to be interpreted.  The parables are meant to shock us, disturb us, shake us.  And during this season of Lent, a season in which we get our feet wet with a little self-examination, a season in which we expose our hearts and life narratives to human and divine inspection, I have suggested we take a close look at some of Jesus’ parables as they were intended to be heard and read.

 

Today, however, I seek to prod you, nudge you, on this parable journey by looking at Jesus’ parables in an entirely new light.   Please allow me to introduce you to another way of reading Jesus’ parables, an untypical way of reading them, but I believe a potentially beneficial reading nevertheless.  This morning, rather than looking at the characters in Jesus’ parables as good or bad, I want us to try to look at the characters as persons who are complex, multifaceted, a mixture of conflicted needs and wants and behaviors.  Rather than seeing one character as good and the other as bad, I suggest we imagine each of the characters as being both good and bad.  And--------and rather than blaming one of the characters and seeing the other as a victim, I’d also like for us to investigate how each contributes to the pain experienced between them.  In this approach, blame actually is pushed aside and the issue of ethics is pushed to the background so as to provide room for understanding and compassion.

 

Let me give you an example of how this might work, not in a parable, but in thinking about a real life situation.  Let’s say a married heterosexual man has an affair with a heterosexual woman.  Or, let’s say a gay man in a marriage or a committed relationship has an affair with a gay man.  The usual response of many people is to think the individual having the affair has acted immorally, sinfully, badly, or whatever language you want to use.  Adultery is wrong.  Adultery is harmful.  Adultery is not a good way to handle relationship problems, we conclude. 

 

That is one way to look at the situation.  And I think an appropriate one. 

There is, however, another level on which to analyze the situation that seeks not to determine fault, but longs to discover reasons people act the way they do, even if the reasons are illogical or destructive.  So for example, in a situation of adultery, we might wonder if the man is trying to avoid intimacy, run from conflict, punish his spouse for any number of reasons, or act in a manner consistent with dynamics of his family of origin.  That is, is the individual reenacting a scenario played out years ago with his mother or father or brothers or sisters?  To repeat, to ask such a question is not to excuse the adultery, but to seek to understand it.

 

I believe one of the best things God has given us is our curiosity.  And if curiosity is matched with compassion, the possibility for the healing of ourselves and of our relationships is immense.

 

So as we look at our scripture lesson for today, what some have called the parable of the unjust judge, for a few moments suspend your judgment of the judge and look at yourself and look at others with whom you can be a healing friend.

 

Suspending our judgment with this Judge is not easily done, for the Judge in this parable appears to be quite a rascal.   For as we learned last week as we took a first jaunt into this parable, this judge repeatedly ignored the case of a widow.

 

That word repeatedly is extremely important.  In your curious expeditions into yourself and as you analyze those around you, give special attention to repetition.  Repetition is one of God’s neat ways of alerting us to things we need to confront, making us aware of areas that require healing.  For example, if you notice other people are always the victim or 75% of the time the victim,  or you observe someone is constantly suffering from loneliness, or are aware an individual regularly displays aggressive actions, or has a pattern of depression, or engages in withdrawal or passive aggressive behavior, then instead of concluding, “Well, this person is a pain”, or “This individual is a jerk”, or “This person just needs to tough it out”, or concluding “This person has the image of God in them:  it’s just buried real deep”, instead of those conclusions you might want to consider the option that the person is acting in a manner he or she learned to act to survive in an earlier episode in their life.   Let me repeat that.  We act in ways similar to ways we acted earlier in our life to survive.  To survive an alcoholic parent, as a child we may have learned to over function or lie for the parent.  As an adult we may continue to face stressful situations by over-functioning or lying.  And our over-functioning and lying may continue to work for us, but at a great cost, a cost as a child we were unaware of, a cost as an adult we do not want to pay.  Or put another way, what worked back then, may not work so well now. 

 

So look for patterns in the life of others.  And if you are looking at your own life you might ask, Why do I always find myself in this same trap, this same situation?  Why do I end up in relationships with people who have this or that characteristic?  Why do I keep having the same issues with people?  Why do people keep having the same issues with me?  Yes, they may be all wrong, but on the other hand, it might be a clue to my healing.

Repetition.  Patterns.  Déjà vu pain.  A recognition of such is one of the first steps to healing.

 

So as we turn to our scripture lesson we ask:  Why does the judge repeatedly refuse to consider the widow’s case?  Why does he avoid her over and over again?  She is a nag, you say.  Well, why can’t he deal with a nag?   Why is he stuck?  Why does this particular person got on his nerves?  What buttons of his does she push? 

 

On the road to health and healing with our curiosity we look for repetitions and----and we also look for the things that stand out, the things that are hard to miss. 

 

Let me pause here to say one of the great ministries of a faith community is to enable us to see about ourselves the things that are hard to miss.  Ironically, even with mirrors, we miss the obvious about ourselves.  We overlook the nose on our face and we need gentle, loving Christian friends to help us become more aware.

 

For example, we may miss that we speak so softly we are hard to hear or we speak so loudly others don’t want to be around us or we speak so much, possibly indicating an issue with authority or the presence of an emptiness created by a long experience of neglect.  Or, we may not notice when we talk to people we have trouble looking at them eye to eye, possibly indicating a fear of intimacy or a fear of abuse or fear of rejection.

 

Our faith community, our friends we trust, can help us see what we cannot see, which frequently is the obvious or the disconnects in our life.

 

Looking at this Judge we find ourselves asking, Why does a supposedly law-abiding judge enjoy a perverse, but disciplined disrespect for law?  Why is this Judge, who keep in mind is practicing law based on biblical law, why does he not fear God?  What is going on with his relationship with God?  Is there a good reason for him to be angry at God?  Has there been a tragedy?  And why does the judge not respect people?  He is in a profession that forces him to deal with people all the time.  If he doesn’t respect people, why didn’t he choose a profession in which he could deal less with the public?  Is his lack of respect for others somehow related to a lack of self-respect?  What is he trying to prove?  And to whom?  Does the judge seek to shut everybody out, God and all humans?  Does he keep people at a distance, make people dislike him, and then get depressed because he feels rejected?  Is it possible----is it possible the judge once felt as the widow feels:  angry, baffled, and rejected?  Does he have trouble with any authority other than his own?  Does the judge have good reasons for distrusting authority?  Were the authority figures he experienced as a child dishonest or unreliable?  Does the Judge provoke in others the very shaming he has all his life sought to avoid?  Does the Judge try to coerce in others what he never received from his parents?

Notice the things, be curious about, the things that stick out, are obvious, are dominant.  And just in case you can’t do it, find a friend who won’t tell you just want you want to hear.

 

Curiosity.  Use and develop the curiosity God has given you.  Curiosity may have killed the cat, but on the other hand, it may have saved a Christian or two, saved a Christian or two from more disappointment, more rejection, more hurt, more lost years, more dead end roads, more exceptionally frustrating relationships.

 

Lent is a time of self-examination.  Not a time to beat up on yourself.  Not a time to whip yourself into shape.  No, a time to understand yourself.  And when we begin to understand why we are the way we are, we can become a friend to ourselves.  And when we become a friend to ourselves, we are better able to understand why others are the way they are and we can be the friend they need.

 

This is the season of Lent.  May God lead us to healing and health.  Amen!

 

***For this approach to the parable and for several insights included in this sermon, I am indebted to Richard Ford, The Parables of Jesus:  Recovering the Art of Listeningg.

 

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