Recently someone asked me, “As a pastor you get a privileged look at people’s inner lives, and the life of a community. What have you’ve learned about people from that?” It’s a good question. I thought a moment and I said, “Well, I’ve definitely been learning a lot of things, about other people and myself, and I have a lot to learn, it’s a schooling. But what is at the top of my heart is this:

“I’ve been able to see more clearly just how damaging judgmentalism can be, and just how liberating mercy can be.”

I’ve learned this not only through the privilege of accompanying other people through their struggles and growth with faith, but also through my own.  

I can say confidently that a lot of folks labor under some very damning judgments we have about ourselves. And a lot of folks suffer because of some very damning judgments we inflict on others.

Now, sometimes this is because of real moral failings for which we feel convicted, or because of the real moral failings of others that have hurt us or that have outraged us.

Especially when we invite God into the picture, we can feel convicted, or we can see others’ conviction (which is often easier) in light of the distance between how we should live and how we do live.

There is value to this kind of judgment, but only if we let Mercy take the sting out of any damning condemnation. In light of Mercy, God’s unconditional love for us as we are, we can have an honest, mature, and balanced moral assessment before God, without getting all miserably judgmental about it.

But that’s not the way it usually goes, is it? I joked last week in my sermon that as a clergy person I feel like all I need to do is just show up into a room and people will start feeling guilty, whether or not they’ve got good reason. Good protestants will just make up something, anything, to feel guilty about if we have to. And, honestly, I didn’t sign up for that, to go around being the guilt fairy – “there’s guilt for you, and guilt for you, and guilt for you, and guilt for you … wee hehehe!” That’s a distortion of the Gospel.

Especially here at the United Church of Christ, as an Open & Affirming church, we get to be a kind of field hospital for those of us who are casualties of hyper-judgy, guilt-ridden religion. We can be a house of healing where our medicine is Mercy, and our rehab program is the exercise of Mercy.

Really, so much of the time our judgmentalism towards ourselves or towards others is way out of proportion with whatever is actually the moral reality of the situation. We’re just putting ourselves down, or putting someone else down, for its own sake, in ways that are just not fair. It’s often vicious. Judgmentalism is not only damning and damaging but also delusional. Often it’s about asserting power or enforcing powerlessness.

Often we learn this kind of judgmentalism from religious authorities or parents or teachers or politicians or any talking head who plays the authority on television or the internet, anyone who dish out judgments with the sharp edge that says “Because of this failing or that flaw you are not worthy of love or respect or dignity” or “Because of this failing or that flaw those people over there are not worthy of love or respect or dignity – maybe they’re not even worthy of life itself.”

In any case, judgmentalism can really suffocate the flourishing of our souls, because we don’t feel ourselves to be worthy of love or respect or dignity, or we deny others their essential worth as well. It’s like barbed wire that can hem us in and keep others out.

Like barbed wire, judgmentalism can cut both ways. Often the ways we harshly condemn others is connected in some way to the ways we fear judgment ourselves; and the condemnation we turn against ourselves is often tied to judgments we have received from others. Some of us are more likely to be judgmental toward ourselves and less toward others; some of us more likely to turn judgment against others and try to avoid it ourselves. But it’s always a form of barbed wire the hems the soul.

What the Gospel does is expose this barbed wire, and then cut it down, for the sake of mercy.

This is the wisdom of Jesus who said, “Judge not lest you be judged. The measure you apply to others is the measure to be applied to you.” And the Apostle Paul who wrote, “In the ways you judge others you condemn yourselves” (Romans 2:1). And Letter of James that says, “The one who has shown no mercy will be judged without mercy.” (James 2:13).

But in the next breath James says: “Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

This is good news.

Mercy triumphs over judgment. Christ came to set us free. The truth can set us free.

Have you felt that Mercy? Have you known that Mercy?

Can you imagine something of that Mercy?

The Mercy of the Holy Creator who fashions us from love and for love: beloved, everyone, as we are, in our beauty and in our brokenness. This is what Jesus embodied for us: the free, unmerited gift of God’s love for humanity and for all Creation. It’s not about whether we deserve it or don’t deserve it. It’s a gift. We just need to be humble enough to open our hands and open our hearts and receive.

 “Come to me,” Jesus said, “all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11: 28-30)

The weight we give over is the weight of judgment. The gift we receive is the gift of Mercy.

I find that the spiritual renewal that can come through letting the Mercy of Christ into our hearts can sometimes happen suddenly, but is often a gradual process. Becoming free through Mercy can come slowly through a process of growth. Growth comes through entrusting oneself to the hands of the higher power and wisdom of God, and letting oneself be both humbled and uplifted in turns as the Spirit directs. It often involves a process of an honest moral inventory of oneself, and an honest moral inventory of others whose misdeeds have caused harm to us or others we care about. But all within the much wider view of God’s Merciful Love for all. An honest moral inventory includes all the good things too, after all, as well as the flaws. All of it is reason to receive the embrace of God’s Love.

It can help to just get sick and tired of the alternative to Mercy and the suffering it causes. Getting fed up with the merciless voice in one’s head. Getting sick of the parts we play in merciless cycles of condemnation and retribution. Knowing that it just doesn’t have to be this way. Trusting, even just a little, that this isn’t God’s will for us.

From here we can cry out for Mercy. We can cry out to God for Mercy.

Just a little trust is enough. Trust enough to cry out.  Trust enough to pray, and to keep praying to God with words like Nan Merrill’s beautiful rendering of Psalm 103:

“You love us more than we can ask

Or imagine;

In truth, we belong to You.

For You understand us,

Requiting us not according to our

Ignorance and error.

As far as the heavens are high above

The earth,

So great is your loving response

Toward those who are humble;

So far does your enduring strength

Uphold those who face

The darkness within.

As parents are concerned for their

Children,

So You come to those who reach out in faith.

For our ways are known, our weaknesses

Seen with compassion.”

            For this Mercy I give thanks to God, and I give thanks for Jesus.

            Thanks be to God.

Delivered Sunday March 10, 2024, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge