Leaning on a different understanding of judgement
Fragile judgement. Turn those words over in your mind. What learning from the past two years of Covid-shaped personal and church life might help us exercise not fragile, but righteous, or godly judgement, as we move into spring 2022?
Among the first thoughts that come to my mind are of the sharp and harsh judgmental language heard in too many polarized conversations over the past 20 months as the latest Covid-19 restrictions or relaxations were debated. A second thought is perhaps more welcome. One that God gives about the best starting point from which to make judgements found in Proverbs 3:5. “Lean not on your own understanding”.
In choosing to follow God’s counsel, my thoughts return to some recent reading, which takes me to the Hebrew understanding about judgement and justice in the Old Testament. If I understood the writer correctly, the primary goal of judgement and justice in the Hebrew mind, was to bring a person into a right relationship with God and people into right relationships with each other.
Might this be a healthier mindset with which to make judgements about expanding our church life and witness as restrictions ease, giving primacy in all we say and do to deepening people’s relationships with God and each other? How much more constructive this mindset seems than the adversarial mindset Western culture has taken from ancient Roman law where one side of an opinion has to be right and the other wrong, so a ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ can be crowned.
Four biblical foundations for good judgement
The full counsel of Proverbs 3:5 is, “Trust in the Lord will all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” How natural then to conclude the necessity of seeking the understanding we need to shape our judgements from God in his Word. So what truths from the Bible give us God’s framework on how to make judgements that renew or deepen people’s relationship with him and each other?
Let me offer four that may help us make righteous judgements.
Firstly, a knowledge of, and obedience to, God’s Word - after all the Bible gives all we need to know about God and his relationship with us and each other.
Secondly, a knowledge and application of the values of God’s Kingdom – Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount being a great starting point.
Thirdly, the necessity of the fruit and gifts of God’s Spirit in shaping our attitudes and therefore how we speak when we need to communicate the outcomes of what has been decided.
Lastly, an objective measure with which to assess the benefit and helpfulness of a judgement made. To quantify this, let me offer you one given by a colleague early in my ministry: “Will this be for the good of the gospel? If so how?”
The varied landscape into which we are called to exercise fragile judgement
Most mornings I take a pre-dawn short walk. Recently the return leg coincided with the rising of the sun. The soft orange light bathed the variations of the surrounding landscape from the flat river basin, to the small hillocks among the fields and higher ground of the distance. With this blog post much in my mind, I considered how this physical panorama mirrored the diverse range of attitudes and practices adopted in response to the pandemic by families and our church family.
Some continued to be cautious, while others found accommodations with work, education etc. so that they and their children could still be active and safe. Some continue to have no alternative to restricting their everyday activities due to serious underlying health conditions. Others exercise limitations long since eased on medical and scientific grounds. And still others, not for health reasons, have fallen out of those best habits of gathered worship, prayer and fellowship.
As faces and the places where Covid-19 has taken them came to mind, the challenge of how to speak into each of their circumstances about restoring and strengthening links with God, faith and their church family, was no longer so daunting because my approach to judgement had a more carefully defined backdrop of real life circumstances.
The look and sound of good pastoral judgement
If the primary purpose of making a judgement is to deepen people’s relationships with God and each other, does this not change the conversations, language, atmosphere and outcomes? It may be worth a pause here to try to imagine what this would look and sound like.
How would we speak into the situation of the still cautious family who diligently protected one of their own due to an underlying health concern for almost two years? What words would we use? What more could we and our church do to deepen their relationship with God and other Christians?
What of those families who have fully embraced the recommencement of Sunday worship and children’s and youth programmes? What words would we use and what more could our church do to support the ongoing deepening of their relationship with God and other Christians in worship and fellowship?
What of our local evangelism and global mission? What words would we use to support re-engagement with both of these aspects of being the people of God, given that both have probably played second fiddle to the energy, effort and focus required to re-establish the basics of congregational life for our own members and since the need for others to know Jesus now seems so much more urgent?
Approaching fragile judgements with faith and not fear
Perhaps, as we think about it our judgements need not feel so fragile in our hands when we make a determined effort to have them shaped by God and his wisdom. Maybe the mind-set suggested above begins to make the navigation out of Covid-19 restrictions less daunting.
Why should we not approach that relying on the Lord to help us create imaginative and intentional opportunities for deepening relationships with God and other Christians?
Why should we not walk out of the pandemic with faith in God’s leading and a renewed and greater devotion as leaders and members to prayer and making Jesus known?
And why should we not face the future with faith and a new anticipation at what God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit will do, in continuing to keep Christ’s promise about his church in Matthew 16:18 “… I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”