In
Love there is No Judgment
Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year B)
2nd May 2021
Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church
Ashland, Oregon
The
Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
8:00 a.m. Spoken Mass on the Labyrinth; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass livestreamed from
the Chancel
Acts 8:26 – 40; Psalm 22:25 - 31 ; 1 John 4:7 - 21 ; John 15:1 - 8
God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
“God is love.” People often quote this striking line from today’s epistle (1 John 4:16). But they rarely quote what immediately follows:
God is Love. The person who lives in love lives in God and God lives in them.
This is how our love has reached perfection.
As a result we are open and confident on Judgment Day
because already in this world we are like Christ.
Love has no room for fear;
Rather, perfect love drives out fear,
for fear involves punishment.
Love has not reached perfection in one who is still afraid.
But as for us, we love because He loved us first. (1 John 4:16-19)
The logic of the passage depends on this insight: “In love,
there is no judgment.”
As people who love and are loved, most love we experience is flawed. It is
distorted by our demands and by the conditions we place on it. And so it is
often rejected, or turns toxic.
When our daughter was at college, she went through a rough time. She stopped
communicating with us. Through a lot of hard work, she got back on track. She
came home for a holiday and we reconnected. At a joyful moment in private, we
reassured her of our love, and said how proud we were of her.
Her body suddenly stiffened; her face went taut. Then she said caustically,
“Mom and Dad, I’m glad I meet your approval.”
We were only trying to express love, but all she felt was our appraising her
progress, measuring her performance. We loved her, and couldn’t help but want
“the best” for her. So our love was mixed necessarily with our judgment of what
was best for her, and this judgment of ours provoked fear in her. Things
are much better now. But the experience is common, and tells us about love.
Think of times when you have loved or been loved. Think of any kind of love you
have experienced—that of a friend, a sibling, a parent, a child, a romantic
lover, or even just that of a fellow human being.
When was that love at its best? Wasn’t it always when the love did not depend
on some need met, some desire realized, or some standard fulfilled?
Think of when love went horribly wrong. Maybe it turned to hatred or loathing,
or became abusive in some way. Wasn’t the problem always at root some kind of
judgment, condemnation, or criticism?
Hurtful words sometimes take the place of words once filled with joyful love: “Stop
judging me.” “She is always trying to change me.” “I wish you would take me
just as I am.” “Why do you always have to be so critical?” “I love you, but I
can’t be with you. It’s just too painful.”
When Saint Paul said, “Love never fails” (1 Cor. 12:8), he was describing love
as it ought to be, not as it appears in these harsh words.
We seem to be made in such a way that so far as our emotional selves are
concerned, love is incompatible with judgment and fear. Even a whiff of
evaluation will sour an expression of love and approval through fear of not
measuring up.
That’s why one of the basic principles of counseling is to listen without
judging. You cannot build trust as a counselor if you judge.
It’s why most conscious efforts at “tough love” generally only alienate their
object.
It’s why Jesus taught us to love, and not to judge, and said he came to save,
not to judge (John 12: 47-48).
But wait a minute: Isn’t Jesus going to be our judge?
Our hearts are so made that even when we talk about God and Christ, in love there
is no room for judgment.
When I was a student at the Catholic University of America, I prayed regularly
in the nearby National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The main nave is
cavernous. On the ceiling above the high altar is an immense mosaic of Christ
on the Day of Judgment. As you look up, he peers down at you accusingly, eyes
ablaze in anger.
Looking up at that mosaic, I always felt condemned, and bound for hell. I always retreated to the crypt church in the basement for prayer. That mosaic was just too threatening. I just couldn’t pray to Jesus for mercy in the nave.
The Day of Judgment is an important part of the Church’s teaching about justice and moral responsibility. But these doctrines do not require us to take the image of God’s wrath more literally than we take the image of God’s love.
C.S. Lewis describes the final judgment by saying that in the end, there will be only two kinds of people, those who have said to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God must finally say, “Alright, have it your own way.”
When we say “Christ will come again to be our judge” in the creed, we affirm God’s love and mercy, not God’s harsh condemnation.
But wait—in this life we have to judge. What if the person we love is doing really bad things? Aren’t we obliged to help? And doesn’t this include recognition of standards?
There are non-judgmental ways of responding to real problems. We don’t accuse or say “you are wrong here.” We talk about how the person’s behavior affects us. We are honest about our feelings, but we don’t try to apply labels. Couples and family counselors regularly teach people how to address real problems fairly. Usually it involves use of the formula: “I feel [fill in the emotion] when you [fill in the behavior] because [fill in how the person’s behavior causes your feeling.]
Just trying not to judge or not to get angry simply won’t do. We end up doing both anyway, and usually alienate ourselves from our own emotional lives to the degree that we disengage from others. That is not love. That is emotional death.
In today’s epistle reading, John says that perfect love drives out fear. It heals the hurt caused by judgment and in its stead gives openness, frankness, and confidence. It is only as we seek to love, and remain in love, that we live in God and God lives in us. Love is made more and more complete in us. In the end, our love ends up being like God’s, even here and now.
Paul calls this process “sanctification.”
Today’s gospel describes it in the image of Christ as the true vine and believers as his branches.
The reading today from Acts describes one of the historical
effects of this—greater and greater inclusion of others. Although the Law
said the Ethiopian Eunuch was unclean and beyond the pale, and though he
probably made Philip uneasy, Philip does not judge. In light of gratitude and
grace, in the presence of Love that does not judge, there is no
impediment. “Here is water, what is to prevent me from being baptized?” indeed….
Such practice in love must start in love. If it starts through a sense
of obligation because of fear of condemnation, it won’t last. That is just
going through the motions of love. This is better than not going through the
motions. But unless it finds it can root itself in love, even this effort at
imitating Christ is bound to corrupt itself and end in contempt and cynicism.
Gratitude for perfect love freely given is the only sure beginning point. Just
as the human heart cannot feel love and judgment at the same time, it cannot be
full of gratitude at the same time as judgment and resentment.
Jesus teaches us that God is our loving Father, better than any parent we have ever known.
Knowledge of this produces gratitude in our hearts, not a sense of not
measuring up.
Trying to build love on anything other than gratitude is like my mother telling
me and my brother as little boys to hug, forgive each other, and make up after
a particularly nasty fight. We would sullenly go through the motions, and spit
out the words. She would say “Now do it again and MEAN it.” Love cannot come
from being commanded. It can only come from the gratitude from being loved
first.
John says: “In this, then, does love consist: not that we have loved God, but
that He loved us and sent his son as a means to drive away our failings.” (1
John 4:10).
Friends, God is Love. Our love is imperfect, corrupted by fear and
judgment, and often fails. But God’s love is perfect. God loved us, pathetic
creatures that we are, through coming to us in the person of Jesus. And Jesus
did not come to judge. He came to save. May we be grateful for this, and be
transformed by our gratitude. May we let him perfect our love, and drive away all
fear.
In the name of God, Amen.
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