Ss P&P 18/3/07 Isaiah 61: 1 – 4, 8 – 11 John 8: 1 – 11 – Sermon by The Rev'd Canon John Ashe

This is now the third in our series of sermons during Lent – with the general theme "If I could only preach ONE sermon, this would be it!"

We've heard from Colin Semper and Jo Wetherall – Next week we'll hear from Patrick O'Ferrall.

My theme is JUDGEMENT – which may be an odd title for Mothering Sunday – and the day we baptise little Iris

But, as I hope will become clear – it is in fact a very appropriate day.

What I want to do is to turn upside down a common view of God's judgement – one which leads to feelings of guilt and failure – and replace it with a biblical view which is altogether more positive.

The question I want to start with is – What do we mean by judgment?

It's a word closely linked to JUSTICE and RIGHTEOUSNESS and it is very easy to see judgement as dispensing punishment for those who act unjustly.

There is a continual debate about the purpose of a nation's justice system.

Is it about punishing wrongdoers? – or is it about restoring justice?

The theory is that our justice system is about making things right again when they have gone wrong – so that imprisonment is not simply to punish the offender – but to use his or her time in prison to restore them and enable them to take a proper place in society.

Our criminal justice system may fall very far short of that ideal – but there is a biblical model– where God is the judge – which is about putting things right. It's about justice – not punishment.

Some, however, suggest that the Bible offers a different model – one which says that God is angry with us because we have sinned – and that God plans to send us to hell for all eternity – unless we believe that Jesus died for our sins.

People who hold this view believe that most of the people who have ever lived are now in the agony of the eternal flames of hell!

and as a consequence, they are very keen to describe what is a sin and what isn't – after all, how else can we know what we have to confess to avoid joining them in the flames!!??

Others, while accepting that we are all sinners, see in the birth and life and death and resurrection of Jesus – a declaration of love for sinners – rather than anger.

…. they want people to know they are loved, rather than tell people that God is angry with them.

These two approaches give different meanings to the cross.

One says that, as sinners, we deserve to die – but God punished Jesus instead so that we don't have to go to hell. It comes from a view of judgement that equates it with punishment rather than restoration.

The other approach sees the cross, not as a moment in history when God took our punishment upon himself – but as an expression of an eternal truth – that God, despite all that we read in the Old Testament about God's wrath, can be defined by the cross as the lover of sinners – who waits with open arms to welcome the failures and the outcasts in love.

With this latter understanding, the Bible demonstrates a progressive understanding of God . . . . . .

– from the harsh, jealous, demanding God of the early Old Testament who seemed to take all the fun out of life – and sent people on killing sprees to wipe out the heathen

into the Psalms which have the occasional glimpse of grace and love and forgiveness, where people had learned to sing and dance in front of God

to books like the prophet Jonah who astounded people by suggesting that God loves foreigners.

Or the prophet Isaiah who spoke in our reading today about freedom for captives, rebuilding ruins, restoring places which have been devastated, about binding up the broken-hearted

and this comes to fruition in passages such as Jesus' forgiveness of the woman taken in adultery – so very different from Moses whose laws insisted that she be stoned to death!

This day in the church's calendar, Mothering Sunday, is about nurture and love. It reminds us of the nature of God as one who holds us in love – that, however bad we may be, nothing can take that love from us – and that God will go on loving us, until we stop running away and discover our true home and security in God.

It's a characteristic which we see reflected in motherhood – hence "Mothering Sunday" – but actually this day is about some thing even bigger than a mother's love for her children.

And this sacrament of baptism points us to the bigger picture.

Baptism sets us on a journey in which there is a fresh start every morning

where getting lost is accepted as inevitable for us all

but where we are restored to the right way – not by the threat of punishment – but by the promise of being held in love.

It's a journey in which judgement means not having our errors pointed out – but being given the chance to start again.

And the sacrament of bread and wine points us to God who judges us to be infinitely valuable, to be worth God's own life

One of the greatest theologians of the 20^th Century was a Swiss by the name of Karl Barth.

His greatest work, "Church Dogmatics", is 6 million words long and I, for one, failed miserably to understand him while at Theological College.

A student once asked him if he could sum up his work in just a few words.

He thought for a moment and then smiled and said, "Yes - in the words of a song my mother used to sing me, 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.'

Love leads to a judgement which gives space to put things right

– and a glorious picture of heaven is one where even the worst of us has been won over and transformed by the power of love.

That song which Barth's mother used to sing him, has this verse

Jesus loves me when I'm good, when I do the things I should.

Jesus loves me when I'm bad, though it makes him very sad!

Sin, then, leads not to an angry God who consigns us to hell – but to God's tears of sadness and a desire to take the pain upon himself.

This picture of judgement which is motivated by love rather than anger is one which shines through the life and relationships of Jesus – as he pointed out God's love for the stranger, the outcast, the sinner, the person of a different faith or culture

If we mean business by our desire to follow Jesus, we will not only rest secure in his love for us, allowing that love to enable a fresh start for ourselves,

but we will also let that love direct our relationships with others – we will be motivated, not by the desire to punish wrong-doers, but by the challenge of love which wants to restore, and make right.

Then justice will be our aim – a justice which is challenged by the world around us – whether that be the issue of slavery which next Sunday's anniversary reminds us still needs work,

or the tragedy of division in Israel and Palestine.

or the church's continued failure to reflect the healing, reconciling, inclusive love which Jesus models for us.

God's judgement, far from leaving us with a sense of guilt – instead offers hope – hope that even the worst to which we can sink in this world - can be put right.

Judgement, then, is not about punishment, it's about putting things right.