John 8:12-19
What Jesus says in our reading from John today seems strange at first glance. “You judge by human standards,” he tells a group of Pharisees, “I judge no one” (John 8:15). My initial response is to say of course they judge from human standards. They are humans, what else could they do? Jesus’ next words don’t help much. “Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me” (v. 16). Well, of course Jesus has a different perspective, I say. He’s the Messiah, the Son of God. There is simply no way we could ever see things the way he does. That’s when Paul speaks up and tells me to slow down a minute. “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view” he tells his readers in Corinth (2 Corinthians 5:16a). So if I’m supposed to view people from something other than a “human point of view,” how is that going to work?
Over the years I have had the pleasure to offer training to dozens of Presbyterian lay people about to take office as elders or deacons. One of the things I will often do is show them the passage from Titus 1:5-9. where there is a list of the qualifications for elders and bishops. I will then ask those present to indicate if—based on what they have read––they are still qualified to serve. No one has ever raised his or her hand. And they shouldn’t. It’s very unlikely that anyone could ever meet such high standards. It’s just not human nature. But to me that’s not the point. The point is that here is a quality of life to which we may (must?) aspire, here is an image of what we should strive for.
I think Paul’s words to the Corinthians must be similar. It is practically impossible to see things as something we are not. But that does not remove from us the responsibility to strive, by God’s grace, to reach that point. As people of faith we are challenged to cast off, as best we can, what we have been and to put on that which is given to us in Jesus Christ. Baptism is a sign of this newness of life and a reminder of the community which walks beside us. As we enter a new year and face ever newer challenges, ever starker realities in our world, we should aspire to see things, not in the same old ways, but as new creatures born in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. May 2011 be a time of awakening for us all, and may we find our standards raised as we strive to live in the light of the gospel.
Prayer: Lord, bless our past as a time of learning, our present as a time of living, and our future as a time of achieving all to your glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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