Somewhat unusually perhaps, and certainly unusually for me, I want to begin this evening by saying how remarkable – indeed how wonderful – it is that we can sit in this church together in 2006 and read or have read to us stories of words and events which were spoken or occurred two or three thousand years ago but which speak to us directly today even though our external conditions are so very different from external conditions those two or three thousand years ago. Both this evening’s readings – one from Exodus and one from St Matthew’s gospel – speak clearly and directly to us.
What is the reading from Exodus saying to us? “Delegate, delegate, delegate”. Maybe I haven’t heard them so much very recently, but fifteen or twenty years ago they were often to be heard. I practiced, for more than 36 years as a solicitor, dealing with very many cases of one kind or another at a time and I know from my own personal experience and that of my colleagues of the tendency to think that I must do this, and take charge of that; I can’t trust others to deal with this one, and so on. I must control the running of this case.
The result? Strain and stress for the person controlling and near certainty that the jobs generally were not dealt with as well as they could and should have been. I used to say then that those of us who – and I was one – got back problems did so because metaphorically speaking they were “playing God”, and nature hit back at them.
I have no idea if Moses had back problems, but otherwise he had the very same problem as we: he too was playing God. He was the judge over Israel and every case, major or minor had to come to him for decision. Fortunately his father-in-law Jethro was a wise man. He saw the strain on Moses, he saw that overall the work was not done as well as it might have been for Israel and said to his son-in-law – to Moses – delegate, delegate, delegate. Fortunately Moses followed his advice, and did so, appointed these people here, those people there, and all was OK.
You and I may not be judges over Israel, we may not be in positions of power, but within our own little worlds I would bet that there are things which we seek to control and not to delegate. We want to hold on. It was said of Gordon Brown the other day that he is a control freak: whether or not that is true I have no idea, but many of us have no basis for judging him if he is, because we know ourselves only too well.
And that brings us straight to our reading from St Matthew – lines from Jesus’ well known Sermon on the Mount which I am constantly inviting people to read and read again “Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”
Except for Jesus’ instruction to us to love one another, I can think of no other saying of his which is more important for us to hear and follow – more important for our wellbeing – physical, emotional and spiritual and more important for the health of our society. The need expressed by Jesus – not to judge – has doubtless been there all down the centuries, but surely the need can never have been as great as it is today. Read the newspapers, listen to the radio, watch the TV, and criticism of, judgement of one person or another, one event or another, is blaring out at us all the time and we are encouraged to join in the judgement.
Some of you could doubtless remind me of the words of that song which Eartha Kitt used to sing, words which strangely I have been trying to remember over the last week or more. They contain the words “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, let’s fall in love”. I am thinking of the words Judge not’ and it came to me that Prime Ministers do it, even educated MPs do it, journalists do it, TV comperes and announcers do it and yes, you and I too often do it, but I can hardly continue “Let’s fall in love” because if you are all the time criticizing and judging you cannot truly love!
We got an example, just the other day of the truth of Jesus’ words “With what judgement you judge you will be judged”. The appalling behaviour of TUC members the other day when the Prime Minister was speaking or going to speak to them created, in my opinion, a judgement of and upon them, far greater than their words and actions did upon the Prime Minister.
Our trouble – and yes, my trouble – is, I think, that unfortunately and instinctively we too quickly jump to criticism of someone else’s peccadillo which we quickly build into a mountain “What extraordinary clothes to wear on such an occasion!” “What an extraordinary and rude thing to say” “Why can’t that parent keep his or her child quieter in church” “What a selfish thing to do” “How callous of him to say that” and again, “What a boring sermon”. If we can find something with which to criticize someone else we feel kind of superior to them and that is, however unjustifiably, a satisfactory feeling. Of instinctive negative judgmental reactions we also have an example this week in the reaction of Muslims all over the world to the Pope’s lecture. We might react differently if we realised that Jesus can see into our hearts; he goes deeper than our superficial little nonsenses, and he goes deeper – not to judge us [because as he said, he had not come into the world to judge the world but to save it] – not to judge us but to make us aware of the foolish mistakes that we are always making, to make us aware that we are not as clear-eyed as we may think but sometimes blinded by a log in our eye.
Indeed he came and comes to make us whole, complete people and quite frankly he was and is – Mohammad or no Mohammad, Freud or no Freud, yes Moses or no Moses – the only one who did or does.
If you want peace of mind, a good start is to give up judging – and delegate, delegate, delegate or, in other words, let go and let God.
Derek Spottiswoode