How Might We Hear The Word "Judgment?"

There is one thing that never fails to amaze me about my theological journey.  That one thing is always finding new understanding in words.

The word for this morning is the over used, and misused, word judgment.

One can easily assume, when hearing the term judgment, that God is harsh and unbending.   Some might say: “mean.”

Judgment is a word that has never been a popular topic with me.  Mostly because I have come to experience it as a form of self-righteous accusation — a charge of guilt — often thought of as ‘unfair.’

This take, on the word judgment, comes with years of listening to others try to shame someone because they don’t believe the way “they should.”

That judgment is then meant to keep others inline by using a certain way of interpreting God and Scripture.

Well, this morning, as I read some more from the pages of, ‘Run with the Horses’ (Eugene Peterson), my mind slipped into a new understanding of what God’s judgment might be interpreted as.  

So I did a bit of research from the Theological Dictionary.

“God’s law is an order of life the cannot be changed or challenged….His ways are right; they thus give us life and security.” (p. 168)

To make judgment is to: “decide, assess, to determine…God law seeks justice in order to resolve, restore and value….God is the know all and see all and restores all.  Which comes as a means of grace and mercy…to help the weak,..

In Jeremiah 30-31 “It offers hope…which will cancel sin and set up the covenant afresh.(p.469)

That study brought a lightness to my understanding.

And then this memory popped to my mind: 

                                             “This hurts me more than it’s going to hurt you."   

How many of us didn’t hear those words, come out of our parents mouths, when we were young?

That is the epiphany I heard as I read this passage from Jeremiah today. He was trying to bring hope in the darkest time in Israel’s history.  

He gives them God’s message of hope:

41 “‘Oh how I’ll rejoice in them! Oh how I’ll delight in doing good things for them! Heart and soul, I’ll plant them in this country and keep them here!’ (Jere. 32)

When you think of the entire message of the Bible -- without picking out the stories where God is using discipline to help people to understand where they have messed up -- it is a message of a loving and gracious God who wants the best for us.

I an wondering if our more conservative sisters and brothers have missed how Jeremiah handles — verbalized — the consequences of the people’s actions?

He does not point a finger of accusation. 

He doesn’t stand before them and tell them that they are going to hell; or that God doesn’t love or care about them. 

Rather, he persistently proclaims a message of hope.

And by the way, centuries later Jesus came to bring the exact message. 

17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3)

9 And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. ¹⁰I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales….¹⁵For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

16 After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, saying: ¹⁷Ah Lord God! It is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. …²⁴See, the siege-ramps have been cast up against the city to take it, and the city, faced with sword, famine, and pestilence, has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What you spoke has happened, as you yourself can see. ²⁵Yet you, O Lord God, have said to me, ‘Buy the field for money and get witnesses’—though the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans….

26 The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ²⁷See, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too hard for me?….. ³⁸They shall be my people, and I will be their God. ³⁹I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for all time, for their own good and the good of their children after them. ⁴⁰I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me. ⁴¹I will rejoice in doing good to them, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul…..42 For thus says the Lord: Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good fortune that I now promise them. ⁴³Fields shall be bought in this land of which you are saying, It is a desolation, without human beings or animals; it has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans….for I will restore their fortunes, says the Lord. (Jeremiah 32 NRSV)