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WORD -Sunday 22nd November 2020Judgement - we are not hot on judgement these days. In the past, the church has used fear and the threat of eternal damnation associated with God's judgment, both immediate in this life, and at the end of time or at the time of death, to make people join and belong to the church and to conform to its teachings and adhere to church practices. Although the extremes of these behaviours have receded, there are still elements in different denominational positions where similar approaches still apply. But generally, there has been a move away from the idea of seeing God as judgemental and vengeful to being rather more loving, merciful and forgiving and so less likely to be doling out eternal punishments to those that reject him or adopt a different faith approach or have even committed terrible atrocities. But nevertheless, it is hard to escape the underlying implication of the passage from Matthew, that there will come a point when we stand before God and have to account for the way we have conducted our lives.There are numerous other references to some concept of judgement, both within the Old and New Testaments. For example - Deuteronomy 32 v 41 Rejoice, you nations, with his people,for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemiesand make atonement for his land and people.Romans 1:18, "But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness."1 Peter 1:17, "And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favourites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do.There is uncertainty amongst scholars as to whether God's judgement is immediate i.e. occurring now each day / continuously, or whether it is at the point of death, or at the parousia - the Second Coming of Christ or at the end of the world and whether these last two occur at the same time or not Questions then arise as to whether we are judged several times - ongoing, at death and again on "The Day of Judgement". Are the dead raised to take part in this further judgment ? Who in fact are the sheep ? - the Israelites ? the followers of Jesus ? anyone who has done good works ? Who are the goats ? - Gentiles, anyone who has done any bad stuff ? Just people who have rejected Christ ? Does this exclude people of other faiths - are they automatically goats ? Are you a sheep by doing any act of kindness at some time in our lives or does it have to be ongoing and continuous and if continuous, does anyone know any sheep - we all miss chances and do wrong stuff ? Or do we become a goat if we do a bad thing or miss or reject opportunities to do a good deed ? Most bad people have done some good things in their lives - what about them ? And what do we understand about the outcomes - eternal life versus eternal punishment ?And what about martin Luther's justification by faith not by works fit in and the idea in the letters of James, that faith is nothing without works. How do all these ideas come together ?It gets complicated doesn't it and that is not all. What about the the surprise shown by the members of both the sheep and the goat groups when they were told that, in the case of the sheep they had done good things and the goats that they hadn't. They seemed either unaware of what they had or hadn't done or certainly were unaware that because the Holy Spirit was within everyone and as we are all made in God's image, ministering to someone else's need was like ministering to Christ himself. This suggests that we should be doing good things for the sake of it because its the right thing to do not because we might get brownie points that add up to some sort of reward later. They are an end in themselves, not a means to an end. Though there are positive rewards from doing good things - we feel good, people may express gratitude and such rewards can be positive reinforcement and encourage us do other good things. There is nothing wrong with receiving positive strokes and having a "feel good" factor, if these are not our main motivation. Having faith in God and trying to be disciples of Christ, should influence our lives in such a way that doing good things becomes more natural, in that we should try to put the needs of others before ourselves. Thus, we need a combination of faith and good works.So what can we make of this concept of God's judgement ? And whether it be the judgement at our death, or the Second coming, or at the Final Day of Judgment - who knows. How should we respond to these ideas of judgement and the uncertainty as to whether we are goats or sheep and the fear of being cast out into some sort of terrible eternal punishment ?It seems to me, that as with many aspects of God and faith, we do not and cannot KNOW and we are presented with a mystery that we can only try and understand in a way that makes some sort of sense to us now in the 21st C.So perhaps the most useful ways in which we can respond to these ideas is to firstly be aware of the sense of the Immediate judgement of God in an ongoing way in our daily lives. As the Holy Spirit communicates with us by the nudge of a thought or an opportunity to respond positively to a need we are made aware of. We clearly cannot respond to every need, but when we feel particularly drawn towards something and we fail to respond, then often we have a sense of regret or guilt which perhaps is God's way of saying we have let him down. This is probably punishment enough and a spur to future actions ! Such may be the Immediate sense in which we experience God's judgment. The good news is that we are forgiven and freed from the sense of guilt and given further opportunities to serve God.As to the rest - the final judgement in whatever form and at whatever point - all we can do is be aware and prepare. Earlier in the chapter in Matthew, we have the parable of the 10 Bridesmaids - 5 wise and prepared and 5 foolish who weren't prepared and so missed the bridegrooms coming. This is the concept of being warned that Christ will come again but because no one knows the time or the place, we have to be prepared at all times.So we can prepare by listening and responding to God's communications to us, as we have just described and through prayer and bible study we can become more attuned to such nudges and promptings of the Holy Spirit so that our responses to God's communication can be more effective.This, it seems to me, is as much as humans can manage and cope with. Doing the best we can. As my atheist friend said and referred to in the news letter. The difference being, that as christians, we believe that we are not left to do the best we can in our own strength, but in the strength of God, with the Holy Spirit to help and guide us, and the Grace and love of God to strengthen and support us.As for the rest, we leave it in God's hands, trusting in his mercy and kindness as we heard in the reading from Ezekiel. Here we have the same concept of sheep and goats being separated out into the strong and the weak, where the strong scatter the weak but the idea conveyed here, is that the lost will be rescued and found and taken care of and the strong will be cared for too.So as we go into the world this week, or at least our small bit of it, let us carry a small piece of cotton wool in our pockets to remind us that as Christ's disciples, we too are lambs of God, looked after and cared for by Christ, the good shepherd.Amen ................
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