Letting Go of the Gavel--September 18, 2026

Letting Go of the Gavel--September 18, 2026

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.”  So then, each one of us will be held accountable. (Romans 14:10-12)

So... good news, bad news (kind of).

The bad news (of sorts) is that God reserves the right to be our judge, and God sees all the evidence.  There's no use in hiding our sins or pretending we are perfect peaches, because God already knows the truth.

But the good news is really good:  if God is the One who holds the gavel, nobody else gets to be the judge over us.  No one else has the authority to condemn us, and of course also, none of us has the authority to condemn somebody else.  That is God's prerogative, not ours.

It's worth noting that these words, which come from the same reading in Romans 14 that many of us heard in worship this past Sunday and which we've been looking at in our devotions over the last couple of days, are from a larger passage that is focused on making space within the Christian community for those with whom we disagree. Whether it was about food restrictions, celebrating different holidays, observing different festivals, or other differences of opinion, Paul directs the Christians in Rome to let people act according to their consciences rather than forcing others to fit your personal scruples.  And it's that train of thought which leads him to ask, "Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?" He mentions that all of us will end up in front of God's judgment seat, which is to say, none of us gets to be the judge. In other words, the driving point is that none of us gets to be the judge over the rest, because "judge" is a role to which God has exclusive rights.  The point here is not to make us afraid of God judging us, but rather that because God is the sole judge we ultimately have to keep in mind, we don't get to deputize ourselves judges over others--and we don't have to worry about someone else's verdict over us, either.

This is important for us to notice. Sometimes in our Bible reading, we get the words right but still get the meaning wrong because we are placing the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble, if you get my drift. We put our focus in the wrong place and end up distorting the thrust of a passage rather than listening to the Scriptures on their own terms.  So, for example, here in this passage, yes, it is true that Paul talks about all of us standing before "the judgment seat of God." And certainly, over the centuries, plenty of people have gotten hung upon that image with the assumption that Paul is primarily trying to scare us into good behavior or to paralyze us with fear of getting zapped by a vindictive deity throwing lightning bolts at sinners.  But actually, the thrust of his argument is in the opposite direction--to move us away from being afraid of being condemned, because we know that other people who want to criticize or judge us don't have the standing to render a verdict--only God.  And this is the same Paul, I'll remind you, who just six chapters earlier in this same letter, wrote to these same Christians, "There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).  In fact, that same passage that we call the eighth chapter of Romans builds to a crescendo with this powerful set of claims: "What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us." And then famously Paul concludes that "nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus."  Taken together, Paul sure seems to be saying that nobody else gets to put themselves in the role of judge over us (and we don't get to put ourselves in the role of judge over others), because that is solely God's prerogative.  And God has already committed not to condemn us but instead to come to our defense and to take all the condemnation into God's own self through Christ.  The One Person who has the right to judge us has already told us that condemnation is not the end of the story for us because of Christ.

In that sense, this passage feels like something of a riff on that well-known story in John 8 about the woman caught in adultery who is brought to Jesus.  And when Jesus puts it to the lynch-mob that "the one who is without sin gets to throw the first stone," the accusers all leave, one by one, until Jesus alone remains.  He, of course, is the one person who could claim to have a right to throw stones, but he deliberately refuses.  "Where are your accusers?" he asks the woman, and when she responds that no one is left who condemns her, he says, "Neither do I condemn you."  Paul is simply daring us to take this kind of story seriously and to trust that the One who has the right to be our judge has already promised us mercy.  So you don't have to stay awake at night in fear of what somebody else--even somebody else who acts "religious"--says about you or thinks about you.  Nobody else gets to be your judge--only God, the same God about whom Paul has already said, "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

Once we are freed from worrying about whether or not we live up to the expectations of some other Respectable Religious People, we can face the truth of our lives, even when that truth involves acknowledging our mess-ups, sins, and rotten choices.  We can face those truths, acknowledge them, and turn in new directions, because we are confident that the God who sees them all already has assured us "There is no condemnation" because of Christ Jesus.  We are united to him, and God is not looking to zap us, or to let our failures get the last word.  Like Bryan Stevenson has said in his work against the death penalty, "Each of us is more than the worst thing we have ever done."  Paul would seem to agree: God will not let condemnation be the last word over us, and because of that we are actually freed and empowered to face the truth about our worst actions and start over.  We can begin again as forgiven and freed people because we know that the other people who want to be our critics and judges do not get to sit on the bench.  Only God gets to be the judge, and God has already promised that "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

Where have each of us been trying to make ourselves judge over someone else--and what would it look like if we stepped back from that today?

Where have each of us been running away from the judgment of others, or our fear that they will condemn us for not fitting their expectations--and what would it mean for us if we didn't have to keep running anymore?

Today's a day for each of us to let go of the imaginary gavels in our hands and to drop the stones.  We will find that we are free.

Lord Jesus, give us the confidence of knowing that no one else gets to be our judge but you, and you have promised to be our defender and not to let condemnation be the end of our stories.