Frank Scoffield Nellessen continues our summer series from the sermon on the mount in Matthew 7:1-5 where Jesus warns us not to judge others, lest we be judged by God with the same standard — along with the description of the splinter in our neighbors eye vs. the log in our own.

Frank begins with several reasons why he came to this passage raw over the past week: a church service at the ICE detention center at Adelanto the previous Sunday, and students who are struggling with parents in danger of deportation. One was sent to Mexico so that he could be there ahead of his parents should they be deported. It was a week that left him wanting to judge others harshly.

He says, “All this forced me to ask important questions as I wrestled with the passage. Why was Jesus telling the disciples not to judge when he knows very well of the evil in this world? How does this teaching fit in the story of God with Israel and what God was doing in Jesus? When and how is it fitting to judge? How does God judge?

We may have come from churches that judged us too harshly — or were afraid to judge at all. Most of us probably feel in our gut that some things really are worthy of judgement. But we also know that judging is such a slippery slope that can hurt others so much.

So we begin there, with the hurt and the wounds. Because wounds are at the heart of Israel’s story and the words of the Sermon on the Mount. Often neglected in writings on the Sermon on the Mount is the larger story where Jesus’ sermon is set. From the beginning, Matthew’s Gospel is one of political struggle. Israel is a wounded people, torn for generations by war, displacement, occupation, forced migration and cruel Commanders in Chief. Collective wounds are felt by children whose sadness seems too much to bear; fathers who consider giving up after another generation of survival; mothers who are afraid of being torn away from their daughters
and sons. From these wounds Jesus is born.

Hear Frank as he talks about how we need one another to help us see what needs to be changed in our lives, individually and collectively — how we need one another for healing.

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