Reflection on the Word for the Sunday of April 24, 2022 God is the Judge only – John 20:21-23 “ ... the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. " …………………………………………………………………………… In the Sermon of the Mount Jesus warned the disciples that “Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged. For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own eye? ” However, it is obvious that this teaching does not reject the very need of the discernment, but talks about the reciprocity in human relations and warns people, that they should not be hypocrites by having double or multiple standards. That is why, it is written, that the ability of retaining or forgiving sins requires the receiving of the Holy Spirit. After the Exodus from Egypt, in the desert, people came to Moses to inquire the will of God, and the people stood around him from the morning till the evening. And Moses judged between a man and his neighbor, making them known the statues and the laws of God. However, “ the Lord said to Moses, ‘Gather to me seventy men of the elders of Israel, (…) and I will take of the Spirit which is on you, and will put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you,’ ” (when it comes to judging).’ It may seem to some, that the way to go is never judging in order to avoid judgment on ourselves. However it is impossible, because everybody is judged not only at the end, but in every moment. Also, every single moment we have to make a conscious decision about what is right and what is wrong, and it requires permanent judging, what we call discernment. Some people hold, when humans take the responsibility to judge, it is likely, that the whimsical human judgment will be always arbitrary. It is certainly a real danger, as we can see in the life stories of emperors and kings, generals and the men of human courts. In the lifetime of Abraham God judged Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from the skies. Abraham pleaded with God for the lives of the residents in this cities. It is a well known bargain, when Abraham came near (to the Lord), and said, “Will you consume the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous within the city? Will you consume and not spare the place for the fifty righteous who are in it? May it be far from you to do things like that, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be like the wicked. May that be far from you. Shouldn’t the Judge of all the earth do right?” The bargain reached the number of ten people, but there were not even ten people in the cities, who were righteous. And the cities were utterly destroyed. Regarding the judged sins of Sodoma and Gomorrah, people think of adultery and other immoralities. Although the ancient tradition was mindful of these sins too, but the sages pointed their fingers at way more other sins, as well. The sages taught that the major fault of Sodom was their arrogance against God. Upon these cities unimaginable bounties and wealth were bestowed. Their land was extremely fertile, having the abundance of bread, pomegranate, fig, vine, walnut, almond, apple, peach, and so on. The ground had sapphires, their brooks had gold in their banks. But it was not enough for the elite of the cities. They did not give thanks for providence, they did not worship God, they got greedier by the day. They said among themselves, that we live in peace and plenty, why do we have to entertain the travelers who come to us? According to the sages, that because the cities rejected the duty to receive the wayfarers, the Lord said, that I will cause, that even the memory of these cities will be obliterated from the Earth. In their greed they made twisted laws. Like when a man crossed a bridge, he had to pay four silver for crossing, but if he waded through water, he had to pay eight silver. It happened, that a launderer came to Sodom, wading through the water. Pay eight silver, they told him. He refused. Then they beat him up until he bled. They jailed him, and the judge ruled that beside the wading fee of eight silver, he has to pay an additional eight silver to the men who beat him up. In Sodom they had an inn, which had a bed on which the travelers were made to sleep. If the traveler was too long for the bed, they cut his legs down to make him fit in, if the traveler was short, then they stretched his limbs in order to match the length of the bed. It happened, that a man struck his neighbor’s wife, causing miscarriage. The judge ruled, that the husband must give her to the attacker to impregnate her again. It happened, that a man cut off the ear of his neighbor’s donkey. The judge ruled, that the owner must give the donkey to the attacker until the ears of the donkey will grow back. When poor men used to come to these cities, each resident used to give a denar, but eventually nobody would sell a morsel of bread to the poor men. These visitors used to die from hunger, and at that point the residents used to claim back their coins. Once it happened, that a young girl gave a morsel of bread to a hungry foreigner, and the authorities smeared the girl with honey, putting her on a rooftop, where the bees came and stung her to death. It was also proclaimed in this cities, that he, who sustains a poor and needy person or a stranger even with smallest amount of food, is to be burned alive. It happened to Lot’s own daughter, called Pelotit, that she saw a poor man and gave him food at the town well in the town square. The people of Sodom burnt Pelotit alive, even she was married to one of them. At the burning pit she prayed, that God of the Universe, may you exact justice and judgment in my behalf. According to the tradition, the Heavenly King said, that because of the cries from these cities, I will turn the city’s foundation over to the top and the city’s top to the bottom. It may seem that the fate of Sodom and Gomorrha might have been changed, if Abraham would have been able to seek out at least ten righteous people in the cities. However, the decision of God had been obviously made before the bargain began, because of the continued injustice of the judges in Sodom. That is why it is imperative to receive Holy Spirit for judgment as it is written in the Law of Moses that “You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: you shall not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty”. Jesus said it too, that the judgment must be absolutely impartial, as “There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.” It shows, that the Spirit of the Law of God, the Spirit of God, ultimately God is the judge only, as it is still prayed every time in need and in sorrow, that May the true Judge, (God) be blessed. “Baruch dayan ha'emet,” in Hebrew. Nonetheless, it looks like on the surface, that the powerful on Earth may assume, that they can judge howsoever they just want, and they can even execute judgments over life and death like Pontius Pilate and the child killer Herod did. However, ultimately, all real judgments are in the hands of the Lord, especially the ultimate judgments, like the ones regarding redemption, salvation, resurrection and eternity. Meanwhile on Earth we must obey God’s ordinances and commandments to earn blessings and peace, longevity and prosperity, yet by the Holy Spirit we must daily discern right from wrong, and judge all things accordingly, for the always greater glory of the Lord, according to the will of God. AMEN https://korakowa.blogspot.com/p/sunday-sermons.html
