September 20 ~ Be slower to anger Less eager to judge More open to compassionate curiosity
Sermon by Pastor Joel
Jonah 3:10—4:11
Psalm 145:1-8
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16
As a society, we are increasingly learning the extend of the harm from political polarization. What threatens communities is often not disagreement itself. Communities can survive disagreement. What they struggle to survive is moral judgement. The moment we stop thinking, "That person is mistaken," and begin thinking, "That person is a bad person," trust begins to collapse. Cooperation becomes harder. Neighbours become opponents. Fellow citizens become enemies.
Researchers call this affective polarization. It is not that we disagree with one another. It is that we begin to dislike one another. We stop arguing about ideas and start judging people. When people perceive society as deeply polarized, other research finds, our trust in fellow citizens declines. We become less willing to believe others are acting in good faith, less willing to cooperate, and less likely to work together for common goals.
In other words, judgement does not merely harm the person being judged. It harms the judge as well. It shrinks the community, and erodes trust and distracts us from the work we are meant to be doing.
Which all makes Jonah—arguably the most human prophet in the entire Bible—feel remarkably modern. Nineveh was one of the great cities of the ancient world. It was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, located near present-day Mosul, Iraq. For the ancient Israelites, Nineveh was not just a foreign city. It was the capital of a powerful empire that had conquered, oppressed, and terrorized many neighbouring peoples, including the northern Kingdom of Israel. When people first heard the Book of Jonah, they would have immediately understood Nineveh as the enemy.
And it’s to this very city that God sends Jonah. Jonah does not want to go. But it’s not because he’s afraid, or because he doubts God. He says it himself: "I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love." That is Jonah’s argument: God is too merciful and loving. And Jonah wants Ninevah punished. He wants judgement. So even when Nineveh repents, and God forgives them, Jonah throws what can only be described as a theological tantrum. He sulks outside the city. He refuses to enter and hopes for its destruction. He sulks there long enough for a plant to grow and offer shade from the hot sun. The next day, a worm eats the plant, and he rants and raves about it. God puts this question to him: Jonah, you are so angry about that little worm, which acted outside your control; yet I am thinking about the people of Ninevah who you could help? In other words, stewing in judgement had soured Jonah as well: he’d chosen to suffer in the sun and rant at a worm, rather than offer to help thousands of human beings who had asked for it. Was this worth it? Had judgement made the most of Jonah’s ability? Had it made his life better or more meaningful? Or had it been a dumb and senseless waste of time?
And are we so different? Don’t we waste the same energy and time judging people we barely know. I hear it all the time: judgement for those who vote differently, or parent differently, or make different life choices, or have a different background than us. We know so little about them – their fears and goals, their nightmares that haunt them, the hopes that inspire them. And yet in judging them, we decide we know exactly who they are. And they aren’t the only ones we judge: we also make judgements about the people who we do know, who make mistakes. We assume that what see in front of us, is the full story.
For what is judgement, but assuming the negative. The TV show Ted Lasso had this one memorable scene that still makes the rounds on social media. It endures because the lesson is so powerful that people seem to want to be reminded of it. In the scene, Ted has challenged the show’s antagonist to a game of darts and made a risky bet. That player pulls out his fancy dart set, and the game begins. It comes down to Ted needing to get a bulls eye and he pauses to tell a story: he’s noticed he says, that people forget to be curious about each other. If the antagonist had asked, he might have learned that Ted had played darts every afternoon with his father since he was a little boy, until the year his father died when he was 16. And Ted, of course, hits the bullseye. The lesson, suggests Ted, is always be curious.
That’s a good way to see judgement: as a lack of curiosity in the one we are judging. The same curiosity, it’s worth pointing out, that we would hope others would have in ourselves before leaping to judgement. But this is why judgement is a leap: we leap over the questions we should be asking, and the context we might consider. We miss the chance to become allies through understanding. When we leap to judgment we become more outraged, more hostile, less empathetic. Suddenly, we are just like Jonah: sulking in the hot sun, suffering, while the good and worthy work that makes the world and our communities better is neglected.
Our Gospel offers this lesson from a different perspective. The first workers arrived and receive what they were promised from the landowner. But when the last workers arrive, they receive the same – and of course the first workers feel as though they were cheated. Instead of enjoying their own fair payment, they were consumed with the payment of others. They stopped thinking of the generosity they’d received. They stopped planning any good things they might do with it. They stopped feeling joy. They became miserable. Because judgement robs us of purpose.
And as with Jonah, God poses the same question: why are you so consumed with what someone else gets if you have been treated fairly? Should God not be generous?
How might those servants better spend their time? With curiosity. Why were some people late? Is it because they had children or aging parents that needed care? Did they get lost? Did they not have the skills? Were they ill? It’s amazing what might have happened had those servants expressed curiosity: for starters, they might have found solutions to help the other arrive earlier the next day, and share the burden of labour with them.
Not only does judgement make us unhappy – like Jonah sitting in the sun. Not only does it prevent community, like the people of Ninevah, in our first lesson, waiting to hear the word of God. But it also distracts us from the work of the Gospel.
It may feel good and righteous in the moment, but it produces nothing but bitterness and resentment. It prevents us from taking the time to examine our own actions. And what’s more, it raises the expectation that we too will be judged. Writing from prison, uncertain whether he will live or die, Paul does not spend his time cataloguing the failures of others. Instead, he says. “Live your live in a manner worthy of the Gospel.”
Our Psalmist this morning describes a God “who is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." This is not only a description of God, it is also an invitation. Be slower to anger. Less eager to judge. More open to compassionate curiosity.
In this day and age, when loneliness is high, when the world is uncertain, when our country is under threat, when we are all just trying to do our best, are these not the qualities we should most aspire to? Are these not the qualities that will protect us, unite us, and save us?
The question God asks Jonah is as significant for us as it was for Jonah. Why are you spending so much energy worrying about everyone else's failures? Shouldn't you be concerned with the work I have given you to do? Amen.
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