For anyone that tuned into the first part thinking this would be about marijuana, I apologize. Part two also uses the title as bait so that I can talk about the near-stoning of the woman by the Pharisees, and also discuss the famous comment of Jesus in the center of that dusty circle. I won’t be sharing any insights about bongs or blunts, or the perils of unwanted stems or sticks, and I won’t be going at all into the pros and cons of spliffs versus fatties, nor will I make any witty rejoinders about schwag or kush or hash. I may talk about eating cereal and sugary snacks, as I often do, but as a fair warning, it will most likely talk about my ongoing battle with the very-American sin of gluttony and unrelated (in my case) to marijauna.

So where was I? Ah, yes, I left off on the uplifting topic of hellfire and brimstone.

As I have mentioned in other posts and episodes, in my slow conversion back toward faith, the hellfire and brimstone speeches never moved me, and even drove me away further. But in reading and re-reading the texts it’s clear that hell is something very real to Jesus and he mentions it often. When you are turned away from God, the idea of hell becomes repulsive for the exact reason that you want to remain turned away, and to face the reality of the word “hell” is scary. Clinging to the modern idea of being “Good without God” means that you must reject the idea of hell, because to consider it as real shatters the worldview. But the cool, non-divine hippy version of Jesus sure talks an awful lot about hell, and readers of the cool hippy version have to consciously skip those hellish parts to keep their non-divine chill dude from throwing people into the unquenchable fire of hell for all eternity. I think some people see Jesus as a first century version of the Dude in The Big Lebowski. Jesus could not be more clear what is at stake, however, and he says the he is the way. He himself. This is a shocking claim. He is the way. The Big Lebowski, the Dude, doesn’t demand much of anything from anyone, aside from his stolen rug to be returned to him. Jesus demands we give everything to him. We must surrender much more than a rug to Jesus, we must surrender our heart, mind, soul, and body to him. He requires our time, talent, and treasure. He asks that we pray constantly. He asks that we graft our branch onto the vine of his life. So Jesus implies that being “Good without God” will get you exactly nothing, as that way of life is basically works without faith. So we have Catholics saying “faith and works” and Protestants saying “faith alone” and non-believers saying “works alone.” Only non-believers hold that faith without works is the way, which Jesus clearly does not support. The both/and of the Catholic Church makes the most sense to me, as Jesus asks for all of us, both our faith and our works, and neither can be faked. We must “believe and be baptized” and also “Do God’s will.” I would say that faith and works go together like peas and carrots, but no one uses that combination any more. So instead I would say that faith and works go together like chocolate and peanut butter. Peas and carrots are not even familiar to most Americans today, so a peanut butter cup of faith and works might make a better example. I think they go well together, kind of like faith and reason, (to quote JP II) where both faith and reason are the wings we need to fly. One quick aside here. Most of my closest friends are Protestants, and we usually don’t go into this division around faith and works. In fact, all the arguments around faith and works tend to put me to sleep, because the Catholics and the non-Catholics I know who love God are usually out there doing charity out of love for God. The people I admire most in both Catholic and Protestant circles are those that never even bring up the argument surrounding faith and works. These people are witnessing their faith in ways that require no argument or apologetics. I’m not even sure it occurs to these silent witnesses that there is an argument, because the people that move me toward more faith are the ones that believe and are baptised are are doing God’s will. I think we can go around in circles on this argument for years while the poor go un-fed and the elderly remain un-attended and the convicts sit un-visited. I’m not belittling that the argument exists and there’s a place for charitable argument around the topic, but it seems that it can become a stumbling block of pride and anger between people who otherwise can say the Apostle’s Creed in its entirety in total agreement. I suppose the main problem with works is when we are doing it solely to get our card punched toward salvation. Eternal life is not like a pizza punch card, where we get a free pizza after we’ve purchased ten, nor is it like Burger King where you can “have it your way.” The turning to God requires sacrifice, but it’s a sacrifice that you will want to do once the invasion of grace storms your life.

Now back to the line that is so rich in meaning:“For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.”

That little addendum about measuring adds major spice to the chill flavor of the prior sentence. The recipe goes from being bland Midwestern American fare into a Thai kitchen five alarm fire. A great deal changes when those who have already swallowed “judge not” gets that after-kick of “measure for measure” heat. Suddenly “judge not” does not contain the whole message. We would like it to be a nice, neat, standalone package; a two-word pithy tweet. But with the measurement phrase that follows in Matthew, it’s no longer simple. Not judging was the answer a moment ago, but now Jesus lets us know that we will be judged. All of us. My concern is that the understanding I once held of “judge not” really boiled down to indifference or, again, the philosophy of Poombah or the Big Lewbowski, which is “Who cares? Ha-ku-na Ma-ta-ta!” This is just a variation of the idea that “all things are permitted,” which, in itself is a judgment. If you judge that nothing is wrong, then you have judged that morality is not objective, which is making a judgement. So you have made a judgement and will likely apply that same notion to your own life and actions. Even if we take care not to judge others, we will still be judged, and we will be judged by our actions, which are guided by our free will to judge. That sounds like word salad. To sum up, you will be judged, and even if you don’t think you’re judging others, you are. Poombah has judged, just as Jeffery Lebowski has judged.

If I “judge not” because I believe nothing is wrong, that there is no true right and wrong except what each person decides, then I have made a judgment. Logic, rhetoric, and debate are not in my field of experience. Surely, I’ve committed some fallacy here. Surely this site is littered with fallacies that I’m unaware of. These words of Jesus are nuanced and I’m not quite equipped to describe the depth of these verses, but meaning rises up suggesting that our simplified understanding of “Judge not” is incomplete without considering the whole of what Jesus says, particularly about his first commandment over all to “love God” and secondarily to “love one another.” But first, always, is his urgency for us to love God. There are three parts here that must be taken in and absorbed together.

First, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” meaning that it is not just a set of ethics that bring salvation but he himself. Second, Jesus says “You must love God with all your heart, mind, and soul,” and he says this is the most important rule of all. Lastly, putting a ribbon and bow on his message, he refers to himself as “I AM” four times in John’s Gospel, which is the most clear declaration of saying “I am God” that a first century citizen of Palestine could possibly understand. They knew of Exodus 3:14 where God said to Moses, “I AM.” Then there are the myriad instances of Jesus calling himself “the Lord of the Sabbath” and “Son of Man” and various other nuanced references and especially the interaction with Pilate in Mark where he admits to being the Messiah. He could not be more clear that he is declaring himself to be God than if he ran up and down the temple aisle playing the bongo drums and shouting, “I created the universe, I’m God.” Sometimes I wish he had performed an act like that to make it more clear to us gentiles, but to Jews the words “I AM” and “Son of Man” was effectively that same metaphorical bongo drum.

He clearly states that salvation is through him, that God must be worshiped, and that he is God. These all point to him as God, in the flesh. We think of John the Baptist as slightly “off” by eating grasshoppers and wearing a hair shirt, but he never declared anything even close to this outlandish. Moses didn’t go this far, and he went far. He met God, but never declared himself to be God. Elijah riding off to heaven in a fiery chariot? That’s a wild story, but it doesn’t touch the grandeur of this claim.

There is more to this declaration of Jesus, and this is one of those sentences that cannot easily be put aside, especially if you believe in the incarnation and resurrection and ascension. Heck, even if you can only get your head around one of those mysteries, you can’t set these words aside. Certainly the apostles and writers could never have concocted this story on their own, as they were not equipped. Who would be crazy enough to claim it unless they believed it? Virgil and Homer could not have come up with an epic quite like this. The profoundness of Jesus’ words is like nothing else in literature, which eliminates the notion that he was a lunatic and leaves me always turning back to him being divine. Even a great liar cannot have this kind of wisdom and also perform miracles like multiplying loaves of bread and bring himself back to life and ascend into the heavens. There are plenty of lunatics in the world, but they can’t walk on water. There are plenty of people who have claimed to be God, but they haven’t changed the world. There are plenty of people who have died trying to advance a person’s legacy or cause, but those efforts have not inspired an ever-burning movement that has outlasted every human empire and draws people to give immense amounts of time and money toward belief in the idea.

I think this is what makes it difficult for skeptics, because doubting miracles is something that comes naturally to us, especially today in the age of science. I also think people of the first century were not as gullible as we would like to pretend. However, his words have such depth and punch so hard that we see something extreme and strange happening in Jesus and in the people around him, something different from any other sage like Buddha or Confucious, so strange, in fact, that the miracles require a second look. Even once denied, these stories leave a lingering effect on us, one that causes us to look back over our shoulder now and then at the miracles even as we walk away, as if we need to re-assure ourselves, “Nah, there’s no way he fed the 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish.” “No, of course he didn’t walk on water.” Because if we are wrong and even a single miracle is real, then the weight of these words becomes infinite on our chests.

Some people come to believe via the miracles and others via the teachings. Those gifted with faith can get to the miracles quickly, while those gifted in reason must approach through the teachings and the parables. Still others must come by experience. I think many must come by all three avenues to get up the mountain.

Setting aside this story of the men awaiting to stone the woman (I’ve already parked it for a while here) if we remove the wisdom of his words and also remove his claims to divinity, and are only left with miracles; if he only walked on water, or if he only fed the five thousand, or if he only healed the withered hand, or if he only calmed the storm, or if he only raised Lazarus…what then? What if he only gave us the miracles and no wisdom?

I hate to say it, but then he is even more so God than if we only had his teachings.

If a miracle occurred at all, even once by his hand, this decides the case emphatically and completely, far more than if he was a good teller of tales or claimant to divinity, because we already know that no one can walk on water. But if you take even one miracle, perhaps walking on water, and you pair it with his wisdom and then you add in his claims about his being God, then we have a hat-trick of difficult information to handle.

For anyone that believes Jesus did not say he was God, they must surely exclude statements where he most clearly said exactly that. Consider: "Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” There is no statement that could possibly affirm more emphatically and finally that Jesus declared, “I’m God.” To Jews who grew up hearing stories of Exodus, God’s answer to Moses about his identity was, “I AM.”

What never ceases to amaze me is that people today, after two millennia of scholarship, on the heels of the thousands upon thousands of deep thinkers who pored over these books, believe they have suddenly unearthed the secret meaning of the Gospel accounts and it somehow matches whatever side-ideology that they happen to be selling, usually some unoriginal heresy that gets warmed up again, kind of like leftovers in a dirty microwave. I’ve heard it said that “the plain things are the main things, and the main things are the plain things.” This is why the Apostles’ Creed is a masterpiece, because it distills the story and purpose to the points that both children and adults, of all education levels, can memorize and understand. There will always be plenty of doubters who come along and announce their discovery of the hidden “truth,” but as the letter of Timothy warned, “…the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

His miracles, words, and claims overwhelm our puny minds with a question, and force us to consider the supernatural as an answer, even when we don’t want to go there. You can skim the text and pretend it doesn’t matter, but if you read closely and study his life, a higher form comes into focus and presents something strange, appealing, and other-worldly. This problem of his life, logic, and mysteries is that it all makes sense in the totality of the Bible, and I believe the Catechism of the Catholic Church is the handbook for understanding it all. I believe the Sacraments of the church make the invisible things visible to us and put the marks of faith upon us, and that the Holy Mass is Sacred and that the Eucharist truly is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus, and that through Confession our sins are forgiven as the priest acts in the person of Christ. When the Sacred becomes real, there can be no substitute for Baptism or partaking in the Eucharist at Mass. Somehow it all fits together, and in the strangest way it is the Mysteries that act like the glue to hold faith and reason together. The whole picture is there but we can only see parts of it at a time. It is the totality of scripture and tradition and the very clear presence of the Holy Spirit in this world that make Jesus a magnet that we cannot peel our eyes away from still today. There is nothing quite like these scenes and stories, not to mention the parables, in all of written literature and recorded history.

Ok, finally…back to the circle of stoning: when the woman sat in the middle, Jesus drew his finger in the sand, doodling while the “righteous” men warmed rocks in their hands. Some assume he was writing the men’s sins in the sand, as he already knew their hearts and their errors while they proudly lied and prepared to kill the woman. But it doesn’t say this explicitly in the story, so this is only speculation and Jesus may just literally be keeping his cool, ignoring the tension. In fact, since he shows calmness amid literal storms, that seems most likely - he is simply doodling in the sand, like the shortstop in little league, ignoring the stress and anxiety of the nattering small-souled adults around him. But that doesn’t mean that he is writing off adultery and sin as inconsequential.

We will be judged. He may not be writing our sins in the sand, but he already knows them. That’s guaranteed as nothing can be hidden from God. We will be judged. Just not by each other. I can almost hear him saying, “I’ll take care of the judgment, but thanks for offering to help.”

Strangely enough, anyone that I’ve heard utter the words, “Judge not,” usually goes on to spend the next breaths judging others. That includes Tupac Shakur in his song, Only God Can Judge Me, and come to think of it, Metallica’s song Holier than Thou. “Measure for measure” will we be judged, and the great warning about the unforgivable sin is the one that makes me shudder.

There is a moment where Jesus says, if you do not have the change of heart, you will get to the day of judgment and God will say, “I never knew you.” (Mt 7:21-23) This means you can appear to love God, you can do all the right things, make all the right moves, but God knows what you are really all about. That pizza punch-card will be thrown in the trash. He knows my interior state. I can’t fool him. Without interior change, I’ve made no change, and I can’t fake it. Fooling people is possible. Fooling God? That’s fooling yourself. Superficiality in actions and appearance is much like unrighteous judgment. You cannot fool God, just as those ready to stone the woman could not fool Jesus.

Those men wielding rocks who walked away: I always wonder if they were changed. We don’t know what happens to them afterward. Perhaps some were changed as Jesus spun the accusation back at them. Perhaps knowing the woman is guilty but not condemned struck them as profound on the way home, and they realized forgiveness is possible. Wouldn’t we love to know what happened to those men? It’s like the other nine lepers. Or what happened to the rich young ruler? We have all these cliffhangers where we have to wait for season two, but season two got cancelled due to crucifixion, so we’ll never know. Or someday maybe we will, but not today. Perhaps they seethed with anger and helped put Jesus to the Cross, but later realized their sin and turned, like St. Paul after he was out torturing and killing the first followers. We don’t know. But we don’t need to know, because we are those people. We are the Pharisees and the nine lepers and the rich young ruler. That’s the funny thing I realized when I thought about what happened to those men. I realized that wondering about them is the same as wondering about myself. Those men who came to stone the woman represent all of us, the readers, the people, the fallen souls of this world. How comical then that I read the story of the adulterer and the stoning and I spend so much time reflecting on my judgement of the Pharisees! If it didn’t cause me fear and trembling, I’d be laughing.

Jesus impacts this scene using few words. The woman, the target of the stoning, is not condemned. So we wonder, how can this be if Jesus has come to fulfill the law and the prophets? How can she be guilty, but not condemned? How can we be guilty, but not condemned?

And that question right there is the secret sauce of the Gospel accounts. What is that secret? That all are guilty. We deserve condemnation, but forgiveness is available. Forgiveness is possible. Redemption is possible. All are guilty, but all are not condemned, as redemption can be found in the person of Jesus. Forgiveness comes through the immense sacrifice of Jesus. The fallen (hint: that’s you and me) can still win because by his own choice, God chooses to be sacrificed. He comes down to earth in human form, and stands in the scene at the end, alone with the rock, and no one gets stoned to death in this story. But then at the end of his own human life, he is once again alone, in the center, but this time on the cross. There again, he is alone, abandoned, humiliated, accepting his fate. He is condemned, not us. He is guilty, though without sin. On the cross we see our own sins on full display in the agony of his torture as his life blood drains, his mouth goes dry, his lungs collapse, his muscles and tendons tear, his feet and hands rip against metal as he tries to shift and support his body on the cross. He cannot lean his head back on the wood for the thorns on his head slice him, and he cannot lean his head forward as it shifts his weight ahead and thereby wracks his feet with pain. He cannot press himself upward or his feet will dig further into the nail, and he cannot let himself be lowered or his hands will gape further on their nails. This unbearable pain must be endured for 180 minutes amid the noise of jeering and shaming and hatred and envy and malice and slander. And undeservingly, it is us who are rewarded. For his pain, we receive the gift of knowing our own weaknesses and being offered the chance at life, as he descends and spends the next two days conquering death and hell, until he returns in his infinite risen glory.

So judge not, yes, but remember: you will be judged.

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