A few years back, I was invited to judge a very, very important event in the life of Mount Holly, NC.  You see, it was known that I used to be a chef so when it came time for the annual cornbread cooking contest, I was high on the list of celebrity judges.  Wouldn’t you know it?  They called me and I was happy to avail myself for this annual event.  As the weeks leading up to the event passed, I committed myself to being the best cornbread judge I could be.  Not that that required very much of me, just so you know, but I did take the role very seriously.  One of the things I was committed to doing was being IMPARTIAL.  The best judges are always that, aren’t they?  So that’s what I was determined to do.  Well, the day of the contest came and I was ready.  Didn’t eat breakfast that morning to make sure I had plenty of room for all the various cornbread I’d be sampling.  I get to the event and there is a fellow pastor of mine, waiting for me.  “June Jones made cornbread this year, it’s really good.”  The pastor of the First Baptist Church told me.  June, her name’s been changed to protect her anonymity, was known to me.  A dear, dear woman who labored hard at the Community Relief Organization as a primary volunteer.  Her service to that organization really allowed it to run smoothly.  I was also a member of a board June was on and was continually impressed by her professionalism as well as her determination to do a good job.  There was one other fact that weighed upon me – June had recently lost her husband to cancer.  She was a grieving widow.  I knew that very second, being impartial was going to be difficult.  I now had a favorite in the fight and that can be poison for impartial judging.  But still, I was determined to make the right, if unpopular, decision.  But here’s the thing – June’s cornbread had actual corn in it.  IT’s a nice touch but one I personally don’t like very much. Call me a cornbread purist, I don’t need cheddar cheese, jalapeno slices or, as the case at hand would be, corn kernels.  Long story short – I didn’t like her cornbread that much.      Now, guess who won the coveted prize that day?  If you guessed June Jones, you’d be right.  Technically, I think, I cast the deciding vote as the other two had split between June’s and another. 

  Was I a good judge that day?  In the strictest sense of the word, I was a terribly biased judge that day and, by my reckoning, that made me a terrible judge.  I begin there because I think that’s an important awareness for us to have right at the outset.  We aren’t terribly good at judging, at being impartial.   In fact, some might suggest we’re terrible at it.  After all, there’s always a June Jones in our midst isn’t there, a reason to vote one way when the right call is in the opposite direction?  Thankfully, the Bible gives us some of its most explicit instructions when it comes to judging people and that’s a good thing.  We need to be reminded. 

  Paul, as he writes to the church at Rome, writes boldly in the preceding material, providing a veritable who’s who list of sins committed by idolaters.  “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.  They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.  They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.  They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.  Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”

  Remember, we talked about that last week, about how easy it is to succumb to idolatry, of worshipping something or someone other than the Almighty God known to us in Jesus Christ.  This list is exhaustive and in the context of the letter, Paul is speaking about people without the Law.  This section of the letter could’ve been read as an indictment against Gentiles – those who knew God because of creation but CHOSE to worship idols. 

  So, if you can imagine someone reading this letter for the first time and coming across that list of sins being committed, it would’ve been easy to reckon Paul was talking about SOMEBODY ELSE.  It’s easy to read about someone else’s transgressions, isn’t it?  Plus, doing so always activates that little moralist inside our heads which is firmly convinced we’re the best thing since sliced bread and everyone else is shady as heck. 

  But then along comes Romans 2.  Let’s read it and hear what Paul has to say…“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges.  For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.  We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.  Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself – that you will escape the judgment of God?  Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?  But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”

  This isn’t the rosiest passage of Romans, to say the least but it does make a point, doesn’t it?  It’s the ultimate reversal.  You think we’ve been talking about other people when, in actuality, this discussion of idolatrous sin is of you, too.  It’s a quick comeuppance for a church Paul’s never met.  I belabored that point a few weeks back for this very reason.  See here the temerity with which Paul expresses himself.  This is no cowering chicken for in the first two chapters, he’s already begun the process of telling them some very difficult truths.  And the difficult truth is this – when we judge others, we condemn ourselves for doing similar (If not identical) things.  You see, when it comes to judges, we aren’t very good, are we?  We are all like me at that cornbread contest.