Judgment and Inclusiveness

The readings in my Episcopal parish last Sunday included two classic texts for Christian ethical and political thought: Amos's prophetic challenge to the royal temple cult of Israel, followed by the parable of the Good Samaritan.  (As I look at the Catholic lectionary, it seems you may have heard Deuteronomy instead of Amos.)  At The Christian Century's Theolog blog, William Willimon -- a great Methodist preacher -- reflects on the two together, finding the theme of God's judgment not only in Amos (where it's obvious), but in the parable:

We gather in church to be closer to God. But how do we like proximity to a God who loves enough not to pass by but lingers long enough among us to judge us, to hold a higher standard of judgment against us than that by which we measure ourselves? To a God who is not only loving but righteous, and rarely leaves us unscathed? God is no limp projection of ourselves and our felt needs. God wields a sword against our self-righteous presumption, and against our positive self-image slams a disgusting Samaritan who, while not having our theological commitments, embodies those commitments better than we.

In positing that the person who is very much "the other" may embody our best commitments, the Samritan story teaches a lesson of "inclusiveness."  Today that term, a very popular one, is typically set in opposition to judgment: to be inclusive toward people or ideas is to refrain ever from judging them.  But the two come together in the best way at the heart of the Gospel:  One of the most inclusive messages in human history is that we are all sinners, failing to measure to God's plumb line, and thus all in need of salvation and grace, which God in love offers to all.  As Willimon points out, this challenges all of our notions of self-satisfaction and superiority.  But it does so under standards of judgment -- some of which you fail, but some of which, I must always remember, I fail -- and not under a version of inclusiveness that, too frequently these days, reduces to moral relativism or feel-good therapy.

Tom