The Neighborhood Podcast

"What Disciples Do: Disciples Don't Judge" (October 26, 2025 Sermon)

• Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

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Ever notice how a small flash of judgment can snowball into stress, distance, and a short fuse at home? We trace that pattern from a vivid scene in Luke 18—the Pharisee who boasts and the tax collector who pleads—into the very real moments where our egos try to buy a hit of moral superiority. Along the way, we connect lifeguard wisdom with Brene Brown’s research on shame to show why judging others drags everyone under, and why humility is not humiliation but an honest way back to connection.

We get practical about the places judgment flares up fastest, like chaotic intersections and digital scrolls, and unpack the hidden costs: cortisol spikes, anxious reactivity, and a shrinking window for empathy. Then we draw a crucial line between mercy and passivity. Withholding judgment does not mean ignoring harm; it means telling the truth without contempt, holding boundaries without dehumanizing, and seeking repair without self-righteous theater. That shift changes how we pray, how we parent, how we partner, and how we show up as neighbors.

To make it doable, we share a three-step rhythm you can use today: acknowledge the judgment without shame, refuse to beat yourself up, and redirect immediately to specific gratitude. It’s a small move with compounding effects—calming your body, widening your view, and opening space for wiser action. If you’re tired of comparison stealing your joy and cynicism setting the tone, this conversation offers a grounded path toward grace, accountability, and everyday courage. If it resonates, follow the show, share this episode with a friend who needs some peace on the commute, and leave a review to help others find us. What’s one place you’re ready to trade judgment for mercy this week?

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SPEAKER_00:

Alright, friends, as we continue our sermon series called What Disciples Do, our theme for today is Disciples Don't Judge. And I know what you're thinking, the same thing I was thinking as I was starting to write this sermon. This one's so hard. Oh my goodness. But we can do it. Let us listen to what God is saying to God's church, using the words of Luke 18, 9 through 14. Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves, that they were righteous, and regarded others with contempt. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus: God, I thank you that I am not like the other people. Thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of all my income. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, God, be merciful to me. A sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted. Friends, holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God. Thank you. Friends, let us pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sights, O Lord. Our rock and our redeemer. Amen. So I used to be a lifeguard. Do we have anybody among us who has ever been a lifeguard before? Okay, there's a handful of us. So back during my college and graduate school summers, I spent several of those summers working as a camp counselor at my Presbytery's summer camp on Lake Alatoona in Northwest Georgia. I was a poor college student, and uh if you were a lifeguard, in addition to being a counselor, you got an extra like 600 bucks a summer. So for me, that was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. So I got certified. I went through the necessary training. If you've never been a lifeguard, you might think that the first response to someone in water distress, you know, arms flailing, struggling to stay afloat, yelling for help, is to jump in immediately, grab them, and bring them back to safety. That's actually the last thing that you should do if you know what you're doing and you remember your training. The reason is that someone in distress in the water can be extremely dangerous. In fact, a lifeguard should try every other option before physically jumping into the water themselves. The common phrase that is taught to lifeguards as they go through training is reach and throw, don't go. When someone is in trouble, you first call for help, you look for hazards, you throw in a flotation device, or you reach out with the rescue pole, and if none of those things happen, then and only then do you jump into the water to grab them. You try every alternative before jumping in because that person will grab you, that person will drag you down into the water, and you, as the lifeguard, should not become a second victim. When someone is drowning, they will pull you under. Brene Brown uses this as a metaphor to explain what happens when we judge each other and why we do it. She makes the case that when we judge each other, we pull each other down and we all drown together. It's a harmful cycle that Jesus expects us, his disciples, to break. And I get it, y'all, I get it. It is so darn hard. Like, really, really, really, really hard. I get it. And you know what the Apostle Paul got it too when he writes in his letter to the Romans, I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. That's Romans 7, 15, if my memory serves me correctly. Indeed, we too often fail to do what we want, and we end up doing the very thing we hate or that we say we hate. I don't think we're all terrible, maniacally evil people. I don't think any of us woke up this morning thinking, I cannot wait to judge people today. It's gonna be so much fun. But it is dangerously instinctual, and I do believe that we can understand why we do it. It's quite simple. Brene Brown would say we are only as hard on others as we are on ourselves. She emphasizes this book and uh this point in her book, Daring Greatly, which I commend to all of us. She argues that when we judge others, we are actually acting from a deep sense of shame and insecurity about ourselves. She states the following. She says, What's ironic or perhaps natural is that research tells us that we judge people in areas where we're vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we're doing. She goes on to say, if I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other parents. If I feel good about my body, I don't go around making fun of other people's weight or appearance. We're hard on each other because we're using each other as a launching pad out of our perceived shaming deficiency. I'm going to read that last sentence there because there's a lot in there. She says we're hard on each other because we're using each other as a launch pad out of our perceived shaming deficiency. When we're drowning, when we're drowning in the waters of our own self-judgment, we try to judge others to get to safer ground, to get to the side of the pool, but it doesn't work. It just doesn't work. It might give us a quick moment of self-righteousness or a fleeting feeling of superiority, but when it's over, those insecurities within us that prompted the judging are still there. They haven't gone anywhere. Judging others by projecting our shame onto them only fuels disconnection, she would say. And here's the thing, friends, judging others fuels disconnection because it lowers our ability to regulate our emotions on a neurological level, which directly impacts our capacity to treat ourselves and those around us with the kindness, the generosity, and the respect that I trust we all strive for. I'll use myself as an example to illustrate this. When I sat down with some of you last Tuesday at the Word This Week to discuss this passage, I asked the group, what situations often make you feel tempted to judge others? What situations are you in when you feel that judgment rise? Anybody want to guess what some of the responses were? Oh, come on, y'all know this. There's a lot of them, but the one that reached to the top of the list was when we are driving. Yes. Yes, indeed. We all know that feeling. And one of my favorite places to judge people is at the Godforsaken intersection, not far from where we are. Y'all know the one I'm talking about. Lawndale, Battleground, Cornwallis, and Westover Terrace, where they intersect, or nay, collide, right? It is a place of lawlessness. It is a place of reckless abandon and of deep, deep depravity of all humans. No one uses their turn signals. People run red lights all the time. Drivers block the intersection despite the very clear signage that says do not block intersection. It and I just love judging people at that intersection. It makes me feel good for a moment. And then I start heading east on Wendover and I judge the people who do U-turns where it says don't do U-turns. And then I turn south on 29 and I judge the idiots who drive 10 miles an hour under the speed limit in the left lane. And then I take the exit to Martin Luther King and I turn down Liberty Road to go to my house, and I judge the people in front of me who either don't use their turn signals or even worse, wait to turn on their turn signals until after they've stopped and it defeats the whole. Okay. You get what I'm saying? Makes me feel good for a moment. But then I get home and I walk home and I open the door, and my self-righteousness has made my cortisol level go through the roof. The roof. You know what cortisol is? It's a stress hormone. It makes me feel anxious and short-tempered and on edge. I've spent the last 15 to 20 minutes of my drive home judging other people's driving habits while cleverly neglecting to take any responsibility for my own bad driving habits, and suddenly I'm a grouchy, you know what. I'm much more likely to yell at Hazel Grace or Winnie. I'm much more likely to be short with Trisha. I'm so focused on my own stress that I struggle to be present with my family whom I haven't seen all day long, and I had these few precious hours to be with them before the kids go to bed and Trisha and I pass out, and the rat race starts all over again the next day. I feel like a terrible father, a grumpy spouse, and certainly not the Fred Rogers S pastor that I aspire to be. Now listen up, church. None of us can be Mr. Rogers all the time. Heck, even Fred Rogers was not Mr. Rogers all the time. It's okay to get angry. It's okay to mess up. It's okay to be human. We can't prevent ourselves from sinking into shame if we swim in the waters of unreasonable expectations. You know, Eleanor Roosevelt once so brilliantly said that comparison is the thief of joy. No, friends, it's okay to be human. I believe, but I believe that Jesus expects us to have honest talks about and a healthy respect for the fact that unchecked judgment is the root of all kinds of hypocrisy and cruelty and suffering that you and I bring upon ourselves. And to illustrate this point, he shares this brief parable that he knew that his audience could relate to. I'm guessing we can as well. It would have been a familiar scene for many of them. The setting was the what's called the court of the Gentiles in the temple, an open-air space where anyone could gather to pray. And in this court, we see two characters with two very different kinds of prayers. The first is the Pharisee, who is praying a form of Jewish prayer called the Baraka, which comes from the Hebrew word for praise or blessing or thanksgiving. It is above all a prayer of gratitude that was often spoken before meal or before some sort of sacrifice. It's important to note in the context of this story that this is not the first Baraka prayer in Luke's gospel. Notably, the first two prayers of its kind appear early in the gospel, first by Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth and the soon-to-be father of who? Y'all remember? John the Baptist, yeah. And he prays a Baraka prayer, thanking God for raising up a Savior who will save us. And then not long after that, Mary offers up her own Baraka prayer, thanking God for blessing her by looking with favor upon the lowliness of God's servant. Now, fast forward about 17 chapters, and this Pharisee's prayer of blessing appears, but it stands in contrast with Zechariah in Mary's prayer, notably because he gives thanks for what, or rather who he is not. Thank you, God, he says, that I'm not like those people. I won't ask by a show of hands who among us have prayed that exact prayer. I will raise my hand and say that I have. The Pharisee begins with this clear posture of self-righteousness. Notice to his physical stance. He is standing and praying up. It's also worth mentioning that not all of what he prays is in itself problematic. Rather, it's how he delivers it. For example, he gives thanks to God for two spiritual practices that he embodies fasting and tithing. Friends, there's nothing wrong with expressing gratitude to God for giving us the ability to do things that strengthen your faith and bring you closer to God and neighbor. I frequently ask God to soften my heart towards those I judge. And in the moments I'm able to do that, I give thanks to God for helping me do that. That's okay. And in this case, fasting and tithing can be wonderful ways to practice the generosity that God has first given us. In turn, they can be powerful ways to remind us of our need for God's mercies and our mandate to share those same mercies with others. Where the Pharisee gets tripped up, of course, is how he frames his gratitude. His gratitude isn't really directed to God, it's really directed to who? Himself. Sure, he aims the gratitude at God, but you and I know better, as did the hearers of this parable. We understand better because Jesus immediately directs our attention to one of the very people that the Pharisee was boasting that he was not, the task collector. Y'all don't need me to tell you why people didn't like tasters. So, in contrast to the Pharisee's upward prayer, the task collector has a downward prayer. He can't even bring himself to gaze upon the heavens. Instead, he beats his chest in shame. He bows, he simply asks for mercy. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less. Now I have a theory for who this task collector was, and I'll openly admit there is absolutely no proof to back up this theory, but my sanctified imagination begs it to be true. Earlier in Luke's gospel, John the Baptist is preaching to anyone who will listen, and three different groups of people ask him specific questions for guidance in their spiritual lives. The crowds, you may remember, ask, well, what should we do? And he says, Well, pretty simple. If you have two coats, share it with someone who has none. And then a group of soldiers asked the same question, well, we, what should we do? And he says, Well, don't extort money from anyone through threats or false accusations. And to be content with your wages. And then a third group, anybody know what this third group is? Tax collectors. Say, well, what should we do? And John the Baptist says to the tax collectors, collect no more than the amount that is prescribed for you to collect. Now, my theory, friends, is that the very tax collector in today's parable was part of that crowd back in the third chapter of Luke's Gospel. No, I can't prove it. But it would make sense. It seems to me likely that this man heard that edict from John the Baptist and is now struggling with what it means for him as he tries to be faithful. We talked a little bit about wrestling last week in the story of Jacob in Genesis 32. This tasctor, I think, is doing his own, he's in his own wrestling match. He's limping before God because he recognizes his need for forgiveness. And like Jacob, in last week's story, he understands his need for God's blessing. Now to return to Brene Brown's drowning metaphor, in this parable, the Pharisee is drowning, though he would never admit it, but he thinks he can rescue himself. He doesn't need a lifeguard, or at least he doesn't think he needs a lifeguard. By contrast, the tax collector knows full well that he's drowning, and he recognizes that he desperately needs a flotation device. The tax collector knew all too well what we are reminded of on this Reformation Sunday that we are not saved by our own good actions, but we are saved by grace through faith. Now, a couple things to remember as we interpret this passage. First, it's important to remember that withholding judgment does not mean avoiding accountability. Okay? Withholding judgment does not imply ignoring harm that's caused when someone hurts another person, whether through personal wrongdoing or systemic injustice. Jesus is not saying, live and let live, or just worry about yourself. Those are overly simplified interpretations that, if left unchecked, can provide cover for any kind of evil behavior. No, we can withhold judgment and protest injustice. We can withhold judgment and stand up for what is right. We can withhold judgment and hold one another accountable in our collective journey to embody God's kingdom of righteousness and peace. None of these things are mutually exclusive. Secondly, judging not only harms the person it targets, but it also harms the person who's doing the judging. I mentioned earlier that judging others when I'm in that intersection raises my cortisol level, which in the short term could increase my anxiety and in the long term can raise my risk of heart disease, depression, obesity, and any other sort of things we try to avoid. But I also want to frame this self-harm within a theological perspective. When we judge others, we diminish our own humanity. If we are to be fully human as God initially created us to be, part of that humanity involves recognizing our complete dependence on God's mercies and then living our lives as a gracious response to that mercy. Therefore, I don't think the tax collector is the only character in the story we should have pity for. Yes, he's lost in his own sinfulness, but the Pharisee is no less lost in his own self-righteousness. And finally, church, I don't believe the point of this parable is that God finds joy or satisfaction when we beat ourselves up like the tax collector. I don't think God is calling us to a self-flagellation exercise. Let me be clear, beating ourselves up merciless to prove to God that we're worthy of mercy is actually just trading one form of works righteousness for another. Yes, God calls us to repent, but that doesn't mean we turn our hatred inward. Instead, repentance is about God calling us to direct our love outward. That's what repentance is all about. I think that's an important distinction to be made. So if you want to join me in training yourself, not uh training ourselves not to drown each other in the harmful cycles of judgment and shame, I suggest a simple spiritual practice, which I've begun trying out for size lately. I find that when I'm trying to give up a bad habit or at least cut back on it, it's helpful to replace it with something else. Trisha is trying to cut down on her social media use, so she has taken up cross-stitching. Okay. I am also trying to reduce my social media time, so I've started spending some more time on the Duolingo app to improve my Spanish so that our two daughters cannot one day uh uh collaborate with one another in a language that mommy and daddy don't understand. So I thought this week, okay, how can I apply this to this spiritual discipline? How can I apply this to try to judge people less? And so this week I'm trying something new. Whenever I catch myself in the posture of the Pharisee, hurling judgment at someone else, I'm gonna do three things in rapid succession. Number one, unlike the Pharisee, I'm going to acknowledge my own judgment. Number two, unlike the tax collector, I'm not gonna beat myself up over it over it. Number three, most importantly, I'm gonna redirect my judgment to gratitude. Now I'll give you an example of how I did that. Just yesterday, I was driving back from Pinehurst from a wedding. Y'all, Pinehurst is ritzy. I have never been to Pinehurst before. I don't play golf, but if I did, man. So, anyways, I was driving back from Pinehurst and I witnessed not one, but two people run a red light in front of me. My self-righteousness boiled up. I could feel the tension in the arms as my cortisol level increased. I white-knuckled the steering wheel and I said something to them that I'm not gonna say right now from the pulpit. I had one of those preacher moments when you have to laugh at yourself and remind yourself that you're literally preaching on this in less than 24 hours. So I prayed a prayer of gratitude to God. No, I didn't pray a baraka prayer, thanking God I wasn't like those people. Attempting though that prayer might have been. Instead, I prayed a simple and brief prayer, thanking God that I owned a car, that I had a car that I could use to safely transport me and my family around, to visit family and to do my job. And then I went about the rest of my day. Did that make a difference? I don't know yet. But I'm gonna keep on trying. And I think ultimately that's exactly what Jesus is asking us, his disciples, to do. In the name of God, the creator, redeemer, and sustainer, may all of us God's children say.