A dangerous question to ask someone is “What don’t you like about Christians?” as you could be there a long time! But I’m willing to bet a top answer is that Christians are very judgmental (and yes, I suppose this is me being judgmental too). I can think of many examples where Christians judge others for the way they behave or the things they say. The only comfort is that Christians are fairly consistent, we will judge other Christians just as easily as non-Christians. If we look at our history, we can see plenty of division and splits over disagreements about how to do Christianity the “right” way. We can think of instances where some group look down on another because they think about things or do things a different way. They think they are the ones who are doing Christianity “right”, unlike those “other” people.
In our reading today, Paul is concerned about Christians judging other Christians. He points out that slaves are only responsible to their own master for their own conduct. One slave has no authority over any other slave to call them to account or criticise them, it is only the master that has that power. Each slave must give an accounting to their own master and no one else for what they have done. If then, Christians are servants of God, then it is only to God to whom they must account for what they have done. No Christian has the authority to demand another Christian account for their behaviour. Given all that is going on in our individual lives, shouldn’t we be more concerned about what we are doing ourselves; worry about our behaviour rather than that of others? If God has accepted someone, who are we to deny them fellowship?
Christ’s ministry is one of reconciliation. This should be embodied in His church. We should be seeking to be united, one people together, in our diversity rather than seeking to create divisions. It was a sign of the strength of an empire that they could hold together all sorts of people from different cultures and backgrounds as one. If we are divided, we cannot give witness to the reconciliating ministry of Jesus Christ. How remarkable is the church if we are comprised of different people, from different backgrounds and practices, united together to be the one body of Jesus Christ? What impression do we give to the outside world if we are fighting among ourselves? The simple truth is, we do not have the authority to judge other Christians. We lack humility if we ignore the fact that God has accepted others, yet we won’t. We are setting ourselves up as having the authority of God if we judge others. Let’s worry about ourselves before we start criticising everyone else, as Shakespeare warned, “Physician, heal thyself”.