PALM SUNDAY

April 13, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R.I.

 

Luke 22:47-23:49

 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” That saying highlights what I like to call the “paradox of judgment.” Much as we rightly hate to be judgmental, we cannot avoid exercising judgment. Those two things are not the same. From day to day, we inescapably make dozens of critical evaluations and decisions. The paradox, however, is that in the very act of judging, we bring judgment upon ourselves.

 

A probably apocryphal story tells of a brash young American tourist who went into the Ufizzi Gallery in Florence, one of Italy’s most famous art museums. In less than an hour he breezed through the rooms containing medieval and renaissance paintings that occupied other visitors for days on end. On his way out, he remarked to the guard at the door, “Well, I don’t think much of your old masters.” With a certain air of resigned old-world weariness, the guard replied calmly, “Yes, sir. And they don’t think much of you either. But unfortunately for you, the ones on trial here aren’t the old masters but the viewers.”

 

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes that the word “trial” signifies an event (or even an ordeal) designed to reveal the truth. The purpose of a judicial trial in particular is to determine an accused person’s guilt or innocence. But in the process the trial typically lays bare many other truths as well – the honesty and reliability of the witnesses, the competence of the lawyers, the impartiality of the judge, and the wisdom of the jury.

 

In other words, many others are on trial besides the accused. In a real sense, every time it sets out to render judgment our entire justice system itself goes on trial. When the courts find guilty and sentence an innocent person who’s later exonerated by new evidence; or, conversely, when they acquit and set free a guilty person who then goes out and commits further crimes, then the judicial system itself stands condemned by its own false judgment.

 

In every act of judging, then, we subject ourselves to judgment. The judgment may be favorable or unfavorable, innocent or guilty. The key point is that we have no privileged vantage point from which to evaluate and judge others without becoming subject ourselves to evaluation and judgment at the same time.

 

In his famous essay “God in the Dock,” C. S. Lewis pointed out that many of his contemporaries seemed to think they had the luxury of critically examining Christianity’s claims, and effectively standing in judgment over God himself, without any corresponding sense of their own accountability to God. Describing the difference between previous generations and his own in this regard, he wrote:

 

“The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the bench and God in the dock.”

 

But what would it really look like to put God on trial? Can we imagine such a thing? The answer is that almost two thousand years ago, we did precisely that. When God came among us as a human being, we arrested him, tried him, judged him, condemned him, and executed him.

 

What stands out in the Passion according to Saint Luke is how the different characters respond to Jesus in so many different ways. Luke seems acutely aware that it’s not Jesus who’s really on trial here, but everybody else.

 

As the story unfolds, many of the characters reach their own verdicts concerning Jesus. The chief priests, scribes, and rulers of the people seem to have their minds made up from the beginning. They press relentlessly for Jesus’ condemnation, thus securing their own condemnation.

 

Representing this world’s ruling powers, Pilate and Herod find nothing to condemn in Jesus. After declaring Jesus innocent three times, Pilate demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of Roman imperial justice by condemning Jesus to death anyway.

 

The crowds are a bit harder to pigeonhole. At least some of them go along with the chief priests and scribes in taking up the cry, “Crucify, crucify him.” But Luke is careful to tell us that the crowds watch the crucifixion itself in silence, not joining in the taunts of the rulers and soldiers. And once Jesus has died, the crowds return to their homes beating their breasts—a gesture of sorrow and perhaps even repentance.

 

The starkest contrast is between the two thieves crucified with Jesus. One joins in the executioners’ mockery and abuse. The other, against all expectations, puts his faith and trust in Jesus—saying “Remember me when you come into your kingdom”—and receiving in turn the promise, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise.”  There’s no clearer instance of the point that Jesus is not really the one on trial here; in reaching a true judgment of Jesus the good thief gains his own acquittal.

 

Likewise with the centurion who renders the verdict: “Certainly this man was innocent!” In so saying, he acknowledges his complicity in a wrongful execution and yet possibly gains the beginning of his own acquittal before God.

 

In all these different ways, the characters reach their various judgments concerning Jesus, and are themselves judged accordingly. The same is true for us today. As we question, probe, and evaluate God, God questions, probes, and evaluates us. As we pronounce our verdict, we receive the verdict pronounced upon us.

 

The difficult truth is that none of us can stand up to that kind of scrutiny. None of us has clean hands. Throughout our lives, so many of our judgments are misjudgments, so many of our decisions are so deeply flawed. So often—as the priest and writer Richard John Neuhaus once put it—we’re at our worst precisely when we’re trying to do our best.

 

But notice that the characters who come off best in the Passion narrative are not those beyond reproach—for, besides Jesus and his Mother, there really aren’t any—but rather those who accept responsibility for their actions and repent of their sins: the thief who acknowledges that he’s receiving the due reward of his deeds; the centurion who admits his complicity in a wrongful execution; the crowds who go home beating their breasts.

 

Our only hope lies in repentance. Yet, once we’ve put God himself on trial and condemned him to death, what possible hope can remain for us? For the answer to that question, we need to attend our upcoming Holy Week liturgies culminating in our celebration of Easter a week from today.