On the stern of an aircraft carrier, a bunch of guys stand watching each landing performed on the carrier's deck. They wear white vests (the colour designated for safety officers) and are called Landing Signal Officers.
Made up of senior pilots, these officers judge each landing on the carrier. In each of their hands they also hold a trigger which at their judgement they can set off at any moment as the landing jet aircraft approaches, waving the pilot off if the landing is not looking as it should be.
If the pilot gets out of shape in his landing, too high, too low, has not put down his landing gear or arresting hook the landing safety officer waves him off to go round and try the landing again.
The signal officers also score each landing and many an ego of gung ho "top guns" has been brought down by a low scoring landing that they had performed.
These white vested signal officers are safety officers, they are their because of their wisdom and experience, they stand watch to protect and teach pilots with a different view of the landing. They also stand as rear guards to protect the rest of the personnel on the foredeck of the carrier from being injured or killed by an out of control plane skidding across the deck of the Navy's carrier.
The Christian Church is like an aircraft carrier. Because the church's charter is to bring others on deck though baptism into Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, through the preaching and teaching of his word, the administration of Baptism, Holy Communion, and the Absolution of confessing sinners, it makes the church a dangerous place. Right from the nave of the church to the everyday lives of each Christian, we face the high seas of turmoil and tribulation. Just as an aircraft carrier sets sail on the sea to stand guard over others, it also draws the attention of the enemy who doesn't want it there.
The signal officers stand guard over one part of the carrier's operation. They judge to protect people, safety is their job! These officer join in with a number of others whose job it is to judge. Imagine if they were not allowed to judge, and all on the carrier could do what they wanted. How long would the ship and it's navy survive?
Yet in this era of the church, people are doing just that! People are turning against the authority put there to keep them spiritually safe. Many believe they need to pilot their own entry into and out of the church, and because they do are missing the deck in the churning tumultuous times we live.
Our landing signal officers in white, our pastors, are being told they're not allowed to judge, and therefore aren't allowed to protect those who need guidance in their lives. Even bishops and pastors are being sucked into the chaos advocating judgement being stamped out. Therefore many look like pastors or landing signal officers, but are or have made themselves powerless to have any authority over our spiritual safety or how the ship of the church is ordered under our commander in chief, Jesus Christ!
Matthew 7:1 is often misquoted as a anti-judgement mantra. However Jesus says in verse one and two,
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you." Matthew 7:1–2 (ESV)
What Jesus says here is if you don't want to be judged don't judge because the judgement you use is the judgement to be used against you too. Because by humanity's very nature we're created to judge, surely we then need to place ourselves under a judgement and make judgements that create eternal peace within ourselves but more importantly, with our heavenly Father.
The LSOs (Landing Signal Officers) on a carrier are judged by the same judgements when they strap on a jet and land on the deck of the carrier. I believe that they participate in the operations of the carrier because they believe the judgement process to be good. Imaging how you might feel if you knew the carrier operations on which you were landing were in disarray. Yet this is exactly where the church seems to be sailing these days.
As it gets darker we need LSO pastors more and more, to make judgements so the church can sail through the darkness and people are brought out of the darkness and on deck with infallible accuracy.
We need to relearn how to judge.
From the Psalms - Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the children of man uprightly? No, in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth. Psalm 58:1–2 (ESV)
Jesus says - Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. John 7:24 (ESV)
The writer of Hebrews reminds - Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Hebrews 13:17 (ESV)
Human being have been created to judge, if we were to stop judging we would need to have most of our brain removed. So rather than make bad judgements by pursuing the anti-judgement mantra it is time for the church to return to the right judgement given to us by Jesus Christ in the word of God, and we let the word of God stand in context to the entirety of God's written word.
Grace, Mercy, & Peace
Friarpuk
