Christians are notorious for judging whether other people are “good” or not. This judgment is just as much towards others within the church as those outside of it. Yet this is problematic for many reasons. What is considered to characterize a “good person” changes quite a bit in different times and places. Each generation has a different sensibility for what is good, and most people have little patience who have different definitions of what counts as good. So much of the tension on hot button issues comes from this clash of definitions of what counts as being a “good person.”
It is rare to find a vibrant and dynamic faith community that is also a judgmental one. There are some instances where this is true, but such communities tend to define themselves as being against something and are often marked by hostility to those outside of their narrow community. More than that, such groups tend to move further and further away from the teachings of Jesus. After all, Jesus insisted “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.” (Matthew 7:1). A congregation alive in Christ is a congregation that is focused on the grace, love, and peace of God and not on making judgments about others.
What about sin, though? Isn’t it important to get rid of sin and be righteous people? Doesn’t that mean being good people? To think in this way is to ignore the grace of God. All people are incapable of overcoming sin and so incapable of being righteous before God. Therefore we are all reliant on the love and grace of God. This comes to us through the gift of faith given by the Holy Spirit. Here is the scandalous part of God’s grace: God is more interested in us being faithful than in us being good. To be faithful means to trust God with everything we are. When we turn ourselves over to God, we do not need to worry if we are good or not. We rely on God’s grace. Yet, in trusting God with our lives we begin to become more loving, more accepting, less judgmental, and more willing to serve the needs of others in Christ’s name. We will do justice, love kindness, and walk wisely with God (Micah 6:8). Not everyone who sees those traits will think of them as being a good person, though. Such loving work will ruffle some feathers, just as Jesus and all of the apostles constantly ruffled feathers in their ministries. To be faithful often means to be seen as troublesome rather than good.
As Christians, then, our goal is not to be seen as good. It is to be seen as faithful and loving. If we do that, goodness will take care of itself. God’s love will take care of us, and encourage us to be good in a way that the world might not value but has ultimate worth. It is to be part of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God’s grace. It is to free ourselves of judgment so that we might truly love God and the world that God loves.