Pass javascript object to java's JsonObject-Collection of common programming errors

I am trying to pass some simple javascript object from my Parse.com cloud function (back-end)to my android application.

Here is the code of the javascript class:

function Rate()
{
  this.avgRate = 0.0;
  this.numberOfRaters = 0;
}

Here is how I pass it (2 options):

response.success(resp); // {avgRate = 4,numberOfRaters = 1}
response.success(JSON.stringify(resp)); // {"avgRate":4,"numberOfRaters":1}

Here is how I get it in java:

Object test = ParseCloud.callFunction("createNewRate", params); // test is {avgRate = 4,numberOfRaters = 1} or {"avgRate":4,"numberOfRaters":1} (option 1 or 2)
JSONObject response = ParseCloud.callFunction("createNewRate", params); // here is a crash

The error that I get is:

06-16 23:51:44.337: E/AndroidRuntime(13892): Caused by: java.lang.ClassCastException: java.util.HashMap cannot be cast to org.json.JSONObject

How should I handle this correctly?

Thanks