GodSprings- 09, June, 2017

Is Something Wrong With Me or Others?

"Judge not, that you be not judged."

Matthew 7:1

A member of a monastic order once committed a fault. A council was called to determine the punishment, but when the monks assembled it was noticed that Father Joseph was not among them. The superior sent someone to say to him, “Come, for everyone is waiting for you.”  So, Father Joseph got up and went. He took a leaking jug, filled it with water, and carried it with him. When the others saw this they asked, “What is this, father?” The old man said to them, “My sins run out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I am coming to judge the error of another.”

We can be so quick to point the finger at others but slow to consider our own weaknesses. If the truth be told, we are all a little guilty of taking a magnifying glass to other people’s lives while turning a blind eye to our own. We judge others by one standard and ourselves by another.

What was Jesus calling for when He said, “Do not judge?” Did He want us to close our eyes to error and evil? Should we never address wrong behaviour in another person because, after all, none of us are perfect?

I think Jesus was not forbidding us from judging others entirely, but He was giving the boundaries by which we can judge others properly. The type of judging Jesus was denouncing is judgement that tries to evaluate the motives of another person. We are limited to our understanding because all we see are the outward actions of others, but God is able to discern the inner intentions of a person’s heart. God alone is able to rightly judge a person’s motivations.

God does not forbid our judging of wrong and evil actions, but says instead, rather than looking at others with an eye of condemnation, we should look at others with an eye of  restoration. Jesus is not calling us to blindly accept wrong or evil but, when appropriate, to benevolently confront those wrongs with grace and leaving the final judgment in the hands of God.

Judging is our favourite pastime. We are great at judging the world around us by standards we would highly resent being held. Judging makes us feel good because it puts us in a better light than others. So Jesus says our main priority should always be “How am I living?” not “How are you living?”

Let us pray – Dear Lord, help us to avoid making snap judgments of others by prayerfully looking at our own life first and making changes we need to make. Amen.