Matthew 7:1-5 (NRSV)
Judging Others
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
You all know I spend a lot of time everyday cruising the internet. It started out as a way to stay in touch with my family members, then extended out to friends who live at a distance. I am not a telephone person - I’m actually a little phone-phobic. On-line communication is much more comfortable for me. Even at my other workplace, my primary work is designing and implementing on-line communications between the business and our customers. I spend a lot of time out there on “the webs.”
A goodly part of the time I spend on-line has to do with cruising through various “Christian” web-magazines, reading opinion pieces, or in conversations with other church folk, trying to keep an open ear for what is going on in the church at large these days – listening in to what people are thinking and doing as “church.” Many of the ideas I’ve brought in here for discussion over the past few years have come from here. I have learned a lot this way.
There are skills involved in spending much time on-line. There is always a crisis of some sort on social media - you have to learn to discern. And with news sources as partisan as they are these days you can read of the same event from different sources and think you were reading about happenings on two different planets. Again, discernment is needed. One of the skills you learn on-line is how to skim, and tell the valuable stuff from the dreck. There’s a whole lot of dreck. This past week the Crisis of the Week has been Caitlyn Jenner. People have simply lost their minds over the whole affair which, in a saner world, would have simply been one person’s, one family’s issue, and no one else’s. However, the western world left sanity long ago, it seems, and everyone from the predictable knuckle-draggers to the folks who think it’s just fine – and everyone in-between - has chimed in with their precious opinions – as if the wider world honestly gives a hoot about their opinions. I am very sad to report that most of the ugliest postings have come from supposedly “Christian” sites, condemning Jenner as a hideous offense to God.
In light of all this my eye was caught Saturday morning as I sat down to work on my message for today, by an article titled, “Why are Christians So Judgmental?” It was in a non-denominational, trending-toward-liberal on-line magazine and although it asked the question it didn’t really go very far in answering it. I probably would have skimmed it and forgotten it – except for the responses.....I know I shouldn’t read the comments – they are almost always so dreadful – but it’s so tempting to read them and feel superior.
In this case, the Why are Christians so Judgmental? piece, most of the responders began by agreeing entirely with the premise of the piece – Yes, Jesus tells us not to judge others, Yes, we have to take the log out of our own eye -- yup – that’s absolutely right ..... and then, having stated their total agreement, they all launched into all the reasons they have to judge others anyway – because apparently Jesus really wants us to do so. (I guess Jesus didn't really know what he wanted to say.) It’s their job to point out to people that they are sinners and therefore unacceptable to decent folk (meaning the speakers themselves, of course).....all of this done in Christian love, of course.
I had to go back and read the whole thing again from the beginning, and yes, that’s still what it said.
Somehow, the message that many Christians seem to have taken from the gospels is that they are Jesus’ appointed judges. Which is absolutely backwards from what Jesus said. He told us to poke fellow Christians and nudge them back on track when we saw them starting to slide off, but he emphatically did not tell us to stamp through the world telling total strangers they are going to hell.
And we wonder why the wider world views Christians as judgmental.
We wonder why so much of the world is turning away from our message.
And I say “we” with all the humility I can muster because I know I am just as guilty at times – I just get indignant about different things – like people who vote to cut food programs for hungry children or act to deny others basic human rights and dignity. That plank in my eye can get pretty hefty at times. Listen to today’s scripture one more time - this time from The Message where it is sub-titled: A Simple Guide for Behavior --
A goodly part of the time I spend on-line has to do with cruising through various “Christian” web-magazines, reading opinion pieces, or in conversations with other church folk, trying to keep an open ear for what is going on in the church at large these days – listening in to what people are thinking and doing as “church.” Many of the ideas I’ve brought in here for discussion over the past few years have come from here. I have learned a lot this way.
There are skills involved in spending much time on-line. There is always a crisis of some sort on social media - you have to learn to discern. And with news sources as partisan as they are these days you can read of the same event from different sources and think you were reading about happenings on two different planets. Again, discernment is needed. One of the skills you learn on-line is how to skim, and tell the valuable stuff from the dreck. There’s a whole lot of dreck. This past week the Crisis of the Week has been Caitlyn Jenner. People have simply lost their minds over the whole affair which, in a saner world, would have simply been one person’s, one family’s issue, and no one else’s. However, the western world left sanity long ago, it seems, and everyone from the predictable knuckle-draggers to the folks who think it’s just fine – and everyone in-between - has chimed in with their precious opinions – as if the wider world honestly gives a hoot about their opinions. I am very sad to report that most of the ugliest postings have come from supposedly “Christian” sites, condemning Jenner as a hideous offense to God.
In light of all this my eye was caught Saturday morning as I sat down to work on my message for today, by an article titled, “Why are Christians So Judgmental?” It was in a non-denominational, trending-toward-liberal on-line magazine and although it asked the question it didn’t really go very far in answering it. I probably would have skimmed it and forgotten it – except for the responses.....I know I shouldn’t read the comments – they are almost always so dreadful – but it’s so tempting to read them and feel superior.
In this case, the Why are Christians so Judgmental? piece, most of the responders began by agreeing entirely with the premise of the piece – Yes, Jesus tells us not to judge others, Yes, we have to take the log out of our own eye -- yup – that’s absolutely right ..... and then, having stated their total agreement, they all launched into all the reasons they have to judge others anyway – because apparently Jesus really wants us to do so. (I guess Jesus didn't really know what he wanted to say.) It’s their job to point out to people that they are sinners and therefore unacceptable to decent folk (meaning the speakers themselves, of course).....all of this done in Christian love, of course.
I had to go back and read the whole thing again from the beginning, and yes, that’s still what it said.
Somehow, the message that many Christians seem to have taken from the gospels is that they are Jesus’ appointed judges. Which is absolutely backwards from what Jesus said. He told us to poke fellow Christians and nudge them back on track when we saw them starting to slide off, but he emphatically did not tell us to stamp through the world telling total strangers they are going to hell.
And we wonder why the wider world views Christians as judgmental.
We wonder why so much of the world is turning away from our message.
And I say “we” with all the humility I can muster because I know I am just as guilty at times – I just get indignant about different things – like people who vote to cut food programs for hungry children or act to deny others basic human rights and dignity. That plank in my eye can get pretty hefty at times. Listen to today’s scripture one more time - this time from The Message where it is sub-titled: A Simple Guide for Behavior --
“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor."
It’s a hard line to walk, at times – that line between standing up to wrong-doing and saying “no more,” and judging. Some days the line looks really clear and other days it’s pretty blurry. I think I know the difference but I still worry about it a lot.
Discernment is recognizing the difference between right and wrong. Judging is condemning the one we judge to be wrong – putting them beyond the pale – shutting them out of our circle and even out of God’s circle – and calling it love. Sometimes I find myself very easily slipping from the first to the second without a thought.
And it is that thought and others like it that are the keys here, I believe. We all tend to operate from a base position that we are rational people who think right and yet we all have our knee-jerk reactions that we have just picked up somewhere and not really thought through. We all have our prejudices. We simply cannot afford to just waltz through life believing that what we think is automatically right – because we are everyone of us capable of being so very wrong.
And love is surely the other key. This quote from Thomas Merton is one of my favorites - I even put it on our church website homepage: "Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether they are worthy."
It is hard work to shift our vision to seeing through God’s eyes and not our own all-too- human eyes, but this is what we are unequivocally called to do - to love others without stopping to inquire whether they are worthy. It's amazing how judging tends to disappear wherever love is present.
The message above all messages is, after all: Don’t judge, just love one another.
Discernment is recognizing the difference between right and wrong. Judging is condemning the one we judge to be wrong – putting them beyond the pale – shutting them out of our circle and even out of God’s circle – and calling it love. Sometimes I find myself very easily slipping from the first to the second without a thought.
And it is that thought and others like it that are the keys here, I believe. We all tend to operate from a base position that we are rational people who think right and yet we all have our knee-jerk reactions that we have just picked up somewhere and not really thought through. We all have our prejudices. We simply cannot afford to just waltz through life believing that what we think is automatically right – because we are everyone of us capable of being so very wrong.
And love is surely the other key. This quote from Thomas Merton is one of my favorites - I even put it on our church website homepage: "Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether they are worthy."
It is hard work to shift our vision to seeing through God’s eyes and not our own all-too- human eyes, but this is what we are unequivocally called to do - to love others without stopping to inquire whether they are worthy. It's amazing how judging tends to disappear wherever love is present.
The message above all messages is, after all: Don’t judge, just love one another.
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