Judging vs. Judgment

Luke 7:36-50

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus over for a meal. He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down at the dinner table. Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume and stood at his feet, weeping, raining tears on his feet.

Now, this woman is apparently a notorious person in town – a “fallen” woman, Hester Prynne herself, wearing her scarlet “A” prominently displayed.  Everyone – except Jesus – is horrified that she would even come near “decent people.”

Letting down her hair, she dried his feet, kissed them, and anointed them with the perfume. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man was the prophet I thought he was, he would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over him.”

You see, Simon already has the woman categorized – he doesn’t even have to give her a thought.  He appears to have absolutely no interest in why she might be weeping, or why she has dared to show herself here in his house.  Really, he’s too busy right now judging Jesus.  Jesus is barely even in the door and already Simon is judging him and dropping him into his little box.  We do this all the time – mostly unconsciously.  It’‘s the easy way for us because once we have someone slotted into the proper box we can pretty well not think about them anymore at all.   

Jesus said to him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”  “Oh? Tell me.”

Now, if Jesus were sitting here today and he looked up and said to me, “Cherie, I have something to say to you,” I’m pretty sure I’d be thinking, “oh, boy - caught - where have I messed up this time?”  But not Simon.  Simon is a Pharisee.  Simon is an important man.  Simon is always right.  Simon is the one who identifies others as sinners.  No one would think of suggesting Simon might be one himself.  And so, Simon is clueless.  “Teacher,” he says, “speak.”

[And Jesus tells a story:]  “Two men were in debt to a banker.  One owed five hundred silver pieces, the other fifty.  Neither of them could pay up, and so the banker canceled both debts.  Which of the two would be more grateful?”

Simon answered, “I suppose the one who was forgiven the most.”

“That’s right,” said Jesus.  Then turning to the woman, but speaking to Simon, he said, “Do you see this woman? I came to your home; you provided no water for my feet, but she rained tears on my feet and dried them with her hair.  You gave me no greeting, but from the time I arrived she hasn’t quit kissing my feet.  You provided nothing for freshening up, but she has soothed my feet with perfume.  Impressive, isn’t it?  She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful.  If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.”

I love the way Jesus handles this.  He doesn’t just jump right in with the bigger issues, like loving your neighbor or taking that plank out of your own eye.  No, he gently but firmly points out to Simon that he has been rude.  He has arrogantly ignored one of the basic rules of common hospitality – presumably because he doesn’t really think that Jesus is important enough for him to bother with the social niceties.

The Jewish people lived in a dry land and had generations of making-do in semi-arid and desert land.  One of the absolutely most important parts of their rules of hospitality was to wash the dusty feet of any visitor.  Another was to offer them a kiss of peace when they came into one’s home.  These “rules” evolved out of survival necessity from the days when they were still nomads in the desert.  If you wanted others to offer you welcome and mercy when you were caught without shelter or food or water, then you had to offer them to others, as well.  This was more deeply ingrained in the people than even many of their religious laws.

Simon, as a Pharisee, was a man who lived by “the rules.”  Jesus here points out that Simon – the “rules-guy” just stomped all over several important rules.  He is so ready to hold the woman responsible for her rule-breaking and to get Jesus slotted into the proper ‘box’ that he blissfully ignores any possibility that he is breaking a few important rules himself. 

To get back to our story:

Then Jesus spoke to the woman: “I forgive your sins.”  That set the dinner guests talking behind his back: “Who does he think he is, forgiving sins!”

He ignored them and said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Now, here I Jesus does the thing that we recognize as surely intended to set the rules-oriented people howling.  He tells the woman her faith has saved her.  Her sins are forgiven and she is saved.  For us, it is the heart of the story – the part that gives us hope.  But not for Simon and his other guests.  For them, this was heresy – Jesus abrogating to himself that which only belongs to God – the ability to forgive sins.

I suspect there may have been another “sin” that Jesus committed in their eyes with these actions and words: He rejects here their assumption of superiority.  He rejects their right to define what is a sin and what isn’t– who is a sinner and who isn’t.   This may have been the bigger sin.  It’s interesting that scripture doesn’t tell us what happened after that.  Do they go on with dinner?  Did they throw him out?  Did they try to have him arrested?  The story doesn’t say.  The next we know is that he is continuing to travel around the countryside, teaching and healing.  We don’t know if Simon ever “got it” or not.  We don’t know if he was aware of the grace that was offered and received, by the woman at least.  We don’t know if he understood his own hard-hearted sinfulness, so we don’t know if he ever understood his own deep need for forgiveness and redemption.

We have a tendency to identify with the woman – we are happy that she recognized and received Jesus’ mercy.  We may even feel a little sanctimonious, thinking that we are so much wiser than Simon.  But are we?  Do we truly not judge people by whether or not they fit our ideas of how they should be?  Do we never set ourselves up as judges of who is worthy of God’s grace and who is not?  

There is a lot of conversation in church circles today about why young people no longer come to church.  It isn’t that they don’t love God.  It is quite often, just like Jesus and the Pharisees, that they don’t accept our right to draw lines in the sand and say,”you can come across if you meet our standards.”  Who are you,they say, to draw those lines?  Isn’t that Jesus’ job?  Not yours?

I was shlepping around the web the other day and found an article written by a young person, titled “Why I no Longer Go to Church.” Theyoung woman wrote of the judging she saw happening in the  churches she had attended.  This is how she ended:

I think if Jesus were to come down from Heaven this moment, He’d stand outside some of these churches, wipe his brow in exhaustion, and say with embarrassment, “Geez, look people, I appreciate it, really I do, but I think you completely missed My point … LOVE each other. That was what I said. Stop hating each other. Stop judging each other. Be kind and forgiving to each other because that’s what I’ve done for you, and that’s the greatest thing I taught you.” 

And that’s why I stopped going to church every week. I can’t tolerate being around judgmental people. I can no longer make myself stand behind one line and chastise the people standing on the other side of the line. I’ve read the Bible many times, my mind is (almost) in constant prayer every moment of every day, I’ve been baptized, confirmed, AND saved, and I continue to speak to God daily. He has never told me to judge others. Yet the people who claim to be closest to God are all too often the most judgmental people I’ve ever met.
Leesah Marie, Divine Caroline

... And, yes, this writer is herself being judgmental when she judges everyone else as judgmental (!), but this just illustrates how tricky this whole discussion can be.  We are NOT called to judge each other.  We ARE called to exercise good judgment in our own life choices.  It is easy to confuse the two.  We have to work at it.  We have to pay attention to our own business and we have to be aware of our responses to others.  We have to notice how we living our lives.


May God give us wisdom and discernment -- and a caring heart above all.