Of all of the injunctions of things that Jesus tells us not to do, which is what we are currently spending our time doing, today’s injunction “do not judge,” is probably the most famous. And it’s well known not just amongst Christians, and we’re going to get to some more obscure injunctions in a few weeks, but it’s also well known amongst non-Christians as well. They might not know who said it, or where it’s found in the Bible, but the definitely know that Christians are not supposed to judge. and so, as rebuttals go, it might be one of the most popular to get thrown back to the church, or at Christians, and often, in my opinion, quite rightfully so. And we deserve it much of the time, and what often makes it worse then is how some respond to that accusation. I remember one public scandal in which that accusation was made, and a prominent religious leader of the time said, and I roughly quote, “What Jesus was saying was that we all judge, and we will all be judged, and so it’s okay to judge.” and I hope that your jaw hits the floor hearing that, as mine did when it was said, because that is not at all what Jesus was saying. And so, the way that Christians and non-Christians alike tend to use this passage shows that people don’t really understand what Jesus was saying here, or in Luke where it also appears as part of what is known there as the Sermon on the plain. So, what does Jesus mean when he tells us “Do not judge.”
Now as I have said many times before, the entirety of the New Testament is written in Greek, while the Hebrew Bible is written in Hebrew. But in the Greek not only do all the words run together, and thus translators have to make decisions about what words are actually there. but there is also no punctuation and so they also have to make decisions about what punctuation to put in, and that matters here. Because we here this statement as do not judge period. Or even we could say exclamation point. And we could take that as the absolute, as we have done with do not be afraid or do not doubt. But that’s not what we actually have here. Instead, it says, do not doubt comma, which symbolizes a break or a pause, really, it’s where we take a breath when we are saying it out loud, and then it continues with some qualifiers. Do not judge, comma, so that you may not be judged. Now we could argue whether that comma is appropriate or not, although every translation I looked up had a comma so there seems to be consensus on it, and it makes sense within the context of what comes next. Because Jesus continues, “for with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” That means if you judge, which really is when you judge since we all do it to some degree, and we’ll come back to that, then God will use that same standard against you. And others can to as well. And so, just for a wild example, a hypothetical if you will, if you were to say make fun of the Boston Red Sox for being in last place in your division, but then your team starts playing terribly and they end up in last place, then what’s going to happen? Then they are going to make fun of you, and that’s only fair. Or we might say what goes around comes around, or that the chickens will come home to roost. So how we judge others is how others will then judge us, or could judge or, perhaps, should judge us. But even more importantly it’s how we will be judged by God as well.
And while we don’t really talk about the judgment of God,
even when we are talking about things like salvation, because that brings in
lots of other questions, when we do talk about it, or think about it, it is
most often about judgments for others, not ourselves right? Because it’s much
easier to think about things that others are doing that might not be in
alignment with what God wants, then it is to make those same judgments for
ourselves, unless we are unusually harsh on ourselves, in which case we should
hear not to judge as also applying to ourselves. That some people need to give
themselves much more grace in their judgments, or perhaps stop judging all
together. But that’s just sort of an aside. And back to the main part of this
is that we are much better at seeing things that others are doing, and making
judgments about them, perhaps even saying that they are going to hell, although
I hope that’s not anyone watching this. And so what Jesus is saying is that
guess what, if those are the judgments you are making, or whatever standard you
are using, will be exactly the same that God uses against you. So, the question
then is how do we want to be judged? Do we want mercy and grace applies to us?
Do we want the largest marks of understanding used? Then we need to do the same
for others. If we want to be judged with mercy, then we need to judge with
mercy, just as Jesus says as part of the sermon on the Mount that if we want to
be forgiven we must forgive. Or as he will say in just a few more verses in
what has become known as the golden rule: do unto others as you would want them
to do unto you. Or we could change that to: Judge others by the same standards
and with the same attitude that you want to be judged.
And so that comma then makes a huge difference, because
rather than just a straight injunction just not to judge, Jesus is really
giving the rules around which judgment is used. And this comes with the command
that we should judge ourselves first before we do anything else. That we should
pay attention to the log that’s in our eye, before we pay attention to the
speck that is in someone else’s. and please notice that the size difference
here is not mere hyperbole but the point of the whole thing. Jesus is not
saying that there aren’t things wrong with what others are doing, but that we
need to pay attention to ourselves first. And this matches with one a primary
concern that Jesus has about hypocrites, or people who demand better behavior,
ethically, or morally or politeness, or whatever it might be, then they demand
of themselves. With current issues we should definitely also include those who
call out behavior in people on the other side that they ignore or defend in
people who belong to their own team. That’s hypocrisy, and Jesus calls it out a
lot amongst the religious leaders of his day, and this is especially true in
Matthew. Of the 18 times the word hypocrite appears in the gospels, 14 of those
are found in Matthew. And so, the injunction about seeing the log in our eye
first before we call out the speck in others, or their behavior, is not just
about how we want to be judged, but also about not living as a hypocrite. Or
really not living as much as a hypocrite and being aware of it, because we all
are hypocrites, and I’m not being hypocritical in saying that because I include
myself in it.
As Adam Hamilton has said in response to people saying that
the church is full of hypocrites is of course it is because all of us fall
short of what we want to do or to be. All of us make mistakes and don’t rise to
who we want to be or whom God wants us to be, and if we aren’t falling short
it’s either because we are ignoring where we do, or because we need to have
much higher standards for our behavior. But there are two responses to our
hypocrisy. The first is to ignore it, the wrong way, as that quite often leads
us to self-righteousness which is even a step beyond hypocrisy and leads us to
further destruction. The second response is to recognize it. But, not to
recognize it and say “well there’s nothing I can do about that” and then go on
living as we like. But instead to recognize it and to learn from it, and most
especially to let it humble us. Because here’s the key difference between how
we view ourselves, or judge ourselves, and how we view and judge others.
Quite a few years ago, James Moore published a book
entitled, Yes Lord I Have Sinned, But I Have Several Excellent Excuses. And so,
what we do is we make excuses for the logs we have, because we know the
reasoning behind it all. We judge ourselves by our intentions, thinking our
intentions were good even if the outcome wasn’t, or we had a reason why the
intention was good. But, do we judge others by their intentions? Rarely.
Instead we judge them by their behaviors and their outcome so that we can then
be upset about the speck, while downplaying or discarding the log. Because it’s
something we have done, and we know we aren’t bad people, we often then make a
hierarchy of sin, with what we have done at the bottom, and what others have
done at the top. But there is not a hierarchy and sin, and if we are to judge
others by that standard then what happens to us? We get judged by the same standard.
And so that’s where humility has to come back into play, of the recognition of
the ways in which we fall short. I’ve used this quote before, because I think
it’s so important, but one of my theological heroes, Rev. Peter Gomes said, “The
most profound of all religious sentiments should not be certainty, which leads
to arrogance, but modesty, which, because of a generous God, leads to mercy and
forgiveness.” That is how we should
approach the world, with humility, because we have done a self-examination, and
we know where we have harmed others and where we need to seek forgiveness,
which then leads to learn how to forgive.
That’s what this table should remind us, is that all of us
are in the need of grace and forgiveness and so God offers that to us, and we
need to remember that just as we are forgiven, so to we need to forgive, and we
need to judge the way we want to be judged, and that is with mercy, which means
we need to approach the world with a sense of humility. When we do that, when we remember who we are
and where we have fallen short, then we are able to recognize the log that is
our own eyes. And then, Jesus says, once we have worked on removing the log
from our own eyes then we can start looking at others. Now I would wonder whether
we can ever truly remove the log from our own eye, but Jesus says that once we
have removed the log then we can see clearly in order to remove the speck from
someone else’s eye, because there are times in which we need to point things
out to people, especially when their behavior is destructive to others or to
themselves, but that’s a different message for a different day.
And so that leads us to the recap of what Jesus means when
he says do not judge, which is the question where we started. First, it’s not
that we are not to judge, but to remember that as we judge so we will be
judged, by the same measure. What you
give is what you will get. Second is
that we need to remember that we need to move past the easy instinct for
ignorance and arrogance to either think that we don’t sin, or that our sins are
not as bad as others, and thus to move away from a position of
self-righteousness. Instead we need to remember that while we can see the speck
in the other’s eye that we have a log in our own, and that leads to two things.
The first is to move to seek to remove the log, whatever it is, to ask for
forgiveness, from others and from God, or perhaps even to give forgiveness for
some hurt that we can’t let go of. And
when we begin to do that, we begin to see more clearly, and learn to approach
people more clearly to talk about their speck, not from a position of authority
or superiority, but from a position of self-effacement and humbleness and love.
And finally, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, blocks our ability to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and it most certainly gets in the way of loving our neighbor as ourselves. And so, if we approach the world with judgment and self-righteousness then we cannot do what God has called us to do, and worse is that that judgment will come back onto us, I believe in both the short-term and the long-term. Instead we are to remember that we too are in the need of mercy and grace, and when we remember that then we begin with a position of humility and work to remove the log from our own eye, and once we have done that, and only once we have done that, then we can “see clearly to take the speck out of our neighbor’s eye.” Not in judgment, but in love, just as Christ came to offer love. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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