Do Not Judge
(based
on Matthew 7:1-5)
Stephen Covey, the famous author of “The Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People”, as well as other publications, told a story
of riding on a New York subway one Sunday morning. People were sitting quietly until a man and
his children entered the subway car, the man sat next to Covey, while the
children ran wild through the car, yelling, throwing things and just plain
misbehaving. Meanwhile the dad sat there
next to Covey and did absolutely nothing.
Judgments were made about the man’s neglectful
parenting as he just sat there, as if in a trance, completely ignoring his
children’s misbehavior.
Finally, Covey broke the man’s apparent neglect
with an appeal that he get control of his children. The dad turned and looked at Covey and responded
with these unexpected words, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their
mother died about an hour ago. I don’t
know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.”
Covey then talks about how, in an instant, his
attitude toward the dad was changed. He
moved from judging criticism to compassion as he saw things as they really were
and not just how they appeared to be.
When Jesus says, “Judge not, that you be not
judged,” He is not suggesting that we set aside our ability to look at things
critically or to discern the difference between what is good and what is evil. He isn’t suggesting that we should never try
to help a friend by a gentle word of correction. God has blessed us with a critical apparatus
that helps us navigate through life. Christians
are supposed to be discerning. As John
put it in his first letter to the church, we “test the spirits” as we follow
Christ. We are supposed to confront evil
when we see it. And we have an obligation
and responsibility as Christians to speak up for the good.
Jesus’ command not to judge others is rather a
warning against a prideful critical spirit which is quick to make conclusions
about the character or behavior of others. Everyone of us has been Covey on that bus in
various situations, writing the story in our heads about the dad’s neglectful
parenting. In this passage, Jesus is confronting
hypocritical judgment which sees only the sins of others and not one’s own
sins.
This explains Jesus’ humorous hyperbole of
trying to remove a speck in another’s eye while we have a two-by-four in our
own. The picture shows us how ludicrous
it is for us to judge others without having judged ourselves. If we are to point out a friend’s sins, we do
so from a clear vision of our own sins. We
are supposed to come at moral criticism humbly as a fellow sinner, not as a
righteous judge. God is the only truly
righteous judge. God alone judges from a
posture of perfection.
Clearly Jesus has a specific target here in
this passage and that target is the Pharisees who absolutely delighted in
finger-pointing and judging others. Jesus
unveils their hypocrisy to his listeners as they righteously and indignantly play
God and mercilessly judge the behavior of others. The Pharisees hadn’t always been so critical
without fully acknowledging their own sin.
But over time, these guardians of community morality had “assumed the
bench”, the one reserved for God alone. Jesus shows that they have been disqualified
from the bench by their own hypocrisy. And
he warns them that they will be the victims of the same kind of merciless judgment
from God.
If you remember another story, it was Jesus who
once stepped into a scene of Pharisees ready to stone a woman caught in
adultery. They tested Jesus, asking if
the law of Moses was right in saying that such a woman should be stoned. In that story, Jesus wrote on the ground with
his finger and then said, “Let him who is without sin among you cast the first
stone at her” (John 8:7). They walked
away, one by one. We aren’t told what
Jesus wrote in the ground, but from their reaction, we might assume that he
wrote down the sins that each of them had committed, perhaps in secret,
unbeknownst to their fellow Pharisees. At
the conclusion of the sand writing, none were left to throw even a pebble at
the woman. Did that excuse the woman
from her sin? No. When they had all gone, Jesus asked her, “Who
is left to condemn you?” The Woman
replied, “No one sir?” And he said to
her, “Then neither do I. Go on your way
and sin no more.” Jesus forgave her the
sins of her past and told her to go on her way, but to sin no more. What’s interesting about this passage is that
the Pharisees were just as guilty of their own sins, but they received no such
forgiveness and more than likely continued on with their same behavior.
Jesus spent much of his ministry under the
watchful, plank-in-the-eye Pharisees. They
called him a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of sinners. They even said he was in league with the devil
because he could cast out demons. Ultimately,
they pointed at Jesus and charged him with blasphemy.
In his trial before the Sanhedrin, he was asked
if he was the Messiah, the Son of God. He
answered, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of
Power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). The high priest tore his robe and said, “What
further witnesses do we need? You have
heard his blasphemy. What is your
decision?” (Mark 14:63-64). And they
condemned him to death. The Pharisees
had written their own story of Jesus. Their
prejudice and injustice were driven by self-righteousness, jealousy and fear. They could not see clearly with such huge
planks in their eyes.
We, too, are not immune from self-righteous
judgment. I hear Christians being hypocritical
all the time. And we judge certain sins
harshly and completely ignore others. We
may look across a gathering of God’s people and begin writing our own stories
of where this person falls short and how that person has failed. All along, as we judge others, we can fail to
see the planks in our own eyes.
The great irony of the cross comes as the
perfect Judge, the one “who will come again to judge the living and the dead,”
is falsely accused, convicted and executed. The Judge of all is judged unjustly. In that judgment gone wrong, God amazingly
works a unique kind of justice.
I have often heard that God’s justice requires
sacrifice. That God’s wrath at humanity’s
sin requires blood and death and that was why Christ died on the cross for you
and me. Where God points the accusing finger,
not at us, but at Jesus instead as a propitiation for our sins. I believe that God works out a unique kind of
justice at the cross, a kind that would follow Christ’s example in life. I don’t believe that the cross was God’s
idea. It was ours. In our need for an eye for an eye kind of
justice, I have to wonder if God listened to us cry for blood and offered His own. I don’t believe that Christ’s sacrifice on
the cross was meant to sate God’s wrath, but rather it was to show God’s
response to ours. God puts grace in
play and rewrites the story. This is
much more than the story of an innocent victim of injustice. This is God sending Jesus to suffer and die as
a response to our need for justice, our list of sins. Among those sins are every hasty judgment
we’ve made of another’s character, every hurtful word of criticism, every
attitude warped by prejudice or fear.
The next time we are ready to write the story
of another’s failure or another’s sin, I hope we remember what happened at the
cross. I hope we see the plank in our
own eye and our own sins. Then, as it
always is with God, judgment will be tempered with grace. Amen.
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