Lenten Reflection on Judgment - Matthew 7:1-5
It is
probably one of the most painful parts of my mental health history, and it is
an area that when we talk about bitterness and forgiveness in a few weeks, I
need to work on. I was a fifth year
senior at Methodist College. I had
entered Methodist on my track to be an ordained Methodist minister. However, in the midst of a battle with
bi-polar disorder as I struggled with depression and the desire to take my own
life, I walked away from the ministry, thinking that might solve all my
problems. It didn’t. I found that the only time that I had any
peace, the only time I wasn’t thinking about cutting into my wrists, was when I
was working at La Petite Academy during the summer and Faith Wesleyan Daycare
during the school year—anytime I was working with children, my heart and mind
became focused in on them and not on myself and the darkness. I had changed my major at Methodist from
Religion to Elementary Education, but I began to consider that maybe I was
still called to ministry, not to general parish ministry, but to children and
youth ministry and so I reapplied for the church vocational grant, a grant that
would pay half my tuition to finish the degree in education and allow me to
work toward becoming a children and youth pastor. When I met with the college chaplain and a
lay person representing the grant committee they informed me that I was being
turned down for the grant and that given my mental health status, they thought
it was best if I did not work around children and youth until my bi-polar condition
was resolved. There was no room for
discussion about how working with children was working hand in hand with my
therapy and helping in my recovery—they just informed me that I had no business
in my condition being around kids.
Judged and sentenced.
How
often are we guilty of doing just that kind of thing? Maybe we look at the guy tattoos all over his
arms and his neck and decide we need to avoid getting anywhere near him because
he is probably a drug-using violent gang member. Maybe we look at the young woman struggling
with three children through the grocery store, getting up to the counter and
pulling out her WIC checks and food stamps card, and think to ourselves, “there
goes someone else taking advantage of the system, she needs to stop having kids
and get a job.” Maybe we look at a child
wearing short-sleeves when the high for the day is only 25 degrees and wonder
why his mother doesn’t dress him any better than that in the mornings. I could go on and on about the snap judgments
we make as we look at those around us—never taking into account that they may
be a reformed gang-member who is trying to fit in to the community, a single,
newly widowed mother whose husband died in a car accident, or a child who only
has one long sleeve shirt to his name that he wore yesterday when it was only 9
degrees.
Maybe
it is not a visual judgment we are making—maybe we’ve heard something. Maybe we heard that Doug was seen at the mall
eating with some woman that was not his wife and when they finished the meal,
they were seen embracing. Your aunt’s
hairdresser just knows that he is having an affair. His poor wife. Your aunt wouldn’t have told you if it were
not true, so since you know you his wife’s best friend, you tell her. Pretty soon you learn that Doug left his wife
that week after she accused him of the affair and felt their trust was forever
shattered. He left town with his sister
who just happened to be in town visiting, the same woman he had been seen in
the mall with.
Our
theme for our “Lenten Reflections” this year is “Giving Up Something Bad For
Good.” It is a call, during our Lenten
self-reflection and self-examination, to see what things in our lives do not
need to be temporarily sacrificed, but need to be put out of our lives
permanently in order that we may need to grow more Christ-like in our lives.
Jesus
says, “’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.’”[i]
Judgment…it
is something that many, if not all of us, struggle with. It is a tendency to see, hear, and believe
the worst. It is about condemning a
person because of what we think, what we hear or overhear, or even what we
might know—it is about condemnation of a person or group of people based on
perceived or actual information.
You
see, Jesus’ statement doesn’t even get to the issue of mistaken judgments, his
statement about not making judgments is based on the assumption that the other
person has done something wrong, they do have a speck in their eye—they may be
a drug-dealing, law-breaking gang member; they may be a woman who keeps having
kids to abuse the welfare system; they may be a parent who doesn’t care enough
about their child to dress them appropriate; they may be a man who is cheating
on his wife. Jesus cautions us against
condemning them, less we find ourselves condemned. Jesus warns us against taking up what the
Scripture tells us repeatedly is God’s job—we are to leave judgment and any
possible condemnation up to God.
Remembering the familiar words of the Gospel of John, “For God so loved
the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may
not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the
world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through
him.”[ii]
Jesus
came not to condemn but to save—we saw how the self-righteous religious leaders
were quick to judge him for eating and hanging around those that they had
already judged as unwelcome, unworthy sinners, the tax collectors, the
prostitutes, and the others who had strayed from God’s will—Jesus though, like
He did with the woman caught in adultery, refused to judge and condemn those
lost in their sin, but instead offered compassion, forgiveness, and
encouragement—it is in this way that God began establishing His Kingdom here
amongst us, and it is in this same way that He continues to build it—when
judgments fall away and relationships are sought and forged.
My
brothers and sisters, let the ways we judge and condemn those around us be
something bad we give up for good this Lent and let it be nailed to the cross
and left there.
In
the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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