Materials
Living In The Way
of Jesus,
#5
Living
In The Way Of Jesus: Non-Judging
Matthew 7:1-6
by R. Todd Bouldin
‘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."
Prayer
The Bible repeatedly cautions us about judging. That's not because
it is wrong to make judgments, but because we are not very good at
making them. We have a hard time seeing beneath the surface, and since
things are seldom what they appear to be, our judgments are usually
mistaken. This is particularly true when it comes to judging people.
You may have noticed how those whose lives look pretty good are often
masking a private turmoil, and those who look completely chaotic are
often living out of an inner core that is actually quite healthy and
strong.
Near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus commands his disciples,
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (Matthew 7:1).
This verse has been used by people for centuries to justify the attempt
by some to rob Christianity of any moral or spiritual discernment
whatsoever, with little morality left other than “If it feels
good, do it” and “Do whatever you want, just don’t
harm anyone else.” Perhaps we are not sure what Jesus means,
but this surely is not what he means. In fact, he had just spent a
whole sermon laying out his moral code for his followers. In the verses
shortly after these in chapter 7, Jesus tells his disciples to watch
out for false prophets who are ferocious wolves (Matthew 7:15-23)
who bite and devour people and do not live according to the principles
of non-violence, forgiveness and love that Jesus had laid out in the
Sermon on the Mount. So if one is to oppose such false prophets and
lift up the moral standard of the Sermon on the Mount, one cannot
claim that Jesus is advocating a life without morals in these verses.
So what does Jesus mean then by his instruction to not judge? I believe
the answer lies in the Greek verb “to judge” which also
carries the meaning of “to express an opinion about, especially
in an unfavorable sense.” So, rather than instructing us to
eschew all morals, Jesus is teaching us to not hold an opinion about
certain things, to just let it be, to let some things be a mystery,
to just accept, or at least to be patient in forming an opinion. I
believe Jesus is cautioning us against our automatic, knee-jerk impulse
to judge everything and everyone that we hear or see without carefully
evaluating the whole picture. We quickly make judgments about everything
and everyone as like / dislike, good / bad, moral or immoral [Insert
pictures here of DMV, George Bush, Bill Clinton, McDonald’s
fries]. Jesus is not calling us to refrain from making any judgments
but to refrain from unthinking, impulsive judgments.
Said another way … I believe Jesus is asking us again to deny
ourselves, take up our crosses and follow him. To live a cross-shaped
life is to live a life that gives up the need to hold up one’s
self as the litmus test of all that is good, fair, right and moral.
There is only one who is perfect, and he is hanging on the cross.
It certainly isn’t me. To deny self is to see all of life including
the world, things and people other than through the lenses of “me”
so that our eyes are opened to God, to otherness, to something outside
ourselves and to the way we will the world to be. If we can live a
cross-shaped life where we are no longer at the center of the universe,
and in particular our relationships, then we can begin see people
from another perspective than my own judgments and opinions. Given
everything Jesus said about judging and about the lifestyle of a disciple
in the Sermon on the Mount, I think that is what Jesus is commanding
us to do here: to give up the quick impulse to size up everything
and everyone with a label, with a stereotype or an expectation. When
you do that, you can’t see the image of God in the person, or
often the work of God in the person – all you can see is the
label.
You may wonder how, in the midst of a sermon series on Christian virtues
like gratitude, forgiveness and love that I chose non-judging. I chose
it because I believe it is one of the virtues that can make us most
“Christian”, most distinctive in the age in which we live.
Our times do not call for weak-kneed, Christians without conviction.
But the postmodern culture in which we find ourselves also does not
permit us to shout our truths at the world from a self-righteous pedestal.
That is one message guaranteed not to be heard. Instead, people who
can hold to their convictions while also admitting the “plank
in their own eyes” are people our age will hear. We are desperate
for non-judgmental people with conviction.
Whether it is entire villages slaughtered in the Sudan, or a suicide
bombing in Iraq, or an American city on high alert, we are reminded
of the need for understanding and of the dangers of an intolerant
judgmentalism that is quick to condemn and slow to understand. It
is those who believe that they know the truth and judge others who
do not live by it that are the greatest perpetrators of violence in
our times.
So, our society red flags any belief system that seems like a “regime
of truth” (in the language of philosopher Foucault) that seeks
to force itself on others through power and control, and this often
first manifests itself in judgments. It is my hunch that Christians
would be surprised how many people in our time might sympathize with
them, or even become Christian themselves, if the church could move
beyond this judgmentalism. For many of us, this is a virtue we are
going to have to learn. We were not taught this by our parents. We
were taught to discern good and evil, to embrace the good and hate
what is evil. We were not taught to be slow to judge. Our churches
certainly haven’t taught us this. At least for those outside
church walls, they perceive that people within the church believe
it their business to judge. What else could the church possibly be
if it were not the repository of all things absolutely right and wrong?
It isn’t just the church that is judgmental. Our society is
judgmental too. Our politics and our society seem to have gotten meaner.
Whether liberal, conservative, or in between, our public discourse
in the newspaper, television and radio are filled with moralizing,
judgmental, finger-pointing, labeling, polarizing, and judgmental
moral busybodies who can’t seem to refrain from their judgments.
Sooner or later, everyone is judged – and often, even themselves.
And often those same individuals find themselves under scrutiny for
their own sins. I think that is what Jesus means when he says, “For
with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” I think
I would prefer a short measure!
There is hope for us. I’ve seen the churches of my youth become
kinder and gentler churches, churches that are learning to love and
not to condemn. The church of my childhood wrote people off based
on a certain denominational label, moral status or race. I think we’ve
learned better. Thankfully, most Christians I know now no longer see
themselves as the gatekeepers of Heaven and Hell.
Christians have struggled with this from the beginning of the church.
The first challenge of the Jewish Christians was to see God’s
work in Gentiles as well as Jews. Peter had to consider whether God
could accept a Roman centurion and Gentile – so he was told
not to call anything impure or unclean that God was making clean (Acts
10:28). If you rush to call someone “unclean”, or in our
language today “immoral”, you may just miss what God is
doing in their life. You most certainly won’t be the one that
God will use to start the clean-up process. It is impossible both
to condemn and to save.
Jesus goes on to say, “4Or 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.” (Matthew 7:4-5). I think we are learning
not to look down on others with whom we disagree because we have learned
the hard way that almost all judgment involves a character problem,
and usually hypocrisy. Perhaps drawing on his experience in the carpentry
shop, Jesus noted how silly we look when we judge.
Some guy with a plank in his eye is trying to remove a speck of dust
from someone else’s eye. Jesus illustrated this once when some
religious leaders sought to stone a woman caught in adultery. Jesus
told them, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”,
and they left one by one in silence. Then Jesus demonstrated what
it means not to judge. He first restored her to her God-given dignity
and humanity by speaking with her and by protecting her. Then he clearly
did call her to a moral life (“Go and sin no more”). But
he also made very clear that he did not condemn her. (John 8:11).
It is so easy to judge, but we know better. We know that we often
don’t have all the facts when we are inclined to judge someone.
We seldom know the whole story or see the bigger picture. And the
person we are so quick to condemn we might even applaud if we knew
all they had been through to be who they are. To stop our impulse
to judge long enough to understand the bigger picture is what I think
Jesus means by “Do not judge.” It is not to stop thinking
and accept and everything. It is start thinking well, to think with
measured balance and perspective, to see the whole picture, to make
wise and not quick judgments.
I think it is important to remember the context of the Sermon on the
Mount. Probably written after the destruction of the Temple by the
Roman occupying army in 70 A.D., the Gospel of Matthew spoke to Christians
living in a world of oppression, unrest, revolt and violence. So I
think Jesus is saying, and Matthew is saying, “That is not the
way of Jesus.” The Roman oppressors and the Jewish Zealots want
to categorize people and force their way on the opposition. But Jesus
says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit … Blessed are the
peacemakers . . . Do not retaliate . . . Love your enemies . . Forgive
those who wrong you . . . And do not judge.” To paraphrase Jesus
through the eyes of Matthew, I think He is saying, “The way
things seem to you may not be the way they really are.
Religious terrorism isn’t the way to peace. Remember even your
oppressors, these Roman soldiers, have a basic humanity and have been
made in the image of God. They have mothers, fathers, sons and daughters,
brothers and friends. They are filled with the same fears and hopes
as you.” And then all the Gospel writers tell how it was a Roman
soldier beneath the cross of Jesus who confessed Jesus as the innocent
Son of God. People are not always what they seem.
So how do we stop the judging? First of all, back up and take a second
look. Seek to really understand a situation or a person. Be merciful,
be forgiving, be truthful, but don’t judge. Could there possibly
be a good motivation that the person has for their behavior or belief?
That doesn’t mean that you have to agree with the motivation
or the behavior. It just means that you stop your judging long enough
to consider it.
Second, watch your thoughts. They are just thoughts after all. You
do not have to be ruled by them. They are not the facts. They are
just your thoughts. Your worst fears, your dislike for someone, or
your frustration with a situation, your disagreement with a person
– for the most part, those are just thoughts. So when you are
tempted to judge, stop, watch the thought and realize it was just
a thought. It isn’t necessarily the way things are.
Third, learn to see people and not issues. Life is not neat and tidy,
but some people have worked out a theological and moral system that
is a lot more neat and tidy than life really is. Life is filled with
ambiguity, mystery and situations beyond our understanding. Perhaps
we could refrain from the need to judge the complexity. Look into
the eyes of those we find immoral, repugnant or wrong and see in their
eyes a person with the image of God in them, and not an issue or an
agenda. This will demand that you hold to a higher morality that upholds
the way and truth of Jesus but in a way that is true to the way life
really is and not as we wish it could be.
When we look at our own selves, we see the complexity. We see the
broken relationships with our parents, or with our children, or the
divorces, or the affairs, or the secret sins. We see the color. But
when we evaluate others, we see them only in black and white. To not
judge is to extend to others the grace that you know you need for
yourself. It is to realize that there is a plank in your own eye first
before you get too excited about the dust in someone else’s
life.
So on behalf of children whose spirits are crushed by over-critical
parents or teachers, Jesus says, “Do not judge.” And on
behalf of women pregnant outside marriage, “Do not judge.”
And on behalf of those who do not look like us, or act like us, or
love like us, or think like us, Jesus says, “Do not judge.”
And on behalf of people all over the world who do not embrace American
ideals or religion, “Do not judge.” On behalf of national
leaders that we may not like, “Do not judge.” Stick to
your standards. But seek first to understand. Listen. Watch your thoughts.
Do not judge.
My friend Dale Pauls summarizes this teaching of Jesus this way, and
I think it is helpful, “We ourselves are called to live by the
highest ethical and spiritual standards imaginable but not to insist
on it or expect it from others. That way our goodness will never become
demoralizing or destructive. It will inspire and not crush. And the
Gospel will always be the Gospel.”
Finally, you have to let go of your own judgments. I have found that
the most judgmental people often are people most judgmental of themselves.
They never quit hearing the voices of their childhood or of some person
whose voice still haunts them, “You are not attractive enough,”
“You are not smart enough,” “You are not good enough.”
We may in fact repeat these judgments to ourselves, and we become
harshly critical of others in the very areas of our own struggle.
The only way you can quit the judging is to stop feeling judged. Stop
judging yourself impulsively. Do not be so attentive to the voices
of those who would judge you. If you are to stop feeling judged and
to walk away from a lifestyle of judging, you have to hear the voice
of God who looks down on you and Jesus Christ and says, “This
is my Beloved. The one in whom I am pleased.” You have to see
his arms welcoming you home. You have to hear the good news of the
gospel:
“There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
(Romans 8:1).
So stop the judging. Once you know the unconditional love of Christ
for you, you can walk away from the judgment and you can be free.
November 27, 2005
» Back to
top |
Bulletin
Class Materials
Resources
Sermons
Spiritual Life
 |
