Judgement
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when there is the log 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 brother’s eye.
Matthew 7:1-5
How well we know these arresting words of our Lord. And arresting is what they are meant to be: quite literally they should stop us in our tracks, causing us to pause and take a brief look at ourselves and see how we measure up in their light. For the truth is, we do judge other people, and sometimes quite harshly, pouring forth pronouncements from a lofty position of our ‘rightness’, often fuelled by indignation and rage. When we do this, we fail signally to listen to the voice of Jesus trying to make his voice heard over our anger, urging us to take note of our own failings and sins, which are sometimes greater than those which have made us so angry. Christ wants to compare the speck in our brother/sister’s eye with the log in our own. The warning is that what we mete out to others will be ladled out to us in return. Remember the beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.” It is important to keep this promise in mind when we are tempted to be merciless!
It was a method of our Lord to make his teaching vivid by using the language of metaphor or proverb. Think of some of his sayings, such as: “If a man strikes you on one cheek you are to turn to him the other,” or the teaching which bids us pluck out the eye or cut off the foot or hand that offends or causes us to sin. Are these meant to be rules applicable to all occasions, or are they sayings embodying a principle? The principle here is that love is to be so absolute, so demanding upon us, that no limit can be placed on its manifestation.
So the words of Jesus that we are not to judge anyone also embody an important principle, but they do not lay down a universal rule. On occasion, he himself passed judgement. He judged St Peter when he tried to deflect him from the Passion; he judged Herod as “that fox”; he had some pretty harsh words for the Pharisees, those “whited sepulchres” and blind leaders. Remember too, how he told us to “judge righteous judgements” (John 7:24). Furthermore, the Lord gave to his Apostles and to his priests the function of “binding and loosing” the sins of penitents in the sacrament of Reconciliation (John 20:23).
Jesus’ command not to judge is given to us in the context of the parable of the speck and the log, a timely warning that not one of us may judge another until we have first examined or judged ourselves — until we have allowed the Holy Spirit to search out the secret places of our heart and purge us of our own guilt and sin. This is something which might be inferred from the direction given by Jesus to the men who so eagerly readied themselves to stone the adulterous woman in John 8: “Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone.” A thorough examination of conscience would surely restrain us from extreme or harsh condemnation of another, and if our position in society calls upon us to make a judgement, we should do so in a spirit of meekness, understanding and love, in accordance with the truth. When our Lord commands us to refrain from judging, he would have us bear in mind our imperfections, our tendency to pass judgements that are not helpful, proceeding from motives of bitterness or jealousy or wounded pride.
None of us can pronounce a final judgement on another. That prerogative belongs to God alone, for it is only to him that “all hearts are open and all desires known.” Besides, we aren’t always in full possession of the facts nor can we fully comprehend the motives of another person’s actions. In truth we can sometimes get it wrong. St Paul tells us that we cannot even judge ourselves (1 Corinthians 4:3). If we do, it is likely that our judgement will fall far short of that given by God in his merciful and just love. Maybe we should simply leave the business of judgement to the Lord, committing ourselves and all others into the hands of him who judges righteously.