Luke 6:37, 38
"Stop
judging and you will not be judged… For the measure with which you measure will
in return be measured out to you."
I disagree with what a friend is
saying. Instead of saying my side about
the issue at hand, I criticized him - hmmm, no, it was something harder – I
actually insulted him. Yet, he remained
silent.
His silence made me stopped and think
hard. His silence exposed the pride I
feel inside. His silence judged me more
than I judged him in the first place.
The act of judgment is an act of pride. Judging others is an act of monumental pride
- enormous pride, stupendous pride, galling, astonishing, fantastic pride. When you render judgment on another, you have
taken upon yourself an awesome responsibility for making the correct
judgment.
Because, after all, your judgment is not
necessary.
So when we judge others perhaps we should
step back for a moment and judge our judging.
Are we being fair? Or are we
acting on a double standard? “We all
have beams in our eyes, so to speak; to judge people for the little motes stuck
in their eyes while we have big beams in our own is devilish arrogance as well
as folly.”
As Tyron Edwards (renowned American
theologian) have said, “Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of
self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the
insidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood.”
Make the right judgment based on facts, or
don’t make any judgment at all.
Let us pray +
Almighty Father, may Your Spirit of right
judgment and courage, guide us and make us firm in our baptismal decision to
follow Jesus' way of love. May Your Spirit of knowledge and reverence, help us
to see the lasting value of justice and mercy in our everyday dealings with one
another.
Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.
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