Word to the Wise
Monday, June 21, 2010 - St. Aloysius Gonzaga, S.J.
[2 Kings 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18 and Matthew 7:1-5]Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?
If I kept some kind of chart of the types of sins that people confess to (as I used to see one elderly confessor do during my college days), clearly "judgmentalism" would top the list! It seems to be an "all purpose" category to describe our feelings of resentment, comparison, competition, prejudice, etc.etc. It's quite a "grab bag" of attitudes (and behavior, when we act on these feelings)! There is a dimension to this, however, that many folks don't quite realize. It is something similar to Jesus' admonition about forgiving if we expect to forgive. In the case of "judging," however, we are promised that we will be "judged" according to the standard that we apply when WE judge! That means we need to do more than simply acknowledge that we have been judgmental. We need to come to terms with the WHY? in all of this. That WHY? is the beam in our own eye. (When I preach about this text at retreats, I often try to find a large piece of wood to pass around while I'm speaking!) If we feel we have been "misjudged" by someone, perhaps the first question that should come to us is whether or not we use the same standard we feel has been applied to us? This may alter our own standard of mercy considerably! That beam of wood in our own eye may well be shaped like a judge's gavel! That same gavel may come down upon us! Mercy is linked to seeing someone or some situation clearly for what they are. Removing the gavel is the first step toward being merciful! AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
72 ms
4
