Word to the Wise
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - Wednesday in the 28th Week in Ordinary Time
[Rom 2:1-11 and Luke 11:42-46,]You, O man, are without excuse, every one of you who passes judgment. For by the standard by which you judge another you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the very same things.......Yes, affliction and distress will come upon everyone who does evil, Jew first and then Greek. But there will be flory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, Jew first and then Greek. There is no partiality with God.
In the past, I have recommended the short story by the great Catholic American writer from the South, Flannery O'Connor, titled REVELATION. It is about a very self-righteous lady, Mrs. Turpin, who goes for a doctor's appointment and sits in the waiting room judging all the other patients who are there, comparing them inwardly with her own righteousness. Suddenly, a young girl, emotionally disturbed, throws a large book at her and tells her to "Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog!" Needless to say, this is extremely disturbing to Mrs. Turpin and the rest of the story is about her rationalizing her judgments until she goes out to hose down the pig pen on the farm. There she has a vision of a long line of people ascending into heaven. At the front of the line are all the kinds of people that she looked down on. At the end of the line are all those righteous people whom she approved of, but they are just barely getting into heaven and the looks on their faces showed that "even their virtues were being burned away."
The most frequent fault that I hear in the sacrament of Reconciliation is that of being "judgmental." Although this usually involves being judgmental about people who are immediate to the penitent, such as co-workers, employers, family members, occasionally I hear sorrow expressed for judgments about classes of people: races, immigrants, even politicians! Resentment, based on economic inequalities or on power relations, is frequently the catalyst.
St. Paul, having confronted pagan gentile idolatry which has lead them to a completely amoral standard of conduct (see yesterday's first scripture), now confronts the Jewish Christian community in Rome with its own judgmentalism, He reminds them that they violate the very God-given laws by which they judge their Gentile neighbors, and that they will be subject to the same judgment that God will give to the Gentiles. "There is no partiality with God." St. Paul is clearly "leveling the playing field" for the rest of his powerful letter. We have to abandon any sense of superiority based on faith and hear the word of God the same as all others and be held to the same standard of judgment! AMEN