Judge Not

"Judge not" is a good word, spoken by none other than Jesus himself. With the proviso, "lest ye be judged."

Which is a good thing, both to be judged by God, and then, with all sincerity and whatever shreds of integrity we can gather around ourselves from the bits and pieces of life, to render judgment.

Here's the full text of the Matthew 5 passage:

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with thejudgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you givewill 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 ofyour eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, firsttake the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly totake the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

Judgment, as Bonhoeffer did ... a slow and arduous process ... but called for by the very nature of history.

From his book, "Ethics,"

The responsible man acts in the freedom of his own self, without the support of men, circumstances or principles, but with a due consideration for the given human and general conditions and for the relevant questions of principle. The proof of his freedom is the fact that nothing can answer for him, nothing can exonerate him, except his own deed and his own self. It is he himself who must observe, judge, weigh up, decide and act. It is man himself who must examine the motives, the prospects, the value and the purpose of his action. But neither the purity of the motivation, nor the opportune circumstances, nor the value, nor the significant purpose of an intended undertaking can become the governing law of his action, a law to which he can withdraw, to which he can appeal as an authority, and by which he can be exculpated and acquitted. For in that case he would indeed no longer be truly free. The action of the responsible man is performed in the obligation which alone gives freedom and which gives entire freedom, the obligation to God and to our neighbour as they confront us in Jesus Christ. At the same time it is performed wholly within the domain of relativity, wholly in the twilight which the historical situation spreads over good and evil; it is performed in the midst of the innumerable perspectives in which every given phenomenon appears. …. … responsible action is a free venture; it is not justified by any law; it is performed without any claim to a valid self-justification, and therefore also without any claim to an ultimate valid knowledge of good and evil. Good, as what is responsible, is performed in ignorance of good and in the surrender to God of the deed which has become necessary and which is nevertheless, or for that very reason, free; for it is God who sees the heart, who weighs up the deed, and who directs the course of history.

None of us can escape the judgment of God, and none of us can eschew making judgments about the people we know, or hear about ... judgments not made hastily, or without deliberate consideration and humility, or without regard for God's judgment upon our own life - what we value and how we conduct ourselves.

When reminded by others about judgment (which is a good thing of which to be reminded), I remind them that all the writers of Scripture rendered judgment on others ... and made it clear that there are boundaries, rules of engagement, doctrines, ideas that define the heart and soul of faith ... and there are those who take license with such things, who, for devious reasons, alter the "truth of Christ" and create "another gospel."

In 2 Corinthians 2.17, Paul writes:

For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.

Peddlers?

Rather a stunning judgment, would you not say?

Yet Paul had all the right in the world to render such judgment, not because he was always right, but because of his labor of love, his learning and experience, his determination to set people free from the horrible superstitions and moral codes of so much religion. I'm not suggesting that Paul was always right, but I'll take Paul anytime, even if a grain of salt is sometimes required.

So ... Paul makes it clear: he's not a "peddler of God's Word" ... but, rather, someone who speaks with sincerity as a person sent from God.

Huge claim for himself.

But in a world of all sorts of competing ideas, Paul took a stand.

So did Moses and Jeremiah and Peter and down through the ages, folks like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Huss and Wycliffe, Luther and Calvin ... and of our own time, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mother Teresa or Pope Francis on poverty and justice and immigrants.

It's this, and not that.

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Dr. King makes is clear, abundantly clear, what he refuses:

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction.

And then offers a litany of what he believes:

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. "And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid." I still believe that We Shall overcome!

And that's a judgment ... so help us God.