Have you ever been in a situation where it felt
like everyone around you was judging you?
It’s not a very pleasant feeling, is it? Even if you
cannot think of anything you’ve done wrong, even if you’re convinced that
you’ve done the best you could, it’s still a really uncomfortable feeling.
You feel like you always have to be careful, like you always have to be
looking over your shoulder. Sometimes
you feel like you’re afraid to do anything or even say anything, because it
feels like the people around you are just waiting, even hoping for the chance
to catch you in a mistake and nail you for it.
And so, as we talk about what we can give up for Lent,
today we’re going to talk about giving up judgment. And we’re going to
talk about replacing it with kindness and love.
Now, I want to make clear that in saying we should give up
judgment, I’m not saying that there should be no standards of right and wrong.
I think the Bible makes clear that there are. Yes, Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you, too,
will be judged.” But that statement is
just one verse of a larger speech that Jesus made, what we now call the Sermon
on the Mount.
In that sermon, Jesus tackles
all kinds of subjects. He talks about anger and forgiveness. He talks about adultery and lust. He
talks about divorce. He talks about
revenge and the need to love even our enemies. He talks about
humility. He talks about prayer. He talks about greed. In all of those things, Jesus clearly states
“this is what’s right, and this is what’s wrong”. Those standards clearly
exist, and Jesus is not at all afraid to say so. And in all of these things, Jesus’ point is
the same: this is how you should live
you and I should live our lives. If we’re going to call ourselves
followers of Jesus, then this is what we should do. This is how we should live.
And that’s why Jesus said, “Do
not judge, or you, too, will be judged.” And it’s why he followed it up
with this: “For in the same way you
judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be
measured to you.” And it’s why he then went on to talk about how we
cannot try to remove a speck of sawdust from someone else’s eye when we have a
plank in our own eye.
Jesus is not saying standards
of right and wrong don’t exist. He clearly says they do. But what he’s telling us to do is take those
standards of right and wrong, of good and evil, and apply them to our own
lives. Not take them and apply them to other people’s lives. Not judge how well someone else is living up
to those standards. That’s for God to
decide, not us. What we’re supposed to do is focus on living up to those
standards ourselves, regardless of what anyone else might do.
And it’s easy to see why Jesus
would say this. Because the bottom line is that the only person who I
have the power to change is me. I cannot change anyone else. And that’s true of each one of us. The only person we have the power to change
is ourselves. If someone else wants to change, we might be able to help
them. But we cannot change anyone who
does not want to change. The only person
we can change is ourselves. And as we’ve talked about before, even
changing ourselves is pretty hard. When
we think about that, when we think about how hard it is for us to change
ourselves, it’s pretty obvious that changing someone else is going to be pretty
much impossible.
So our primary focus needs to
be on our behavior. Are we living up to Jesus’ standards? Are we living lives that show we are
followers of Jesus Christ? Are we living humbly, forgiving others, loving
our enemies, and doing all the other things Jesus told us to do? Those
are the things we need to focus on. Not
judgment.
But at the same time, none of
us lives in isolation. We deal with other people all the time in
life. Jesus said not to judge others,
but if we don’t judge people what should we do? Well, the answer is probably
pretty obvious. Treat them with
kindness. Treat them with
understanding. Treat them with
caring. Treat them with love.
But having said that, what does
it actually look like? What does it mean to say that we’re not going to
judge people, that we’re going to treat them with kindness and understanding
and love? I mean, it sounds good in theory, but how does that play out in
our relationships with real people?
I think it comes down to the
last sentence in our reading for today. It’s what we now commonly call
the Golden Rule. Jesus said, “In
everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”
Remember what we talked about
at the beginning of the message, how unpleasant it feels to be in a situation
where someone is judging us. If it’s unpleasant for us when someone is
judging us, it’s going to be unpleasant for someone else when we judge
them. If we don’t want people to judge
us, then we’d better not be judging other people, either.
But that raises a question,
right? What do we do when we see someone heading down a wrong road?
What do we do when we see someone, especially someone we care about,
doing things that the Bible clearly indicates are wrong? We’re told not
to judge them. But does that mean we
need to approve of what they do? Does it
mean we should not have any opinion whatsoever? Does it mean that, if we
have an opinion, we should keep it to ourselves? What do we do?
It’s a tough question. It
really is. What is the kind thing to do
in that situation? What is the loving thing to do? How would you want someone to treat you, if
they saw you doing those things?
An easy thing to do is to do
nothing. To just ignore the situation and let the person go ahead and do
whatever they’re doing. Another easy thing to do is to start talking
about what a terrible person someone is for doing what they’re doing.
Those alternatives are easy, but neither of them strikes me as a
particularly kind or loving thing to do.
I don’t think there is an easy
way to handle this. But here’s what I’ll tell you. As I look back on my life, I can think of
some times when someone loved me enough to come to me and tell me that what I
was doing was not right, that it was not acceptable, and that I needed to
change. That was not an easy thing for either of us. I’m sure it was not easy for them to say
those things, and I know it was not easy for me to hear them. I did not like it at all. But after I thought about it for a while, I
realized that what they were saying was right. I did need to change. And I’m grateful to them for loving me enough
to tell me so. What I experienced in
those situations was not judgment. It
was love. Love that cared enough about
me to let me know that I needed to stop wandering away and get back on track.
Doing that is tough. But
love is not always easy. Sometimes love requires us to do hard things, to
do things that we’d rather not do, to take risks we’d rather not take.
But if what we feel is truly love, we’ll still do it. And we’ll find a way to do that shows that
it’s done from an attitude of love and kindness.
And another part of that love and kindness is not
abandoning people if they choose not to change. Because again, no one can
be changed against their will. It’s
their choice. And if they choose not to
change, we need to let them know that we still love them anyway. Not that
we approve of what they’re doing. But
that we still love them, and that we’ll still be there for the when they need
someone.
That may not be easy, either. But it’s how we’d want
someone to treat us, right? In those situations where someone loved me
enough to tell me that I needed to change, if I’d chosen not to, I’d have
wanted them to still care about me. And if, at some point, things came
crashing down and I had to admit they were right, I’d want them to still be
there for me. Not to say “I told you
so”, not to tell me what an idiot I was and how I should’ve known better, but
just to be there for me. To let me know I was not alone and that they’d
do what they could to help me pick up the pieces.
Giving up judgment and loving people is not easy, because
love is often not easy. But it is rewarding. If, as we always say, God is love, then
loving people is the most God-like thing we’ll ever do. So let’s give up
judgment and treat people with kindness and love. Not just for Lent, but for all our lives.
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