Monday of the Second Week in Lent
You'll find this scripture citation held up on signs and banners at televised athletic events. It's spray painted on underpasses and imprinted on coffee mugs. No, it's not John 3:16, “God so loved the world that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It's Luke 6:37, “Judge not, lest you be judged.”
“Judge not, lest you be judged,” was one of the hottest scripture passages on Google search last year. It's the one verse Americans seem to know by heart. People even weaponize it--- quoting it at one another, especially those with whom they disagree. NFL champion quarterback Tim Tebow wore Luke 6:37 on his “eye black” (grease under the eyes to reduce glare) so TV cameras would zoom in on it for all to see.
Pope Francis likes it too, and has responded to controversial questions by quoting it, adding “Who am I to judge?” Having the Vicar of Christ pose such a question landed the pontiff on the cover of magazines the world over. “Who am I to judge?” blared across the headlines of major newspapers, too. And he set social media all-abuzz.
It has been said that the parables of Jesus, especially the Prodigal Son and the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, only make sense to us once we realize that God even puts mercy ahead of justice itself.
Judgment, millions agree, is best left to God. Still we judge one another, sometimes relentlessly. We long for God to spare us, yet we refuse to spare one another. What can we do?
The opposite of judgment is mercy. A distraught mother went to General Grant after the Battle of Shiloh to beg him to spare her son who was a deserter. “He doesn't deserve it,” the General said. “Sir, if he deserved it it wouldn't be mercy,” she responded.
Pope Francis likes to say that “the name of God is mercy.” One of his first papal acts was to declare a Jubilee Year of Mercy.
Replacing condemnation with mercy is to share in the very work of God. Mystic Saint Mary Magdalene DePizza (1556-1607) preferred showing mercy to others more than she did the ecstasy she enjoyed in prayer. “I am happier relieving a neighbor than when I am raptured in prayer. When I am at prayer God assists me; but in relieving a neighbor I assist God.”
What can we do on a practical level to become less judgmental? Here's a few pithy statements that may help:
- Compassion for self is crucial. Without it we cannot be gentle with others.
- Remember that hurt people hurt people.
- Jesus preferred the company of sinners.
- In the moment don't react. Count to ten. Breathe.
- The only person you can change is you.
- Jesus more readily forgave those who executed him than he did the self-righteous.
As the Lakota Indian prayer petitions, “May I never judge another until I walk a mile in his moccasins.”
Timothy J. Cronin