Monday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time
Readings of the day: 2 Kings 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18; Psalm 60:3, 4-5, 12-13; Matthew 7:1-5
Readings of the day: 2 Kings 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18; Psalm 60:3, 4-5, 12-13; Matthew 7:1-5
“Stop judging, that you may not be
judged.” Do any of us know someone who has difficulty understanding or putting
into practice these words of Jesus in our Gospel reading today? Do we ourselves
have this difficulty at times? Anyone who has difficulty understanding or
practicing what Jesus teaches us, “Stop judging, that you may not be judged,” I
think deserves not criticism but great empathy.
We live in a culture of opposite
extremes surrounding “Stop judging.” These are opposite ethical
“dictatorships,” if you will. Just before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI,
then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoke of a “dictatorship of relativism”
especially in Europe and North America that says: Do not judge another
culture’s or individual’s actions or ideas as better or worse than those of
another culture or individual. All actions or ideas are right insofar as a
culture or individual feels they are right, and no other individual or group has
the right to say otherwise.
Equally damaging and incoherent is the
opposite to the “dictatorship of relativism,” that is, the dictatorship of
absolutism: Individuals, societies, nations, or even churches may suggest that
they know all the answers; that they hold absolute truths besides God, the only
absolute Truth, for those who seek certainty. I do not say that, if a society,
a nation, or a church develops teachings, norms, or guidelines with which we
disagree, we should reject these teachings, norms, or guidelines out of hand,
or that we should accept what we agree with uncritically, either.
Both relativism, in which there is no
right and wrong, and absolutism, in which there is no nuance between absolute
right and absolute wrong, are failures to think; to put our hearts and minds
with which God has gifted us to the service of God and of one another in love.
“Stop judging, that you may not be
judged.” Jesus, I think, teaches us with these words to distinguish between
judging an action or idea as right or not, and judging the person as good or evil. Judgment of
actions or ideas as right or wrong is, I say, healthy and even our responsibility to do. But is not judging
another person beneath her or his dignity as created by God, even though in our
fallen state we all sin, itself wrong? This, I think, is the kind of judgment
Jesus speaks against in our Gospel reading today. This kind of judgment
destroys peace; destroys human community; does not see the beams in our own
eyes but focuses on the splinters in the eyes of others.
I am confident that I am not directing
these harsh words at any of us here; that Jesus’ teaching is not directed at
any of us here now. And yet can we not all benefit (I know I can) from the
reminders our Gospel offers us today? Judge the ethics of the action or idea;
not the dignity of the person created by God as anything less than fundamentally
good. Strike an ethical balance between the dictatorships of relativism and
absolutism. Let us pray, then, for the strength to judge wisely when we are
called to judge; to judge as God judges, with love; to judge in a way that
responsibly upholds what is ethically right yet respects the God-given dignity
of all people and all creation.
No comments:
Post a Comment