Don't judge me!

Several years ago I was a young mid-20’s dude living in Minnesota.  One normal day I was in my car with a passenger who was in his low 20’s.  I was far more mature, obviously.  As we were waiting at a stop light, a middle aged man came down the sidewalk riding a pink kid’s bicycle.  The guy I was with started to laugh at this guy.  It made me mad.  So I went into a story with it.

“What if this guy is married and has lots of kids?  What if they are young and his wife has to stay home to take care of them?  What if he’s working two jobs to provide for his family?  What if his oldest daughter really wanted a bike for her birthday, but he knew there is no way he could afford to buy her a new bike?  What if he found this used bike on the other side of town and the only way he could bring it home was to walk it across town or to ride it across town all the way home?  What if he was tired from working the morning shift and the night shift so he decided to right it home?”

I didn’t get a good response, but it made me feel a little better.

Jesus said, “Do not judge (condemn).  With the same measure that you use to condemn someone, it will be measure back to you.”  (Matthew 7:1-6).

Don’t judge because you are not that person.  I am not another person.  I cannot completely understand what is happening in someone else’s mind.  I have not had their experiences.  I don’t have their DNA.  I don’t share the same relationships.  I cannot, truly, walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.  Even if I did, what’s 1 mile?  It’s incredibly insignificant in the course of an entire life.

We may judge everyone without realizing it.  We may harshly judge those who we are somewhat close to us, but not those we don’t know.  We may judge those we don’t know more harshly until we know their stories.  Every one of us judges other people.  You may be saying right now, “Don’t judge how I judge other people!”

What we define as “judging” may better be understood as condemning.  We look at the behavior, actions, or dress of another person and we condemn him or her.  (Is there anything more fun than looking down on the pictures of those people who have just been imprisoned?)  But we sprinkle in this little idea that we are condemning this person for our good, their own good and the good of society.

That person is a _________.  Throughout history you can put various phrases on that blank and let it go wild.  I will not produce any examples.  I’ll let your imagination do that.

We wrap up all of that person’s existence in a word and then we try to help them not be that “word.”  That produces a push-back and/or fight that just breaks our relationship with them.  It’s ugly and we blame the other person for not being willing to change.

Condemning is the norm.  It’s normal, almost reactionary, to condemn someone.  Honk your horn lately?  Laugh at someone on the news lately?  Joke about your extended family?  Tear a part a politician, etc….

There is a better way to live and function within our world and Jesus taught it.  “Don’t condemn.  Love, care, and help.  But don’t do it out of a condemning heart.  Do it out of a loving heart.”

We interact with people not as judges, not as hypocrites, but as friends.  If you don’t see your fellow man as a person than you have already lost.  If you correct someone, which as a Christian you should correct another Christian, do it as a teammate not as an enemy.  A good measure for this is “how would you want to be treated?”

Dallas Willard, in his book The Divine Conspiracy, writes, “If we would really help those close to us and dear, and if we would learn to live together with our family and “neighbors” in the power of the kingdom, we must abandon the deeply rooted human practice of condemning and blaming.  This is what Jesus means when he says, “Judge not.”  He is telling us that we should, and that we can, become the kind of person who does not condemn or blame others.  As we do so, the power of God’s kingdom will be more freely available to bless and guide those around us into his ways.”

It’s not my job to judge someone, because I am not that person.  My relationship with others should always, first, be about loving him or her.  I think judging is our natural first reaction.  May we go through the re-training of our minds and hearts to change our first reaction to love for our fellow person.

When we condemn someone, whether in our mind or out loud, we are condemning something within ourselves.  That same standard that we put on others, well, we put that back on ourselves.

I don't want to live that way.  I'd rather follow the teaching of Jesus the author of all life.