For With the Judgment You Pronounce You Will Be Judged
Live+Jesus
On Sunday we will chat about not showing partiality.
Listen to what Francis de Sales has to say on this topic.If we like a certain practice we despise everyone else and oppose everything that is not to our taste. If someone is poor-looking or if we have taken a dislike to that person, we find fault with everything that person does: we never stop plaguing that person, and are always looking for an opportunity to run that person down. On the contrary, if we like someone because of their good looks, there isn’t anything that person does that we aren’t willing to overlook.
In general, we prefer the rich to the poor…we even prefer those who are better dressed. We rigorously demand own rights, but want others to be considerate when insisting on theirs. We maintain our rank with exactness, but we want others to be humble and accommodating when it comes to theirs. We complain very easily about our neighbor, but our neighbors must never complain about us. What we do for others always seems like such a big deal, but what others do for us seems like nothing at all.
In short, we have two hearts. We have a mild, gracious, and courteous attitude toward ourselves and another that is hard, severe, and rigorous toward our neighbor. We have two weights: one to weigh goods to our won greatest possible advantage and another to weigh our neighbor’s greatest possible disadvantage. (Introduction Part III, Chapter 36)
This is the essence of discriminating against others “in our hearts”: to live with two hearts, to live by a double standard. As James says, when we set ourselves up as judge (and jury) of our neighbor while failing to use the same standard on ourselves, we “hand down corrupt decisions.”
On the other hand, God shows no partiality. As people made in God’s image and likeness, neither should we. How can we remedy our tendency to prefer some over others? Francis de Sales is crystal clear and unambiguous. “Be just and equitable in all your actions. Always put yourself in your neighbor’s place and your neighbor in yours and you will judge justly. Imagine yourself the seller when you buy and the buyer when you sell and you will sell and buy justly…This is the touchstone of all reason.”
Reason enough to do our level best to show no partiality when it comes to the things of God, and in giving our neighbor his or her due.
(Fr. Michael Murray, OSFS)
We’ll be talking about not showing partiality this Sunday; here are some questions to prepare you for the discussion.
- “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, `Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:1-5). We hear this verse a lot. Do we take it seriously?
- Saint Paul takes us beyond simply not judging, but he deepens what it means to not judge: “Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). How can we make this extra step from judgment into a genuine concern for others?
- Judgment often begins from an unspoken sense of insecurity and inadequacy. It is a disordered concern for self. How do you think caring for others is or is not a form of caring for yourself (in an unselfish way)?
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