Granny Mac.
To begin I want to share this story with you about my Gran.
Years ago when I used to work up in Byres Road the highlight of my week was going down to my gran’s house in Partick on a Saturday night before I hit the town for my dinner. The reason why this was so special was because she would serve me up a huge plate of ham ribs and cabbage. While this might no float everybody’s boat if I could choose I would probably pick this as my last meal on earth, even now just talking about it is making me hungry.
After dinner I would talk to my gran for a while and inevitably she would begin to talk about her life. By this time she was getting on in years and had a tendency to repeat herself. In due course she would begin to talk about her friend Martha who had died a few years earlier. They had grown up together, worked together, raised their families together and had a very firm friendship. My gran would go to Martha’s on a Thursday one week and she would go to my gran’s the next week and they would catch up over a small sherry. Whenever my gran would talk about Martha she would be incredibly positive, what a great friend she was, how much she had done for her, how much she missed her and so on. However she would always punctuate this by adding that while she was a great friend she was fond of her sherry.
As I was walking down to the subway station one night after visiting my gran I realised that I had run out of cigarettes. So I turned back to go to the shop. As I was walking into the shop who comes walking out but my wee granny. Puzzled I asked her “what are you doing here”. She gives me this guilty look and says that she had run out of juice. But gran I said there’s a full bottle in the fridge. Finally she says looking even guiltier that she had come over to get a wee sherry. I said to her why didn’t you ask me and I would have gone to the shop for you. She looks at me and says that she didn’t want me to be embarrassed of her.
But isn’t that often the case that while we find it easy to judge and pass comment on others that’s ok we think nothing of it, but when we feel that others may judge our actions well that’s a different story because then it becomes personal.
A Judgemental Society
So, why is it that often we feel the need to pass judgement on others? We are clearly told in the opening verse of this chapter
1"Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
I would argue that the answer to this question is relatively simple. Being judgemental is engrained into us from a very early age and when we pass comment on someone else it can make us feel better about ourselves as if we are somehow superior to those we are passing judgement on.
I remember when I was at school that you were not one of the cool kids unless you wore the right trainers and the right cloths. The terms that I remember being thrown at those who did not conform to this was that they were a “wee Jake” or a tramp. When you are a kid this kind of abuse can be really hurtful. Never mind what kind of person you are, that didn’t matter the opinion was formed by what you are wearing and you were accepted or rejected on that basis.
One thing that I am really proud of is where I come from. Like many here I am really proud of coming from Castlemilk. I remember in about 5th year at school we had to create a CV. I was handed mine back and told to change my address. I looked at it and said to the teacher that there was nothing wrong with the address that I had written down. She told me to take Castlemilk out. I asked her why and she said that employers were less likely to look at a CV from someone from Castlemilk and that I would stand a better chance of getting an interview if I took it out, so I did. At one interview all seemed to be going well until the interviewer asked me which part of Glasgow I came from. Castlemilk, I said. You don’t seem like someone from Castlemilk was the reply. What do you mean I asked? Well you know that’s a rough area. So this person had an idea in their mind how someone from Castlemilk should look and act perhaps without ever meeting someone from there and basing their opinion on hearsay.
All too often we are encouraged to be judgemental towards others. Take the X factor and Big Brother. How often have you been involved in conversations about the contestants where you have said more positive things about them than negative ones? If you are like me, not many. When these shows are on Monday morning tea break at work usually revolves around how what a fool so and so made of themselves. We don’t even know the person and yet we have no problem slagging them off.
When I used to work out in Alexandria most days I would pass by a down and out that seemed to be aimlessly wandering the streets rambling on about this and that. This went on for about a year an a half and I must admit that I was never really curious about him; I just assumed that he was a homeless alcoholic. I was in the town one night with one of my mates who at that time was studying law at Glasgow University. As we were going along we seen this man and my mate turned to me and said it’s a shame what happened to him. He told me that about five years ago he was one of the top and highly regarded lawyers in Glasgow. I asked him what had happened to him and he told me that he had been involved in s car crash with his wife and daughter and that he was the only survivor.
Shortly afterwards he had a nervous breakdown and had in effect lost all interest in life. After that whenever I saw that man again my feelings towards him were altogether different. I no longer seen him as a homeless alcoholic but I seen him as someone who had undergone a heartbreaking tragedy and how much he must have loved his wife and daughter to have this effect on him. The only reason that my opinion had changed was because I was aware of facts that I had previously been ignorant of.
Not Built to Judge
Mat 7:3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
Mat 7:4 How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
Mat 7:5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
Man is incapable of passing judgement because man was not created to judge. For one thing we carry too much baggage around with us to often judge without being influenced by other factors. Do we like the person? If we do we tend to judge them more leniently than we would someone we had a dislike for. Perhaps more importantly though our own life’s are full of mistakes due to our sin. So what gives us the right to judge someone else’s short comings when we have our own to contend with? Perhaps we would be better off getting our own house in order before passing comment on someone else’s.
All too often when we pass judgement we do so without knowing the whole story. How would we react in the same situation? Would we behave or perform any better. Just because someone appears to be weak in one area doesn’t mean to say that they should be written off. They might shine in other areas of their life where we fail miserably but all too often we don’t take that into consideration when we pass judgement because at times we can find it extremely difficult and painful to reflect on our own short comings and it’s far, far easier to comment on someone else’s.
Only a completely sinless and impartial person has the right to judge. I don’t know about you but I don’t fall into either of these categories. I know of only one man who has been born who does. Jesus.
Perfect
Even if Jesus is the only one suited to passing judgement when Jesus was born into this world he didn’t come to pass judgement on it he came to save it and when he has something to say we should heed it because there was always an underlying message to everything he said.
Mat 7:2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
In this verse Jesus leaves us in no doubt what our fate will be for judging others. Our own standards of judgement will be levelled against us.
In Luke Jesus tells us:
Luk 6:37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
This again reinforces Jesus feelings on the matter. We are not to pass judgement. Rather we should concentrate on forgiveness. But as we know it is sometimes far easier to judge someone else’s actions than to forgive them for those actions.
Conclusion
At times when we judge it is an emotionless exercise where sometimes we don’t even think that we are passing judgement on others, that we are merely gossiping about them, but it amounts to the same thing. But when we contemplate about forgiving someone well that can be an altogether different matter because unlike judgement which we can find easy to do forgiveness can come a little harder to us.
Isn’t that a sad state of affairs when we know the nature and scope of Gods forgiveness and yet we can find so much difficulty in doing it in our own lives?