Thou shalt not judge???

What if it IS True? Blog

Discovering, wrestling with, and trying like crazy to live Gospel virtue.

04/05/14

John 7:40-53

Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said,
“This is truly the Prophet.”
Others said, “This is the Christ.”
But others said, “The Christ will not come from Galilee, will he?
Does not Scripture say that the Christ will be of David’s family
and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”
So a division occurred in the crowd because of him.
Some of them even wanted to arrest him,
but no one laid hands on him.

So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees,
who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?”
The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.”
So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived?
Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.”
Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them,
“Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him
and finds out what he is doing?”
They answered and said to him,
“You are not from Galilee also, are you?
Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

Then each went to his own house.

How willing are we to give others their fair shake? Do we judge unfairly before we know what's really going on with someone? A virtuous approach to dealing with others would allow everyone the benefit of the doubt. Now granted, even Jesus says that we are to judge a tree by it's fruit. But even in dealing with the seemingly barren tree Jesus gives it time to bear fruit. So how do we judge? There's a popular misunderstanding that one of the 10 Commandments is “thou shalt not judge”. This seems to be a favorite reference from those who are doing things that they know break the real commandments.

I had a situation with a co-worker several years ago that I totally misjudged. At the time I worked in a multi-radio station complex with five stations broadcasting from the same building. Every morning a few of us morning hosts would pass each other in the hall way on our way to the coffee maker. One guy was always friendly and jovial and would always make a point to stop and share some niceties. It turned out that one morning this guy was downright grim. Not his usual self by any means but especially curt with me. Granted, I didn't see him interact with anyone else, but I immediately assumed that it was me. I thought that I had somehow angered him and he was not coming clean with me but just avoiding me. As it turns out he ended up in the hospital the week later with bypass surgery. It was nothing I had done, it was that he was stressed about he health.

We judge people in many different ways. But the best thing we can do is to give people every chance to prove us wrong, or right, before we jump to conclusions. It may be an issue similar to what Jesus is in here. A total misunderstanding because we don't have enough information. Therefore we judge that someone isn't who they say they are. Or, it could be that our misperception is rooted in our own insecurity as was the case with my radio friend. Regardless, do we choose the virtuous path or do we choose our default reaction. The choice is ours.

Good luck and God Bless,

Leo Brown