Judging

Monday March 9

Readings: Dn 9:4B-10; Lk 6:36-38

Our readings today focus on mercy.

Deuteronomy tells us how merciful God is.  Time after time as we fall short and fail, God is willing to take up back and keep working with us.

And Jesus in the gospel gives us a series of instructions which are all interrelated: Be merciful, Stop judging, Stop condemning, Forgive, Give.

These are simple instructions.  Simple, but not easy.

So many great teachers throughout history have taught us the dangers of judging.  There is something about this process that closes us off, hardens our hearts and constricts us.  While it seems to be part of the nature of our mind, it is also something that we are taught. 

We are first taught to judge ourselves because we are the recipients of the judgements and criticisms of others.  These can come overtly or covertly, but they begin to work on us.  Almost everyone I know has a rather harsh inner-critic voice that offers us a narrative of our lives.  This voice is a toxin to our spirit.

But we are also taught to judge the world around us.  Groups of people are judged and assigned value.  Certain lives, worldviews, experiences and places are afforded more worth at all levels.  And we internalize the messages associated with this kind of judgement – whatever side of the judgement we are on!

And then there’s the level of ego.  The Buddhists tell us that our minds are judging all the time because we have this endless dualistic chatter inside about what we like, what we want, how disappointed we are that such and such happened, etc.

So Jesus invites us to hit the pause button on all of it.

Perhaps a first movement in the undoing of our judgements is jut noticing how our minds work. 

I remember seeing an article a few years back where the National Science Foundation published some research about human thoughts. They said that the “average person” (I have no idea how that was defined) has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day.  But here’s the kicker, of those thoughts, 80%  are negative and 95% are exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before. Your mind may not work in the very same way, but the reality is that a lot of negativity passes through our minds and the same thoughts keep occurring to us.

But judgement is not just about our inner workings.  It has profound social implications and affects the quality of our collective life.  Bryan Stevenson in his brilliant book Just Mercy offers some thoughts on mercy and the social importance of doing this work:

Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done….We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated.  An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation.  Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe that it is necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice and – perhaps – we all need some measure of unmerited grace.

During Lent, I wound invite us to examine our thoughts and judgements.  Notice the chatter that crosses your mind.  Listen to what it says about yourself, about others, about every situation that arises.  And let it go.  Forgive yourself and remember that at such a deep level you are loved by God (and so is everyone else).  Give and forgive generously for today.