Perish

“Release this guilty wretch at once.  Otherwise he will corrupt all the fine innocent people who live in this prison.”

Sermon on the Mount (Bloch)

We humans are so good at judging others.  I know that I certainly am good at it.  All I need to do is close my eyes for a moment, imagine all the things that I do in my life and then picture how I would be able to do things better or more efficiently or in a nicer way than person X or person Y, and my judgement is cast in a moment.

And I have been thinking about that.  Obviously, some things are sort of written in stone and cannot be changed.  It is never ever going to be okay to exploit someone else for any reason at all.  Rape and abuse will never be justified.  But so many other things could be judged so much more fairly by God than by me.

If I witness a mother berating her child I might be tempted to judge her behaviour and her attitude.  I might think to myself, I am so much calmer than that woman or I would have approached that so much better than she did.  But I would have understood all the factors that contributed to that poor woman’s (and her child’s day).  Perhaps she was upset about a myriad of things?  Perhaps she was worried about money and her marriage and her child’s bad behaviour?  Maybe that child had been hassling her for a week, and she was out of her mind with worry about how to get that child to behave in a better fashion?

Once, many many years ago when my children were very very young, they were being particularly difficult in the shopping centre.  And I remember stopping outside a shop with tears in my eyes as I thought to myself, how will I ever get these children to cooperate with me now…

A woman (who was working in that shop) walked out side and spoke to me kindly for less then two minutes.  She did not seem to judge me and said only kind things.  And her act of kindness was so powerful that it allowed me to pull myself together and go about my day…

And I have been thinking about that kindness today as I have been reflecting on Christ’s warning in the Gospel…

“There were some present at that very time who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.’” (Luke 13:1-9).

I have to practice first casting the beam from my own eye before I seek the splinter in my neighbour’s eye.

I read a funny story about the King of Prussia and it reminded me of the same thing…

Prussian king Frederick the Great once visited Berlin prison.  Upon encountering each inmate he asked why they were imprisoned.  Each man replied that he was innocent and it was a mistake.  Finally, he came across a prisoner who replied, that he was guilty of armed robbery.  “Guilty?”  The king replied, and turning to the gaoler, he said, “Release this guilty wretch at once.  Otherwise he will corrupt all the fine innocent people who live in this prison.”

And I have been thinking about that today as I judge everyone else.  For it seems, that I must first look inward if I wish to be free…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.