Do Not Judge, and You Will Not Be Judged

a reflection on Luke 6:27-7:10

by Katie Heemstra

It never ceases to amaze me how God meets us right where we are at.  Even more so this week I was truly amazed reading the passages I would have to write about as I choked down the humble pie God was feeding me.  In my humanness, at one level wanting to put forward a polished foot for my first blog post for our church, it would have been nice to focus on Day 4’s reading, the centurion whose faith amazed even Jesus, which is truly an inspirational and aspirational story, but also one that is a step or two farther from home in my life right now.  No, in praying over this week’s reading it was Day 2 that God kept drawing me back to:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged.  Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven…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?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Luke 6:37, 41-42).

Verses 41-42 used to be verses I lived by.  When people would ask me how I try to live my life among God’s people, I would quote them those two verses, but somewhere along the way in the past year or so someone else’s speck got so apparent to me, that I completely forgot about the plank in my own eye.  And the even sadder part is, as I focused on their speck, my plank got bigger.

Have you ever been in a situation like that before?  Someone does something that hurts you and instead of dealing with it in the moment or truly letting it go, you just let it slide but in letting it slide you begin keeping score.  Then the emotions that come from continuing to let things slide but still keeping score take on a life of their own until that person becomes satan incarnate to you and it all spirals downhill and out of control?  Is it just me?

Even more, it can feel so good to demonize that person or situation because we feel justified in our anger (or even in our hate if we let it get that far) because our laundry list of their faults has been gathered like evidence against their case.  In reality, they don’t even know they’re on trial, but we add their nonchalance in the situation as a mark against them too. And again, it spirals out of control.

My big question right now is how do you come back from something like that?

I think the answer is in this passage, and I think it is why God, in all his wisdom and omniscience, made sure I had to write about this past week of readings (as we can clearly see from my not-so-hypothetical examples).  Day 1’s reading lays it out pretty clearly: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, turn the other cheek, pray for those who mistreat you, lend without expecting repayment. Day 2 we see more of it: do not judge, do not condemn, forgive.  If we read over these two passages as just nice ideas but don’t take it to heart, we get smacked in the face again at Day 3 when Jesus asks, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” 😰

We cannot ignore his instructions for us, build our house on sand, then wonder why our life is in shambles when something hard happens.  Now why would someone want to build a house on sand? Because it is easier! Have you ever dug a hole in the sand? It’s an afternoon passtime at the beach and children can do it!   Have you ever dug a hole in a rock? Yeah, me neither, because it is hard and you need specific tools to do so. Digging foundations for a home in sand is easier, but it won’t last, we need to gather the tools to start securing our foundations in rock.  In the Rock. In Jesus. In what he teaches us to do.

In all my time as a Christian, and a human Christian who can hold a pretty strong grudge if I put my mind to it, the most helpful and effective tool I’ve seen and personally used is praying for those who mistreat me.  There is something about praying for someone, having a conversation with the Most High about one of his other children that just puts things in a better perspective. Sometimes I have to talk with God about them every five minutes, but eventually I do feel that ice around my heart melt away and I’m able to genuinely look at them through the eyes of the Father and love them as God has called me to.

That’s the hope in this passage.  That is God’s promise to us. We see in in Luke 6:35-36, if you follow his instructions, “Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Isn’t that such a relief? It is to me as I take another bite of my humble pie this week and begin to pray for those who have mistreated me and bring the plank in my eye to my loving heavenly Father to help me remove it piece by piece.

Artwork: The Sermon On The Mount, Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625)