20150622 CHRISTIAN JUDGMENT
Readings at Mass
First reading
|
Genesis 12:1-9 ©
|
The Lord said to
Abram, ‘Leave your country, your family and your father’s house, for the land I
will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name
so famous that it will be used as a blessing.
‘I will bless those
who bless you:
I will curse those
who slight you.
All the tribes of the
earth
shall bless
themselves by you.’
So Abram went as the
Lord told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he
left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they
had amassed and the people they had acquired in Haran. They set off for the
land of Canaan, and arrived there.
Abram
passed through the land as far as Shechem’s holy place, the Oak of Moreh. At
that time the Canaanites were in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said,
‘It is to your descendants that I will give this land.’ So Abram built there an
altar for the Lord who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the
mountainous district east of Bethel, where he pitched his tent, with Bethel to
the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and invoked
the name of the Lord. Then Abram made his way stage by stage to the Negeb.
Psalm
|
Psalm
32:12-13,18-20,22 ©
|
Happy the people
the Lord has chosen as his own.
They are happy, whose
God is the Lord,
the
people he has chosen as his own.
From the heavens the
Lord looks forth,
he sees
all the children of men.
Happy the people
the Lord has chosen as his own.
The Lord looks on
those who revere him,
on those
who hope in his love,
to rescue their souls
from death,
to keep
them alive in famine.
Happy the people
the Lord has chosen as his own.
Our soul is waiting
for the Lord.
The Lord
is our help and our shield.
May your love be upon
us, O Lord,
as we
place all our hope in you.
Happy the people
the Lord has chosen as his own.
Gospel
Acclamation
|
Jn17:17
|
Alleluia, alleluia!
Your word is truth, O
Lord:
consecrate us in the
truth.
Alleluia!
Or
|
Heb4:12
|
Alleluia, alleluia!
The word of God is
something alive and active:
it can judge secret
emotions and thoughts.
Alleluia!
Gospel
|
Matthew 7:1-5 ©
|
Jesus said to his
disciples, ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; because the judgements
you give are the judgements you will get, and the amount you measure out is the
amount you will be given. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye
and never notice the plank in your own? How dare you say to your brother, “Let
me take the splinter out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in
your own? Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you
will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.’
CHRISTIAN
JUDGMENT
We are
created in the image of God. This means that we are given intellect and
free will. We are constantly called to exercise our freedom. This implies
that inevitably, we are called to make conscientious decisions through
discernment and judgment. Yet making the right judgment is not easy, be
it in our personal life, or in relation to other people and situations.
Apparently,
today’s gospel seems to justify those who wish to abdicate their responsibility
of passing judgment, since Jesus said, “Do not judge, and you will not be
judged.” Jesus’ warning about the dangers of judgment must be understood
in context. After all, it is clear that in the first reading, Abram who
was called from Ur migrated to Haran en route to the Promised Land, also had to
discern what God wanted him to do. Throughout the journey to Canaan,
Abram had to make decisions in the face of difficulties and potential
enemies. Hence, in life, we cannot refrain from judgment, from making
decisions and from the discernment process. What we need to do however is
to be aware of the complexity and difficulties involved in judgment.
Firstly,
we must be clear that no judgment is purely objective as much as we want to it
to be. Our judgment is colored by our upbringing, by our culture and the
value system that we have been brought up in. In that sense, much of our
judgment is determined by our background and circumstances. Furthermore,
not only is our judgment influenced by our social background, it is also
impacted by our past experiences. Past experiences shape us in the way we
see and perceive life. Hurtful experiences can make us approach life and
people differently. For this reason, Jesus asked, “Why do you observe the
splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own? … Take
the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to
take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.” This plank is our social
background and personal life history. Without being aware of such a plank
in our judgment, we might deceive ourselves into thinking that we are able to
see everything clearly and without prejudice.
Consequently,
we must be ready to recognize that our judgment is limited and partial and
never final. Through dialogue and interaction, we would be required to
modify our judgment. We must never think that we have the final answer to
a problem, or in our analysis of a situation. Through dialogue, study,
reflection and greater understanding, we will come to view the problem in a
fuller light. Whilst it does not mean that our judgment is false, we
should realize that it is seldom complete. Truth can be deepened, and not
necessarily possessed immediately, even if what we believe in is true.
Secondly,
because our judgment is influenced by the way we have been conditioned or
brought up, our judgments reflect more of who we are, than the object of our
judgment. This explains why Jesus said, “The judgments you give are the
judgments you will get, and the amount you measure out is the amount you will
be given.” In other words, when we judge a situation or when we judge
others, it reflects more about ourselves than what is being judged. The
measure we use to judge others manifest where we stand with respect to certain
values. In judging others, we are actually judging ourselves. That
is why Jesus warned us, “Do not judge and you will not be judged; because the
judgments you will give are the judgments that you will get, and the amount you
measure out is the amount you will be given.” So it must be clear that
every time we judge, we are really judging ourselves.
For
example, in a particular situation, two persons will certainly judge a matter
differently. We are often prejudiced, and we brand people accordingly
because of our collective past experiences and life journeys. What is
unjust is that we judge others on the basis of the accumulation of their past
history of failures. We do not recognize that people can change, and are
changing all the time. Thus, our judgment is often unreal, based on the
past instead of on the present reality. Thus, Jesus advises us to “Take
the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to
take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.”
Furthermore,
we tend to be harsh in our judgments of others. In judging others without
mercy and compassion, not only do we do them injustice, but also, we ultimately
hurt ourselves. This is because the way we judge others would be the way
we judge ourselves. It is said therefore that on Judgment Day, it would
not be God who judges us, but we will judge ourselves. Hence, if we hate
others and cannot forgive others for their mistakes, we will also not be able
to forgive ourselves. In condemning others, we naturally condemn
ourselves as well.
However,
when God judges, He only judges us in the here and now. God is not a
slave to history, or to the environment, since He is the ever-present; the “I
Am.” What is past is forgotten as long as we have forgiven ourselves.
When God judges us, He only considers our present. As St Paul tells
us in his letter to the Corinthians, “Love does not keep a record of wrongs.”
Since God is only concerned with the here and now, He can judge us with love
and compassion. This explains why God’s judgment of people differs so
greatly from our judgments.
Today,
the first reading speaks of Abraham’s discernment in the Lord, in faith, love
and humility. This is the key to an authentic judgment. It is in
faith and love that Abraham discerned the situations in his life. We too,
must judge with the mind of God. We too, must reflect the mind of
God. We must be like God, who looks at people with love, hope and trust
that they can change. For in spite of the failures of the children of
Abraham as we see in salvation history, God continued to love them all the
same. He never gave up hope in them. We pray too, that we will have
compassion for and faith in others.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh
Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Singapore
© All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment