Monday, 22 June 2015

CHRISTIAN JUDGMENT

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


SCRIPTURE READINGS: GENESIS 12:1-9; MATTHEW 7:1-5
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

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