Week 23—Thursday Matthew 7:3-5
Week 23—THURSDAY
“JUDGE NOT, THAT YOU BE NOT JUDGED”
Jesus continues to put his finger on the divisions in human character which corrupt and cancel the good. He saves to the last the most important emphasis—the emphasis on the danger of the good becoming the critical, and hence no longer the good. “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matt. 7:1-2). Here Jesus puts his emphasis on the greatest danger to the divided person—the divided person compensates for inner inconsistencies by pointing out the inconsistencies of others.
The man who buried his talent turned upon his master and said, “I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow . . . and I went and hid your talent” (Matt. 25:24-25). He blamed his master for his own delinquency. The critical and the faultfinding are invariably the guilty—the guilty who are suppressing their guilt by pointing out the guilt of others. “Look how bad they are” means “Look how good I am—good, because I can point out their bad.” It is a vivid illustration of the Word becoming word and not the Word becoming flesh.
The good do judge, but it is not verbal—it is the word of judgment become flesh, the silent judgment of superior living. A good man sat in a train, and a man in flashy clothes sitting nearby said very seriously, “If there were more men like him there would be less men like me.” A social worker lectured the slum children about their dirty faces, and it did no good. Then she brought a clean-faced child with clean clothes, who played with the dirty-faced. And soon the dirty-faced children went off one by one and washed their faces. Criticism by cleanliness was effective.
O Jesus Savior, we look on your face—then we want to wash ours. We see your deeds and abhor ours. We are judged most deeply and redemptively at your cross. For there you confront everything we are by everything you are. And we are at your feet. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: It has been well said: “If I point one finger at another I point three at myself.”