John 8:7 “And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” This episode talks about how we all judge people and yet one day we will be judged the same we have judged. It also talks about Fr. Kerper's three aspects to divine judgement. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Human Judgement vs. Divine Judgement
John 8:7 “And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Last Sunday, for the Catholic masses, the Gospel reading was John 8:1-11. This is the story of the day that Jesus was teaching in the temple and the scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman that was caught in the act of adultery. The punishment for this according to Moses was to stone this woman to death. They asked Jesus what He says they should do as they were hoping He would go against his law and they could find something to charge Him with. However, Jesus didn’t tell them not to stone her. He was bent down writing in the sand and when they continued to ask Him He said to them in verse 7, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” There was not a single person there, besides Jesus, that was without sin and so they went away without anyone throwing a single stone.
Our priest gave a really good sermon about this scripture verse and it really got me thinking, so I wanted to share the essence of it with you. The priest’s name was Father Michael Kerper and he is a priest in Nashua, NH.
One thing he mentioned at the beginning of his sermon that I am not sure I have thought of before, is that the sin of judging others is one that is rarely confessed. I don’t think this is something we think about very often. I think it is something that we do so often we don’t even realize we are doing it. I wonder, if we were consciously aware of it, how many times a day would we notice we were doing it? It doesn’t even have to be in big ways, like the example in this story. We do judge people that break the laws and do things that we think are wrong. If we read about people that have been arrested in the newspaper, we may judge them. We feel as though they are wrong because they were arrested. We know nothing about their circumstances, other than what is posted in the newspaper. We may feel as though we are better than them because we haven’t broken any laws. Just because we haven’t broken any laws yet, doesn’t mean we wouldn’t. What if your family was starving and the only way to feed them was to steal, would you do it? Does not doing it make you a better person than someone who did?
I wish I could say the only time we judge people is when they had committed a crime. This is not great, but at least it would be limited to a certain circumstance. However, I can’t say that. Our judgement of others does not seem to have a limit. We judge the mom in the grocery store who is yelling at her child to behave. We judge the mother who is giving her child snacks so that they will behave. We judge the person driving too slow and we judge the person driving too fast. We judge what people are wearing, what they are eating, what they like to do in their free time, what political candidates they believe in. We are masters at judging other people. We make comments, usually to friends and family, about how we can’t believe so and so did this or that.
Father Kerper talked about how there is human judgement and then there is Divine Judgement. He had three aspects of Divine Judgement. First, the judgement happens face to face and alone, just you and God. Jesus was talking to the woman after everyone left. He did not talk to her in front of the whole crowd of people. Second, Jesus never mentioned the sin to the woman. All Jesus said to her is in John 8:10-11, “Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” There is no condemnation of her sin. He just gently and lovingly tells her to go and to leave her life of sin. The third aspect of divine judgement was that God alone knows the whole story. Jesus could see that the good far outweighs the sin for this woman.
How often are we judging before we know the whole story? I remember hearing a story one time, and I am not sure who told it. I think it was Jeff Cavins or Matthew Kelly but I can’t be sure. They were riding the subway one day and a man got on the subway with his several children. They children we pretty young and they were not behaving well on he train. They were loud and running around and people were starting to get annoyed. The father just sat there. He did not say a thing to his children. I am sure you can picture the scene. Maybe you have been in a similar circumstance. There person telling the story wanted to tell the dad to get his kids under control. However, when he looked at the dad he could tell it had been a rough day. Instead of getting upset with the dad and asking him to get his kids under control he decided to talk to him with compassion. He went over to the man and asked if he was ok, or said something like, “looks like its been a rough day.” It turns out the man had just left the hospital and his wife had just died. The kids had just lost their mother. He didn’t know what to do, what to think, his brain was in a fog. How does one process that kind of information? The person recounting the story stayed and talked with the man. He gave the guy his number and offered to help in any way he could. That man on the train did not need judgement, he needed compassion and understanding.
That’s the thing though, no one needs judgement. Everyone is going through something. Some things may be big things like the man losing his wife and the kids losing their mother. Other things might not be that big, but important nonetheless. Someone might be wearing dirty clothes because they lost their job and can’t afford to wash them, maybe someone’s loved one is sick and so they spend all their time at the hospital? We don’t know the whole story. It is easy for us to judge others because we get to be on the outside looking in. However, we don’t know the whole story. Father Kerper said God’s judgement is merciful. We must not abide by human standards when it comes to judgement. We must look at others with mercy. We must rise about judgement and when we do slip up, which we will, confess it. Tell God what you have done and repent for it. I think if we got in the habit of immediately acknowledging to God when we have judgmental thoughts, we would start to notice them more and then we could start to change them. The first step to changing anything is noticing you are doing it. Father Kerper gave us a challenge and I would like to pass it along to you. Think about the spirit of judgement in your own life. Where do you tend to judge people the most? What do you judge about them? How can you become more aware so that you can change this? Father Keeper said we will be judged as we judge others. Really examine your life and think about whether you are ok with God judging you the same way you judge others. If you are not ok with it then start to change it. God will help you if you only ask Him.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we do not want to judge, please help us to look at others with mercy and compassion instead of judgement. Please convict us when we are being judgmental so that we can notice and change it. Lord, help us to see that everyone is going through their own stuff and it is not our place to judge. Our lives aren’t perfect and we are not perfect, so what gives us the right to judge. Help us to see this Lord. Help us to see you are the only one that has the right to judge. Help us to leave that to you. We are so grateful that we have you Lord. We are grateful that you are willing to help us learn not to judge. You are amazing and so wonderful. We love you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Tomorrow our guest for Witness Wednesday is Cathy K. She will be joining us to talk about how God revealed to her that her husband was having an affair and then helped her through that very difficult time. God is so good and He always shows up when we need Him too. I hope you will join us tomorrow for Cathy’s wonderful witness. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day.