Judge Not?

"I wonder what she did." my friend mused from the passenger seat as we drove up to a police car, its lights flashing, and watched as the police officer helped a cuffed woman into the back seat.  "I bet she's a meth head."

The comment alone would not have raised my ire.  However, the tone.  The sense of smugness, and weird satisfaction that were intoned in her comment, made me take notice.

I slowed down to look better at the woman as she peered out the police car window.  She looked tired and worn.  There was a blankness in her eyes, no happiness, no joy, no peace, no hope.  Still, nothing about her screamed anything at me to hint that she was anything more than a woman in trouble.

"What makes you say that?" I challenged my friend.

She merely shrugged.  "Why else would she be in cuffs and in a police car?  She MUST have done something wrong.  Besides, look at her...."

"I AM looking at her." I broke in.  My friend noted my tone, and sank silently into her seat, while I fumed inwardly at her callousness.

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The story above is fiction.  However, it is inspired by recent observations I have made from status updates on Facebook, from conversations with friends, from articles online.  How quick we are to jump to conclusions.  How quick we are to cast judgment.  How quick we are to make villains of others, assuming the worst, and drawing others in to our negative conclusions.

In John 8, Jesus Himself addressed our quickness to judge.  This was not a parable, a story.  He stood there with a condemned woman, and he rebuked the crowd who condemned her.

¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
² At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³ The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴ and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. ⁷ When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
 ⁹ At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰ Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

He went on to say later in the same chapter:
¹⁴ Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. ¹⁵ You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. ¹⁶ But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me.

So why is it so easy for us, as Christians, to think it is okay for us to judge?  Why do we often take pleasure in it?  Why are we so drawn into court proceedings, drama, hurtfulness?  Why do we get a smug sense of satisfaction when our judgmental conclusions seem to gain merit in another person's failings?

We are so comfortable in our judgment we often are completely unaware that we are doing it!  We make comments in passing about the sins of another.  We justify our condemnation because the person we are judging hurt someone else.  We use the Ten Commandments, the Laws of the Bible, to ridicule, cast out, and condemn anyone who does not live by the Law.  Yet, our own beliefs, as stated throughout Christ's ministry, throughout the ministry of His first disciples, and then the early Church was to disregard the Law in our dealings with others.  ((This does not mean we disregard LIVING a Godly life, merely that we are no longer BOUND by it, and therefore, should NOT hold others up to a standard which we are not held by.)) 

We have no right, according to our Faith, to measure the actions of another beyond choosing to love them as Christ loves them, to show them compassion as Christ shows us compassion, to lift them in prayer even as we pray for those we care about.

I am disheartened by the thoughtless and quick judgment we cast on one another.  As Christians, we are supposed to be better than that.  As Christian woman, we should strive to show love and grace.  We should offer hope.  We should look past the image we see and see the soul underneath that might need to meet our God, that might need to be led back to His touch.  

When we cast judgment, we only build up walls that exclude that person from His love.  Do not assume that He will send another to help lead that person back to Him, you are there in that moment, YOU are the one to see to it that the wall is pierced.  You are the one to reach out your hand, speak a kind word, offer up a prayer.