The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

UUCS Sermons
Sermon by the Reverend Richard R. Davis

            If everyone was honest about their use of the bible, we’d all – and that includes most everyone across the entire theological and political spectrum – have to admit that when it comes to this ancient text, we pick and choose the parts that work for us.  You want to justify hatred of homosexuals? The stoning of adulterers or disobedient children? Slavery?  The oppression of women?  Or do you prefer to argue for universal social and economic justice?  Peace among all people?  Love for one’s enemies? Communal sharing of all property?   Not a problem – whatever your cause, there’s a passage there for you to pick out and say “as the bible says…..”  

Personally, one of my favorite passages can be found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke where Jesus says “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.  For with the measure you give, the measure you will get.  Why do you see the speck that is in our neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye.  Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” while the log is in your own eye?”  

This passage appeals to me so much because it calls to mind all the uptight, scowling, self righteous, judgmental, moralistic prigs in the world who think they are so perfect when, in fact, they are blind to their own shortcomings and by being so judgmental, they prove that they have missed the boat when it comes to that which is most important in life, namely love. 

But wait!  Even as I say this I look at myself in the mirror of my conscience and I see a scowling, judgmental image staring back at me.  It’s one of those “I have met the enemy, and he is me” moments.   It’s so ironic.  You can read this passage and unwittingly practice the very thing it warns against – judging others.   It’s like roundly condemning the drunkards of the world over endless rounds of cocktails.  

So it seems to me that if you’re going to explore this topic on not judging others, you need to slow down, turn off that megawatt spotlight moral crusaders use to shine on the miserable sinners of the world, let your nonjudgmental eyes get used to the dark so you can see and understand what’s really going on here. 

Whenever I think of this passage where Jesus warns against judging others, I see him pointing to the Pharisees – that ancient sect of Jewish purists - as the perfect bad example of such behavior.  We know about the Pharisees from the images we get from Christian scripture where Jesus repeatedly tangles with them.  He was for love and compassion, and they got hung up on legalistic observance of the religious law.  He was the free spirit, and they were the uptight religious conservatives.   

Whenever you read or learn something, however, you have to consider the source.  In our culture it’s not exactly popular to question the bible, but you have to if you want to make any sense out of this vast, self contradictory text.  Bluntly put, reading the Christian bible to gain an understanding of the Pharisees is akin to reading Karl Marx’s (and Friedrich Engel’s) Communist Manifesto to gain an appreciation for the blessings of free market capitalism.  It’s not objective.  

In fact, if you learn more about the Pharisees from other sources you begin to agree with many scholars who say that because of the derogatory image of them in Christian scripture, they have gotten a bad rap.  Perhaps some of them are partly to blame for this.  Perhaps the ones Jesus encountered did sometimes lose track of what was really important and became rather rigid in their observance of religious rules.  But the Pharisees took their religion seriously, they added greatly to the store of Jewish wisdom in the Talmud (the library of oral rabbinical commentary), and they were instrumental in the revitalization of Judaism after the Diaspora (the dispersion of Jews after the Romans tore down their temple in Jerusalem .) 

Today, whenever someone is called a “Pharisee” – a term religious liberals  sometimes use to describe those on the religious right – we mean to say that they are rigid, judgmental types who have lost sight of Jesus’ essential message of love and compassion.    But if you esteem the Jewish tradition – and I do – you begin to appreciate that there was once a group of dedicated souls – the Pharisees - who protected, preserved and enhanced this tradition.   This is a good reminder to me to be careful about judging the judgers too harshly, without understanding who they are and why they do what they do.  We live in a time of dizzying change, and there are those who want to put on the brakes and slow it all down.   And yes, sometimes they want to stop in places where superstition and ignorance prevail, and that should be challenged.  But sometimes, maybe there is something precious these modern Pharisees are trying to protect and preserve in their own clumsy way.   Whenever I do hear a strident judgment, a harsh condemnation of someone or something, I suspect there is a deep fear underlying this – the fear that something precious will be destroyed, irretrievably lost.

Consider your own inner Pharisee – that part of you that looks out at the world with judgmental eyes.  Or consider mine.  Whenever I think about the ruinously expensive, bloody war in Iraq, or the slow, steady erosion of civil liberties, or the ongoing degradation of the environment, or the widening chasm between the rich and the poor, or pandering politicians and well heeled lobbyists for powerful economic interests who subvert our democracy  – I can get to feeling pretty outraged and judgmental myself.   Things I cherish are under assault.  My inner Pharisee is alive and well, and truth be known, if he died, something important would be missing inside of me.  Yet, I have to ask myself sometimes if going around feeling angry and judgmental about the all too real sins of the world is useful.  Certainly, it’s not good for me – a feeling of perpetual anger is spiritually corrosive and psychologically self destructive.  

The Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield has some helpful insight on this – he notes that it is good to observe your judging mind without passing judgment on this –  that’s just another judgment.  You can’t cure the spiritual virus of judgmental thinking by being judgmental about it.  Rather, just observe the judgment in your mind with interest and sustained awareness – think about where it comes from, what motivates, what purpose it might serve.  Kornfield notes that oftentimes you will find a precious nugget of truth in the core of your judgmental thinking.  Then, bitter judgment can become transformed to calm clarity.   And an angry thirst for vengeance can be distilled into a yearning for justice.   Harsh judgment can become wise discernment, knee jerk reaction can become reasoned response.  

We do have to exercise moral judgment in our lives – read the Gospels and you’ll see that Jesus often made judgments.  The same for the Buddha and all the other great sages.  We must judge to protect ourselves from harm, we must judge what is right and wrong.   The harm comes when our moral judgments are harsh, legalistic, lacking in compassion and understanding, the kind of judgments that filter out the beauty, the uniqueness, the humanity of others and sees only the flaws.  The 19^th Century American painter Washington Allston said, “Never judge a work of art by its defects.”   Shouldn’t the same be true for other people? 

 According to ancient sources whom I am inclined to respect, judgmental thinking does wreak havoc in our lives.  Consider again Jesus’ admonition against judging others – “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.  For with the measure you give, the measure you will get.”  Oftentimes Jesus was not really original – he simply amplified core Jewish values in uniquely creative and compelling ways.   Bible scholars note that there were other well known rabbinic sayings that warned against the consequences of judging others that pre-date Jesus and also come after him.   Apparently, a lot of people thought that judging others was a common spiritual pitfall.   So, why were all these alarm bells sounding over this issue? 

There are several layers to this. First, so often, our judgments just don’t stand up in the court of truth and fairness.   Humbling experience has so often shown me this.  Many of the judgments I have made in my life turned out to be rash, unfair, ill informed pre-judgments.  So often I was dead wrong about people, issues, all sorts of things.  Rigid judgments are like death sentences – you close the door to new information, new insight, new opportunities to grow and understand.   Such judgments are often unfair to those whose stories you don’t really know and understand. Then, too, some of our harshest judgments are the ones we make about ourselves – we don’t have enough compassion and understanding for the conditions that have shaped us.  Judgment comes easy.  Understanding requires more effort. 

It’s even more disturbing to think about all those situations in which ill informed judgments were never recognized as such.   How many opportunities for life and love and understanding were lost because we have made certain judgments based on faulty  assumptions and thereby shut the door on new life, new hope, new possibilities?    Think of all the unfair trials that have taken place in the kangaroo court of the mind - all sorts of cases have been hastily tried, judged and permanently convicted.  Case closed.  No appeals.  No reprieve.  The judgment is final. 

Once, very early in my first ministry I was asked to help with the seating arrangements for a stewardship dinner.  Several times I innocently suggested seating certain people next to one another only to be told, “No, that won’t work out.  Those two don’t get along.  They haven’t gotten along since they had that misunderstanding - that difference of opinion - that incident - xx number of years ago.”   At first, I felt judgmental about this – “How come they can’t forgive each other, let go, cease judging each other by ancient history and re-connect?”  Then, I thought of my own life and the broken relationships that litter my past, and I humbly ceased judging others by a higher standard than I applied to my own life.  (We did finally solve these seating problems by having everyone sit at their own personal table of one.) 

And yet, our religious tradition calls upon us to take a nobler path.  Our Unitarian heritage, grounded in the free exercise of reason, calls upon us to have an open mind, to resist closed minded, judgmental thinking – to reassess, to reconsider, not to fall prey to conventional judgments, prejudices and bigotry.   Our Universalist tradition, grounded in the belief in a God who does not judge and condemn people, especially calls upon us to resist hardhearted judgmental attitudes, to have an open heart, to seek forgiveness and offer it to others. 

 Another religious tradition, Buddhism, also warns about the trap of judgmental thinking.  The Buddha advised his cousin and disciple Ananda:  “Therefore Ananda, do not be the judge of people; do not make assumptions about others.  A person is destroyed by holding judgments about others.”  Indeed, isn’t that what Jesus said, too, when he noted that “For with the measure you give, the measure you will get.”?  In a word, our harsh judgments turn back upon us and cause us the most damage of all.

Collectively, we know a better way.  In our tradition, our third principle states that “we covenant to affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations”   At our best – and these principles represent the best of our thinking - we know that acceptance and encouragement, not judgment and discouragement are the keys to creating a beloved community where we can grow in wisdom and in love.