We hear this thrown around a lot these days. All of us are sinners, and none of us possess the right to judge another’s heart. What is usually meant by this phrase is that people should be able to do whatever they want, and we should never say anything. Today’s readings though, shine a different light on our responsibilities.
In the first reading from Ezekiel, we see God appointing him as a watchman. God warns us that if we keep silent while someone else is doing something harmful to themselves, we will be held accountable. The opposite is true, as well. If we warn someone that what they are doing will have eternal repercussions, we have done God’s task.
Then in the Gospel of Matthew, we see Jesus telling us how to handle it when we see someone doing wrong towards us. First, we are supposed to meet them in private. That seems to be the opposite of our world today. Most people air their grievances publicly on social media first. Some of the more popular artists make their living off shaming their past relationships. Our politics have become a sort of he said she said mishmash of blame placing. Imagine our world if we all started with a private, honest meeting of hearts when injured.
Then it says if they will not listen, take a few people with you as witnesses. Here we have the Jewish mindset of two or three with the same testimony represents the truth. The people aren’t present to win an argument but to save a friendship. Where two or three gather in his name, He is the Truth itself; there will He be also. So you’ve tried alone, you’ve tried with a few close friends and witnesses. What now?
In our world, we would take them to a court or shun them. The scriptures tell us to take it to the Church. Ah, how different it would be if we saw the Church as the early community did. The Church is the center of a relationship, the community itself. It is there that we go to worship God, to learn about His ways. How better to resolve a dispute and save a friendship than to go to the authority established by Christ Himself? We seem to have lost that idea to the familiar world where we draw apart and prize individuality and privacy above salvation.
Then comes the part most people use to justify cutting people out of their lives. “If he refuses to listen even to the church,
then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” The verse itself probably does mean to avoid them, to shun them. I think we can learn more from it than that, though.
The goal of Christianity is to become less like the world and more like Jesus Christ Himself. To truly understand this verse, I think we have to look at how our Lord treated Gentiles and Tax Collectors himself. The woman at the well, for instance. He didn’t just let her remain how she was. He was honest with her, told her the truth, and didn’t pull any punches. He offered her something far greater than the sin she was living in, life eternal.
The irony should not escape our attention either that Matthew the Tax Collector wrote the very Gospel we are reading. Jesus called him out of his sin and told him to follow Him.
All of us are sinners; that much is true. We should judge with kindness, with love. We should not be judging someone’s eternal salvation, but we should be looking at actions and speaking the truth. We are watchmen as well, tasked with warning others of the wages of sin. St. Paul gives us a key to understanding how we should go about that task.
Love. Love one another. All of our faith, all of our Catholic identity, is about love. The commandments give us a necessary foundation of how to love. Our Tradition teaches us how to understand that in light of the revelation of Jesus Christ, and our Sacraments strengthen us with grace to allow us to live in a fallen world. The Eucharist makes present to us the one Sacrifice that makes possible salvation, and we are tasked as watchmen to take Him into the world for others to see.
These thoughts bring us back to the first statement: judge not lest you be judged. The verse that follows says: For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Another way we say this at every Mass is to forgive us as we forgive. That is, we judge with love, mercy, and the truth. Anything less isn’t loving someone at all.
A reflection on the readings for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: September 6th, 2020