"Judge not that you be not judged…" Like many of Jesus' sayings it's hard to see how to live that word consistently, constantly and faithfully. It isn't just that we all enjoy the moral high ground, the smug viewpoint from being right where we can look down on the moral failures or personal faults of others. And yes we like to see people get there come-uppance when the thin ice they were skating on gives way, or the web of manipulation they weave ensnares them in their own deceit of themselves and others.
More than that, moral judgement and ethical distinctions, acknowledgement of the good and naming evil for what it is, are all part of the human experience of building a framework within which we can live with relative safety, with some hope of community and as a fundamental orientation of life that enables us to live in peace and co-operation. Law, morality and social structures presuppose our capacity as humans to recognise good, to define and guard against evil, to learn and adapt to that infinite number of circumstances, relationships and choices which make up the moral life of a person, a community and a culture.
But I think I know what Jesus was getting at. As often as not Jesus saw self-righteousness as every bit as toxic as the self-despair of the guilty. Another rabbinic warning echoed by Paul, "Let him who thinks he stands safely take heed lest he fall…". One of the features of our own culture is the self-righteous tone of much news reporting of other people's wrong. Once someone is found guilty it's right that social disapproval, comment on consequences, evaluation of moral character, are recorded as parts of the ethical and judicial process which underpin a country's values, norms and legal system. Or so it seems to me.
Until I reflect on the current case of Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce, and I hear the word of Jesus again, "Judge not that you be not judged…." And I plead guilty. I do judge that the concatenation of self serving choices freely made by these two people, over 10 years, have been in a moral and social sense, disgraceful. I take the word to mean lacking in grace, toxic of goodness, corrupting of character, arrogantly dismissive of those standards of behaviour rightly expected of ordinary folk, and especially of those who seek the trust and service of public office. The escalation from speeding offence to perverting the course of justice and all out personal war is an intertesting example of the cumulative effect of wrong turnings – which is to get lost in the maze of our own making.
Perhaps Jesus' words are not mere prohibition but dire warning. Judge if you must, but you'll be judged yourself. Condemn the liar and you condemn yourself every time you give the truth a body swerve. Mock the one caught speeding and condemn yourself when you rationalise your own in a hurry approach to life and justify depressing the accelerator further. It's hard to be morally clear eyed about others and a bit vague about our own failures – sawdust and plank come to mind. And yet. As this play goes into its second act, a second jury considers the motives and choices, the facts and the testimonies, the truths and evasions which run parallel to the corrosion of a relationship to the point where betrayal by the one leads to vengeance from the other, and all this publicly stated.
And you know, I feel as much compassion as anger, but I do feel both. Dishonesty and deceit are not exhausted in deceitful acts. They are manifestations of something deeper in the character, betraying fault-lines in integrity, and a default menu programmed towards self-interest made more powerful by repeated usage. Lies engender lies, and trust dissolves in acid of our own making.
"Judge not that you be not judged…" Maybe those words of Jesus are about cultivating self-knowledge, a right estimate of our own character, what is routinely called today, self-awareness. It is also I think a call to moral discernment, a way of looking at the world and at others, that is realistic not cyncical, with compassion as well as judgement, and that recognises the tragic reality of the human condition.
One of the most important Christian truths that should encourage both compassion and moral judgement is the doctrine of sin. That disruptive, subversive, deceitful reality that insinuates itself into hearts and structures, corrodes relationships and societies, and is of such lethal consequence that outraged Holiness responds with outrageous love, so that we see as P T Forsyth saw so clearly, "Justice, the true and only mercy…."
