JUDGMENT IN THE DESERT

Abba Mathois said, “The nearer a man approaches to God, the greater sinner he understands himself to be. He does not compare himself to his brother in this, but learns from the Prophet Isaiah, who saw God, and cried that he was unclean and undone."—from The Sayings of the Fathers

The Lord Jesus warned us “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” It’s not hard to see the sense in what He says. How can I judge anyone else, when I don’t know the deep circumstances of their life? Any judgment we make of someone else is at best faulty because there is so much about them we don’t know; worse, by doing so we put ourselves in the place of God. Though, come to think of it, that’s what most of us do most of the time anyway!

We believe the Lord when He tells us not to judge, but we also know His words apply to everybody else, not to us. I’m competent to judge you, but how dare you judge me!

Passing judgment on each other is a “lose/lose” situation, even if we consider it only from the point of view of human relations.

But Abba Mathois understands there’s something more important than failing a Dale Carnegie course in human relationships at stake when I judge you. Not only do I make wrong judgments when I judge, not only do I push God out of the way and try to take His place when I judge; when I judge you, I misjudge myself at the same time.

When I judge you, there's that fallen part of me, the part I like to pretend doesn’t exist, which delights in passing judgment on you. “I may not be perfect,” I congratulate myself, “but at least I’m not like her.” At your expense, I make myself feel better about myself—even my sins! The Abba is telling us the more we compare ourselves to each other—and remember the comparison is always faulty—the better we make ourselves out to be. And the farther we put ourselves from God.

“The nearer a man approaches to God, the greater sinner he understands himself to be.” Comparing my imaginary virtuous self with you, blackened sinner I know you to be, ensures I won’t begin to see the profundity of my sins. I won’t be able to, because I’m focused on your sins, not mine. And that’s just where I want the focus to remain.

A good friend of mine, now I hope praying for me in Heaven, used to say about other people’s less-than-perfect behavior, “We’ll just draw the curtain of charity over that.” She was no milquetoast and had a rapier-like wit (she skewered me on numerous occasions), but she had a fundamental grasp on the One Thing Necessary for a Christian—charity. In my better moments I aspire to Gail’s virtue.

St Ephrem the Syrian, in final section of his famous Lenten Prayer, prays: “O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to judge my brother…” When we take the Lord Christ seriously and seek to find our own sins rather than reveling in those of others, we start to get a glimmer of the principal fact of our spiritual life: I sin, I like it and I don’t want to stop.

If we take that truth to heart and keep it before us this Lent, when we sing the Easter Alleluia it will be not only on our lips but in our lives, as those set free from tyranny to ourselves, sons and daughters of God made new.