BEING JUDGMENTAL

I recently had a communication exchange with an officer of a fellowship I belong to. She was ending her term, and a slight misunderstanding had occured between us. We got it cleared up, but something she said stuck with me, that the group was "very judgmental". The implication was that she'd been stung by some judgmentalism coming at her.

I've been thinking about it because the issue of being judgmental comes up every so often in Christian circles. And always, the implication is that being judgmental (in almost any fashion) is a really bad thing. How many times have people quoted "Judge not lest ye be judged"? I don't want to do a count.

That was a disturbing verse to me when I was younger. Because I heard people quoting it a lot in many different circumstances. And the reason it bothered me was because I'd already realized that I had a judgmental temperament. Why, I wondered, would God give me this aspect as a part of my nature, and then inflict this prohibition on me in scripture?

Then came the day, a summer Sunday afternoon, when I was lounging on our porch sofa reading my way through the Sermon on the Mount. On my own. And what did I discover? (using The New American Standard translation here) "Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you."

What a relief! Now that was something I could live with!

There were interesting consequences to this, of course.

I came to see that it was about accountability. I think Christians are accountable to each other, and we should, in fact, call each other on behavior that doesn't "measure up".

But of course, few people like being held accountable. It's not the most fun thing in life.

Still, I feel that if someone claims to be a Christian, then that assumes a certain standard of behavior that we believers are all called to. And of course, I don't really expect that we succeed: we are human and make mistakes. That's only to be expected. But I do think it appropriate that people be reminded of the standard they have committed themselves to.

That was one consequence. Another was the learning of mercy: because I knew I was likely to fail in meeting the Christian standards from time to time, it was easier for me to treat others with mercy in their failings. As in giving them second (and third and fourth, etc.) chances. God gives me that mercy. How can I not work at extending the same to others?

A third consequence came in dealing with non-Christians. Was it fair of me to hold them to a standard of behavior they had made no committment to? Certainly there is evil out there in the world, and we should do all we can to oppose it. But what if they do not share my Christian understanding that mercy might be a better choice than harsh justice? I can observe that psychologically, revenge does no one's soul any good. And I can explain why I look at things the way I do. But I make no immediate assumption that a non-believer will agree with me.

Which comes back to the matter of the judgmentalism of this particular fellowship. It's an entertainment business fellowship, and most of the members spend a great deal of their time evaluating scripts, visual work, acting performances, editing. It's a business that requires the use of judgment, and the application of standards that ought to be met. So of course the members have the habit of being judgmental.

And yet.... each of us has that feeling that we should be sheltered from feeling the jabs of other people's criticisms of our acts. The criticisms could be because of miscommunication (as was the case in the particular incident that started this train of thought). But the criticisms could also be because there really is something in our work or our behavior that does not measure up.

It's a hard thing to accept that judgment is a two-way street. We could go through life on just the first part of that scripture quote, to be sure. Making no judgments at all, leaving people to their own actions, saying nothing critical of anything. But, let us be honest, that is hardly human nature.

So, we go back to the scripture: the measure you deal out is the measure applied to yourself. Can you live with that? Can I? I try to do so. I try to keep my judgments within those boundaries: being willing to hear a criticism of my actions, choices or work in areas where I've committed myself to following certain standards.

Not always fun. But much better than being frustrated by having "Judge not" flung in my face all the time. Because, after all, when someone inflicts that on one (usually in a chastising voice), that person is usually making a judgment of one. It's human nature. We can't help it.