Passing Judgment

“Saint Paul reveals several ways in which we fall into the trap of judging, beyond directly expressing our opinion of others. Clearly, contempt is a form of judging, for it involves looking down on others. Let us ask ourselves, “From what height?” Do we look at others from the height of Pharisaism (Lk 18:10-14) or from that of our own sinfulness (Rom 3:23)? The failure to respect the spiritual convictions of a brother or sister in Christ is the worst sin of all. If a fellow Christian believes that a certain behavior is sinful, and scrupulously avoids it, and if we belittle his conviction by word or by action, then we have judged him (Romans 14:15). According to Saint John Chrysostom, “It is not of our own sins only that we shall have to give an account, but for those also wherein we cause others to offend”…” (Dynamis 7/23/2024)

“Paul poses a question we might ask ourselves when tempted to criticize others. He asks, 

"Why do you judge your brother?" (Romans 14:10). In today's reading, we will answer that question. More than that, we will find ways to counter the destructive tendency to pass judgment on our fellow humans. Judging others is not just a harmful type of pride. It is a destructive force that can tear apart the fabric of our community. Unless we are constantly watchful, our fleshly nature will condemn others for their faults, even if we only do it mentally.” (Fr. Basil)

“The time came for a monk in a certain monastery to depart this life. The abbot and the rest of the brotherhood gathered round the death-bed. They were all sad, because they knew that the monk had not been particularly conscientious throughout his life. He had been less than diligent in the performance of his duties. They were astonished, however, at seeing him leaving this life joyfully and in great peace. The abbot asked him: ‘How is it, brother, that you’ve been so negligent, yet you’re departing in joy and peace? Aren’t you afraid of God’s judgement?’. The monk answered directly: ‘Yes, it’s true that I wasn’t very observant. But there was one thing I tried to do conscientiously: I never censured anybody. So, when I’m before the Lord, as I soon will be, I’ll declare boldly: “You said, don’t judge so that you yourself won’t be judged. I didn’t judge, so do what you promised”. The abbot and the rest of the community were very moved. With tears in his eyes, the abbot closed the eyes of the departing monk and said, ‘Farewell, brother. With a little, small struggle, you’ve gained eternity’.” (Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis)

“As Christ Himself said: Whosoever shall do the will of My Father Which is in Heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother (Mt. 12:50). All the saints sought such kinship with God. They became saints because they found this kinship and united with God—not formally, not externally, but internally, deeply, with their spirit, their soul, their body, their mind and senses. And we ask all the saints to give us wisdom and enlightenment, that our minds and souls might wake up and we too might become spiritually sensitive people; that we might sense what holiness is, what the will of God is; that we might learn piety and forgiveness of each other.” (Priest Sergei Chernyak)

“The question of forgiveness is not a moral issue. We do not forgive because it is the “correct” thing to do. We forgive because it is the true nature of the life in Christ. As Dostoevsky describes it: it is Paradise. In the same manner, the refusal to forgive, the continuation of blame, recrimination, bitterness, etc., are not moral failings. They are existential crises – drawing us away from the life of Christ and Paradise, and ever deeper into an abyss of non-being.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“Think about it, and do not judge the offender: Judas was in the company of Christ’s disciples, and the Robber was in the company of murderers. And what a reversal when the crisis came!” And indeed, during the life of this thief, when people heard about his atrocities or, God forbid, encountered him, they certainly thought: “He is doomed—there is nothing sacred for him.” At the same time the Pharisees, fulfilling the Law of God zealously, received a completely different judgment: “What righteous people they are!” In the end, everything turned out the other way around. This thief entered Paradise, while the Pharisees crucified God incarnate.” (St. John Climacus)

“Whenever we see someone sinning, let us not judge him, but think that perhaps, like the Wise Thief, he will repent after some time. And God forbid that we become like the Pharisees who bragged about their “righteousness”, humiliating others, and eventually committing that terrible crime…We must keep this in mind, because when we meet someone who commits some sins, we very often want to pass judgment on him, humiliating him and giving him up for lost. But we do not know what he is like in the eyes of God, how he will appear before the Lord and how we will appear before Him. Such episodes happen all the time, and certainly many of us know how people turn from robbers into faithful servants of God.” (Hieromonk Athanasius Deryugin)

“God’s ways ultimately defy our human reasoning and calculations, for He says, “I shall destroy the wisdom of the wise and hide the understanding of the intelligent” (Is 29:14)…He uses unfavorable circumstances to benefit His people and overcomes seemingly impossible conditions…When Esau and Jacob were born, Scripture records that the younger son, Jacob, follows so quickly that he grasps onto the heel of his older brother. His name, Jacob, means “heel holder” (Genesis 25:26). Idiomatically, Jacob may also mean “supplanter,” as Esau bitterly notes when his birthright is stolen by Jacob’s deception (Genesis 27:35-36). However, God changes deceivers and manipulators into devout servants. Saul, the persecutor and self-proclaimed “chief of sinners,” becomes the Apostle Paul; Simon, who denies the Lord three times, becomes Peter the chief apostle.” (Dynamis 4/25/2024)

“He who realizes his sinfulness, who knows through personal experience the weakness of human nature, its inclination towards evil, that kind of person will be quick to forgive his neighbor, to pardon his neighbor’s offenses, and will refrain from arrogant condemnation of the sins of others. Let us recall that even the scribes and the Pharisees who brought a woman, who had been caught in adultery, to Christ were forced to leave when their conscience spoke and began to convict them of their own sin (John 8:9).” (St. Tikhon of Moscow)

“The prohibitions against judging were never meant to suspend or blunt our moral faculties. They were never intended to induce moral confusion, wherein we could not recognize sin and brokenness for what they are, nor to induce a muddle-headed cowardice wherein we were reluctant to rebuke sin. Rather, the prohibitions against judging were meant to save us from Pharisaical self-righteousness, from a spiritual blindness which can see all sins except our own. It is fatally easy to arrogate to ourselves the roles of accuser, judge, and jury, and to condemn our brethren for trifles, when we ourselves commit either the same offenses or even greater ones.” (Fr. Lawrence Farley)

“…the command to “judge not” does not mean that Christians are not to make judgments about whether a behavior is right or wrong. We must distinguish between right and wrong. How can we be expected to do the right thing if we are not allowed to distinguish between right and wrong? “Judge not” means that we are not to condemn another person, since God alone is judge.” (Dr. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou)

“We should not judge others. If we see ourselves as we are, we will find it simply impossible to. Self-understanding yields mercy, empathy, tolerance, love of the other…‘We condemn others only because we shun knowing ourselves.’ Our deepening realization of our own sin coupled with our increasing experience of God’s mercy will fill us with compassion for others. We will begin to realize that no one is beyond redemption. We will rejoice in people’s small and great acts of kindness. We will cheer their successes. We will experience empathetic sorrow at their struggles and failings. We will not pretend to know or fully understand the intricacies of the internal and external factors in their hearts. We will fervently wish for them nothing but God’s abundant grace, blessing, and love. We will pray that they increasingly come to a conscious knowledge of that love.” (Peter Bouteneff, St Seraphim of Sarov)

“If we may not judge, how shall we help our erring brother? By turning our attention to the beam in our own eye; only then, after we have struggled to remove it, shall we understand how deep-seated are the causes of sin, how hard it is to fight, through what means it can be cured, how great the pity and sympathy deserved by the sinner; and these feelings of yours and your experience of the struggle with sin, will help to remove the moat from your brother’s eye—through sympathy, example, love. Judgment will fall away of itself.” (Fr. Alexander Yelchaninov)

“It is the nature of sin that it not only committed transgressions but excuses them. Humans have many ways of rationalizing, overlooking, and trivializing their sins even while they judge others who do the same things….Paul declares unequivocally, “Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself” (Romans. 2:1)…We never know the hearts and souls of other people and cannot judge anyone else as though we were God. We must never even try to do that. The only true statements we can make about the state of someone’s soul are those that we make about ourselves. None of us knows our sins fully, but when we recognize that we have fallen short of the infinite goal of becoming like God in holiness, we can then confess our brokenness and call out for the Lord’s mercy as we take concrete steps to redirect our lives toward Him.” (Fr. Basil, Fr. Philip LeMasters)

“A temptation many of us struggle with is the temptation to judge others. Few transgressions are more strongly condemned in the New Testament. “Do not judge and you will not be judged” (Mt 7:1). Yet we are caught up in it before we know it. Moreover, it is not always easy to see what is so wrong about judging people; surely it is a basic life skill to be able to assess people and situations. But even with the most halting of footsteps in the silent land, we see that judging others really is not about our perceptions and assessments of others, but the way in which the jaws of our convictions lock so tightly around people that we actually think we know what life is like for them, what they really ought to do or think, as though we know their innermost hearts, as though we know what only God can know.” (Martin Laird)

“We are to preach and teach the message of divine judgment, then, not as an expression of God’s vindictive wrath, but as an expression of His saving love. Too often we pass judgment rather than proclaim it. Then the word of judgment degenerates into a word of condemnation. And more often than not, that condemnation expresses our own feelings, attitudes, anger and righteous indignation, rather than the true “wrath of God.” By preaching judgment upon another, rather than to another, we run the risk of bringing condemnation upon ourselves. To proclaim the Gospel faithfully requires that we preach not only God’s love and mercy, but also God’s righteous wrath, which is “revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness” (Rom 1:18). The crucial point is that we preach God’s wrath with love. As paradoxical as that may seem, it becomes possible when we center our proclamation about a truth transmitted to us by James the Just, the brother of our Lord. “Judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy,” he warns; “yet mercy triumphs over judgment!” (Jas 2:13).” (Fr. John Breck)

“This sinful habit [judgment], born of pride, feeds and grows on pride—and in turn feeds pride and makes it grow. Every time we pass judgment, our pride grows a bit more because of the accompanying feelings of self-importance and self-gratification.” (Fr. Jack Sparks)

“Here and now, each day and each hour, in hardening our hearts toward others and in failing to respond to the opportunities we are given of helping them, we are already passing judgment on ourselves.” (Metropolitan Kallistos Ware)

“Judging others while comparing ourselves favorably to them reveals self-serving hypocrisy and a lack of love that threaten our own salvation….We cannot judge our fellow human beings, since we are all made in the image and likeness of God. The theologian’s knowledge of the faith makes him or her more susceptible to this sin since it is all too easy to fall into the trap of rendering judgment on another. If we know better than most what is correct or not correct, we ought to unflinchingly apply the standard to ourselves.” (Dr. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou)

“…when something might be done with either good or bad motives, we should leave the judgment to God and not presume to judge the heart of someone else, which we do not see. But when it comes to things which obviously could not have been done with good and innocent intentions, it is not wrong if we pass judgment.” (St. Augustine)

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