passing judgment

A brother in Scetis committed a fault. A council was called to which abba Moses was invited, but he refused to go to it. Then the priest sent someone to him, saying, "Come, for everyone is waiting for you." So he got up and went.

He took a leaking jug and filled it with water and carried it with him. The others came out to meet him and said, "What is this, father?" The old man said to them, "My sins run out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I am coming to judge the errors of another."

When they heard that, they said no more to the brother, but forgave him.

From Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers. Edited by Benedicta Ward SLG. Templegate Publishers: Springfield, IL.


This story feels like a sister story to the story of Jesus being confronted by the religious leaders and a crowd who are about to stone a woman caught in the act of adultery. Jesus disarms and dismantles the deadly tension and vicious judgment of the moment by simply saying "Let the one who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her."

An enduring axiom of the Christian faith is this: "We are all sinners in the sight of God." We've grown less comfortable with such a statement in our current era where we are much more inclined toward statements of self-affirmation and self-confidence. To identify oneself as a sinner feels rather self-deflating and self-defeating. Many in the church would rather speak of our inherent goodness and blessedness in God, and many outside of the church would say that one of the great problems with Christianity is that it has held human nature in such low esteem.

As with so many things, the truth is likely found somewhere in the tension-filled middle: we are both "sinners" and "saints," we are both broken and blessed. We are each capable of causing great wounds in ourselves and others, and we have all been guilty on some level of seeking to satisfy our own "personal programs for happiness" (to borrow a choice phrase from Father Thomas Keating) and shoring up our false selves and personal idolatries.

We are also capable of astounding creativity and blessing the world with our love and compassion. There are gifts that we are each given by the Spirit that, if freely shared, serve to reveal the truth of who we are individually and collectively as children of God.

Judgment diminishes the truth in ourselves and in our neighbor. We do it so easily, and sometimes it is quite literally "passing judgment" as we do it in fleeting moments while we pass one another on the street or bring someone to our minds eye along with feelings of jealousy, anger, fear or resentment that we may have surrounding that relationship.

Forgiveness becomes a transforming possibility when we are freed of our judgment, and remember another axiom of the Christian faith: "We are all beloved in the sight of God."