Who couldn’t relate to the gospel today? All of us at one point in our lives have felt like others have misjudged us. It can be devastating, to say the least. Children in school are sometimes bullied by their peers who judge them based on their outward appearance, or because they do not get good grades, have the right clothes, or fit in with the ‘in crowd’. Some of us were made fun of at school if we stood out in any way from the rest of our peers.
Childhood bullying and taunts can have lingering effects well into adult life. The funny thing is though, many of the unpopular children go on to become extremely successful in life, more so than the rest of their classmates. Who knew the kid with the funny glasses in eighth grade was brilliant in chemistry? Or the hyperactive boy in your English class outgrew his behavior when he found something that really interested him as an adult, like construction. Albert Einstein received failing grades in school (including math), but he turned out to be the greatest genius in math and science in modern history.
We are all a work in progress. We will never be a finished product until the last moment of our lives. It is so wrong for people to step in at any particular point in our lives and find fault with us based on superficial circumstances. There is always much more beneath the surface of people than what we personally see, or hear about them.
There is also two sides to every story and for someone to judge you without even hearing your side of the story is just wrong. It’s like watching an artist paint a picture and criticizing the painting while it is in progress, without waiting to see the finished result. Sometimes people give up a beautiful talent or skill they have, after someone judged or criticized them for it. People also leave the Catholic church when the feel judged too, either that or they stop going to church entirely.
God is the master artist at work in our lives. He sent the Holy Spirit to inspire us, teach us and guide us. Jesus came to earth for the forgiveness of our sins, but he also set the supreme example on how to genuinely love God and love other people. You can tell by the tone of his voice in today’s gospel that he wasn’t happy with the way we treat one another sometimes. You can almost hear Jesus raising his voice, through the words we read in today’s gospel:
“Stop judging that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measure out to you.” Purgatory may not be an easy experience for some of us. It might be easier to go ahead and work on our flaws and shortcomings while we are alive, than to have to suffer the consequences for them later.
Jesus said in today’s gospel, “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?”
There is a joke about a man who kept getting gasoline every week at the same gas station, and the attendant never got the windshield clean enough for him. He complained to the attendant every week that he did a sloppy job cleaning his windshield. He was never satisfied with how clean his windshield was. One week his wife happened to be with him when he went to the gas station. He started chewing out the attendant because his windshield was still dirty, that the attendant did a bad job washing his windshield. His wife interrupted him and said, “here honey, let me fix that for you”. She took his glasses off, wiped them down and put them back on him. The windshield was perfectly clear then! It was his own glasses that was dirty the whole time.
There is a lot more we could learn about the scriptures for mass today, but that thought alone is enough to keep us busy the rest of the day. Maybe there is someone we judge pretty harshly too, because we see their actions through our own background, and our own life experiences. It could be that things are not what they seem to be at all, we could be the one with the problem, not other people. One last thing on this subject. Counselors will sometimes tell their patients, that situations do not cause our emotions. We bring our own emotions into the situations that we encounter in everyday life. Jesus is the master counselor though. All we have to do is be willing to listen to him.
Daily Mass Readings:
Kings 17: 5-8, 13-15a, 18 / Psalm 60 / Matthew 7: 1-5
