JUDGE NOT THAT YOU BE NOT JUDGED

Judge not that you be not judged…. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)


In the album “The Final Cut” by the British rock group Pink Floyd, Roger Waters questions the “post-war dream,” asking whether the period of Western prosperity following World War II was worth it all. Roger’s father, a RAF pilot, was shot down fighting the Japanese in the battle of Leyte Gulf when Roger was a very young child. In this album and in other albums by the group we find glimpses of his tortuous life growing up fatherless in Britain after the war.

This recording was released at the time of the Falkland Islands war between Argentina and Great Britain. The questions raised by this conflict parallel Water’s own questions about the Second World War. What I am interested in here, however, is not so much his views on war, but the way in which he expresses the hurt he has felt in his life.

The complexity and poignancy of the lyrics of this album were not appreciated by all of their listeners who quickly, and I might add prematurely, concluded that it was one of Pink Floyd’s worst albums. This may be because it contained a cry of anguish too personal or threatening to contemplate. Roger Waters, the creative genius behind this group, you see, is no stranger to personal anxiety and sadness. In the title song of the album, the vocalist asks (his partner) in anguish:

If I show you my dark side, will you still hold me tonight?

And if I open my heart to you and show you my weak side, what will you do?

Would you sell your story to Rolling Stone?

Would you take the children away and leave me alone?

And smile in reassurance as you whisper down the phone?

Would you send me packing, or would you take me home?


These lyrics reflect the fear of telling another, even our closest friends and loved ones, our deepest pain, sadness, and faults. This fear arises for a number of reasons. The first is the possibility of rejection by the other. Another is the fear that if we tell someone how we really feel, or who we really are, it could be used against us. Yet another is the fear that we might have to change. Because of the fear of admitting who we really are and what we really feel, we often keep our deepest hurt and pain to ourselves. It is so much easier to tell others of their inadequacies than to look deeply at ourselves. We are often afraid that we will be found out—that others will discover that deep down we are inadequate and imposters at what we do. And so we, afraid to admit who we really are, locate our own faults in the lives of others. We, who are afraid to tell others of our deepest needs and hurts, for fear of their rejection, live a kind of self-imposed exile in which we are far more competent in judging the faults of others than being accountable for our own self.

It is also far easier in the community we call the “church” to find fault with others than to accept the brokenness of our own lives and the lives of others. Jesus observes that human persons often see the “splinter” in the eye of other persons more clearly than the “log” in our own eye. There’s quite a difference in size between a splinter and a log!

The life of ordained ministers in the church often comes under greater scrutiny than the life of others in the Christian community. After all, so many reckon, they are to live out the “moral life” for their congregation. The priest, in that case, however, becomes a professional Christian attempting under difficult odds to embody the Christian life before those who have often given up trying to live that life themselves. It is difficult today for all of us living in the kind of society we have made to find persons with whom we can share our deepest hopes, joys, fears, and disappointments. It is even hard to find Christian communities in which this honest sharing goes on. But if we cannot find it in the church, where will we find it?

We in the church are often more ready to judge than to love, more ready to criticize than to listen. When we judge, we stand apart from other persons; when we love, however, we stand beside them waiting to share in their hopes and dreams. Jesus calls us who seek to follow him to give an honest account of our own life before we examine the lives of others. We are called first to love others, and not judge them. To do this we have to become a people more willing to trust than to fear.