Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

As human beings we are judging all the time.

Most of that judging is good and healthy:

- When we drive we judge the distance between us and the car in front, for example;

- When we have children we make judgements about when they should go to bed (or at least when we’d like them to!);

- We make judgements for ourselves about how much food we should eat and what sort; about how much sleep we need; what sort of clothes to wear…

Sometimes we will make good judgements and sometimes we’ll get it wrong…

But it seems that when we make judgements about people that we’re in most danger of messing up, and that includes judgements about ourselves.

And there are some judgements about people that we probably shouldn’t be making at all – and a prime example of this is when we try to judge how much we or somebody else is worth because usually we end up making some sort of comparison…

Recognising the skills and talents of someone else is a good thing… Fred is a good footballer; Daphne is a good dancer; Jim is a good listener; Debbie is a good carer, etc… What is less than healthy is then to proceed to make the judgement, “Fred or Daphne or Jim or Debbie is worth more than me, is more valuable than me…”

Sometimes it’s easy to make judgements based on superficial assessments – we see people and look and say “don’t they have it together; I wish my family could be like them; I wish I could be holy like that person…” and sometimes we don’t realise the very real difficulties and struggles that they might be having because we’ve made plaster saints out of them, and usually put ourselves further down the order of merit at the same time…

Some of you will have been on pilgrimage to Lourdes where you will have had an experience of the sick, the weak, the vulnerable being enabled to participate in the life of the community, and allowed not just to receive but to give so very much. Isn’t that something to which we might aspire..?

In the 2^nd reading today, St. James writes of the superficial judgements we make about people’s worth based on their wealth or the way they dress, or the importance which the “world” gives to them, not forgetting that we are all, of course, part of the world…

Can’t you see that you have used two different standards in your mind, and turned yourselves into judges, and corrupt judges at that?

This isn’t the way God judges and it’s not the way we who call ourselves Christian are to judge either…

To make judgements about ourselves or others isn’t part of what we’re about as Christians but, sadly, it’s what we so often do, as individuals or as a community, consciously or sub-consciously…

Let’s not make others walk to where we are or where we judge ourselves to be, but let us all walk humbly, with each other, to wherever it is the Lord wishes to lead us all…

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