Homily - Freedom and Judgement

The Three Judges, Georges Rouault (Tate Gallery)

A Homily given during Choral Evensong at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 17th September 2023 (Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity) based on readings from Job 1 and Matthew 7.1-14. In this homily I sought to explore personal disclosure, as part of my curacy training. 

Amongst members of my close family are those who have been afflicted by eating disorders, depression and extreme mood swings. Growing up, in order to help to maintain relationships with those suffering from such conditions and for the benefit of my own – certainly not always optimum - mental health, I was offered what is now called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It was quite an innovation for the time!

The technique that has remained with me is a form of psychotherapy that seeks to engender a non-judgemental attitude to life.

In practice, this involves using breath control to enter into a meditative state. As thoughts, sounds, sensations come into our head, we notice these – acknowledge them - but do not judge or react to them by allowing our mind to wander. Instead, we return to focussing on the breath.

The purpose was to learn a coping strategy to help deal with complex emotional situations. To keep focussed on the present moment, without getting caught up in trying to understand what triggered someone to behave in a particular way – or get wound up by trying to second guess how they might behave in the future.

At heart, this non-judgemental attitude to life sought to respect and protect my freedom. To prevent my emotional state from being determined - controlled - by someone else.

Living without judgement is a tough call and I can’t claim to have mastered the technique by any means! But the experience sparked an interest in contemplative prayer – some forms of which (such as the ancient practice of Centring Prayer) are almost identical. The difference being that in prayer our focus is directed towards God and our attention held not by breathing but the use of a ‘sacred word’ or phrase.

Avoiding judgemental thought when it’s just you and God in the room is no less difficult.

As Job found out.  

In our first lesson we met the righteous man from the land of Uz. We heard how Satan is given permission to test Job’s faithfulness by inflicting suffering upon him. Job’s property is taken and his children are killed. Yet he continues to bless the Lord – he does not judge God – or “charge him foolishly,” as our translation puts it.

But – spoiler alert – that doesn’t last.

As we read on, Job’s suffering increases and his friends begin to judge him. God is a righteous judge, they argue, who governs the world justly. So, Job must have done something terrible to have brought upon himself such an ordeal.  

Job maintains his innocence, arguing that his suffering cannot be divine judgement - unless God is an unrighteous judge.  

At this point, God appears to show Job how beautifully complex the world is, created from an array of inter-connected systems. Because of which, black-and-white, tit-for-tat retributive justice of the sort described by Job’s friends simply won’t work. Addressing Job directly, God explains that his worldview is universal. Job’s is limited to his own life experience – meaning it is Job who is an unjust judge – not God – because Job cannot fully comprehend the complexity of the world. God asks Job to trust in his wisdom. To leave the judgement to him.

Job’s interaction with God reminds us that any attempt we make to judge another is inescapably based on our own blinkered worldview. No matter how much unconscious bias training we’ve had – how aware we are of our limitations, we remain limited. We will always have either a mote – a piece of sawdust – or a whole beam of timber in one or both of our eyes, preventing us from seeing the full extent of every situation.

Judging others is an attempt to play God. To seek to make the other person in our own image. To restrict their freedom.

Freedom that has been God-given.

So many disagreements stem from our failure to accept the freedom that God has given to each of us. The freedom to be the person who God made us to be.

Practices such as centring prayer and meditation can help us avoid the temptation to restrict that freedom through judgement. It’s a lesson we must keep trying learn. Even if a person – in all their freedom – drives us absolutely potty! Because respecting that God-given freedom is true love. The love of God.

So much unnecessary pain is caused when we take it upon ourselves to second-guess God’s will. The church is particularly adept at that!

Like Job, we need to learn to trust in the wisdom of God.

To leave the judging to him.

As his son says:

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

 

Image : The Three Judges, George Rouault (Tate Gallery) Rouault made several paintings of judges to express his skepticism about systems of human justice. ‘If I have made judges such lamentable figures, it is doubtless because I betrayed the anguish which I feel at the sight of a human being who has to pass judgement on other men’, he said. ‘The judges themselves I could not condemn’.