Condemnation, Judgment and Forgiveness.

According to an ancient fable, there was a Persian king who wanted to discourage his four sons from making rash judgments. At his command, the eldest son made a winter journey to see a mango tree across the valley. When spring come, the next oldest son was sent on the same journey. Summer followed, and the third son was sent. After the youngest son made his visit to the mango tree in autumn, the king called them together and asked each son to describe the tree.

 

The first son said it looked like an old stump. The second disagreed, describing it as lovely—large and green. The third son declared its blossoms were as beautiful as roses. The fourth son said that they were all wrong. To him it was a tree filled with fruit—luscious, juicy fruit, like pears.

 

“Well,” each of you is right,” the old king said. Seeing the puzzled look in their eyes, the king went on to explain. “You see, each of you saw the mango tree in different seasons, thus you all correctly described what you saw. The lesson,” said the king, “is to withhold your judgment until you have seen the tree in all its seasons.”

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches, “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.”

 

In the Old Testament book of 1st Samuel, the prophet Samuel is sent to the home of a man named Jesse in Bethlehem, where he will find the future king of Israel. Jesse presents seven sons, strong, handsome—and surely, good prospects from which to pick a king. But Samuel learns that God has rejected all seven. And so, Samuel asks if these are all the sons Jesse has. Jesse informs him that the youngest is tending the sheep. Samuel tells Jesse to send for him, and when the youth arrives, God declares that he is the one for Samuel to anoint as the king of Israel. The final son’s name is David, who went on to become one of the greatest kings of Israel.

 

The reason I refer to this story is this: Samuel is convinced that each of the seven sons is the one who is fit to be king. But God says to him: “Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearances but the Lord looks into the heart” (1 Sam 16:7).

 

One other passage I want to look at is taken from the prophet Isaiah, and is the first reading for Good Friday. It has to do, in this case, with the appearance of Jesus on that day: “Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him. He was spurned and avoided by people, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom people hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.”

 

“Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearances but the Lord looks into the heart.” God could choose David, the eighth son, the runt of the litter, to become the king of Israel. And God could look upon the man despised and beaten, sentenced to a shameful death on a cross, and see instead the face of his beloved Son.

 

The point of the matter is that God has not set any of us as judge and jury over the human race—or over any of God’s children, for that matter. We are not qualified. We do not see individuals in all the seasons of their being or their personality. We simply do not know why people are as they are.

 

And in today’s Gospel, God offers us a pretty good deal, if only we are wise enough to accept its terms. “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts will be given to you…”

 

I think it’s a very good offer on God’s part. The problem may be that the path from our eye-to-our-brain-to-our-tongue may be lightning fast. And before you know it, we’re judging. In the twinkling of an eye, we’re condemning. In the stubbornness of our heart, we’re not forgiving.

And then, the deal’s off.

 

But the good news is that God doesn’t then take back the deal for all eternity. He offers it again. He offers it today. And God waits to see if there are any takers…

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