Judge Not

There was a man who started to rent out an apartment in the city. His job site is quite far so he decided to borrow their company car for his daily trip. Unfortunately, there was no parking space available in his apartment location so he is left with no other option but to park along the side-street.

In the gate closest to his building, he noticed in the following days, there was this one particular car that was always parked so near the gate that it almost block the way of the other cars. The driver was a middle-aged lady whom he glanced one time to be in a real hurry while doing her questionable parking. As the weeks went by, his wondering turned to annoyance, then to irritation and finally to total frustration at how such an insensitive lady kept doing that unacceptable parking habit. His started a plan to file a formal complaint with the building management. In the end though, he prevailed upon himself to just talk directly to the car owner. And so one day, he waited near her car.

Then, she came.

The lady was walking towards her car but, this time, with her husband and a young man in between them. As they came near to the man’s position, he observed that the young man was different and unable to walk straight by himself. With patience, the man and lady were trying their best to balance the young man’s stride, slowly and carefully moving his extremities as he went through the narrow gate and as he started to move inside their parked car nearby. By this time it became obvious that the young man is physically-challenged with autism.

The man’s anger turned to sorrow as he finally realized that the only reason why the lady was always parking in that way was for her autistic son to have a manageable access whenever he went out, in all likelihood, for his therapies. He felt sorry that his anger get the better of him in pre-judging his neighbor.

It’s the time of Lent so we may very well ask ourselves and reflect on these questions.
Whom have I judged or continue to judge unfairly based solely on my own perceived facts or truth?
Whom have I prejudged without even hearing the facts?
Whom have I treated unfairly with harsh words, criticisms, gossips and rumor-mongering for a mistake he/she has made?
Whom have I labeled as a "sinner" based on my own set of self-righteous beliefs?
Do I exhibit prejudice, bigotry, discrimination, intolerance or bias in the way I treat people that I meet or comes my way?

Like the man in the story, he was most certain that the way the lady parked her car is wrong. But what he never knew then was that her actions were being done out of sheer necessity, not negligence nor ignorance or even for personal convenience.

How many times have we ourselves made conclusions about other people believing we all have our facts straight only to realize in the end that we have judged wrongly?

Jesus himself reminded us in Matthew 7:1-5 - “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 measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye."

We are truly blessed because we have a God who, despite knowing our deepest thoughts and intentions, does not condemn us right away. Instead, He lovingly finds ways how to bring us back to His fold. He does not give up on us. He will try endlessly until the time comes for His righteous judgment to be fulfilled.

His love for us sinners is exemplified in the scene with the adulterous woman whom He not only protected from the mob prosecution but also lovingly assured that she is not condemned for her past deeds. All she needed to do was to "sin no more". (see John 8:3-11)

So if our own creator, God himself, overlooks our iniquities and move forward to helping us be restored, then we should also skip (mis)judging others. Instead, we should move towards helping our straying brother found his way back to God.

God has done and has been doing this for us since time immemorial.
We ought to extend the same to others as well.

God bless us all.