What Do I Do With Judgment?

How has our survival instinct not evolved with the rest of our systems? We look at how we can approach life with God in mind and become true channels of peace. The White Robed Monks of St Benedict believe that Jesus never said no to anyone and try to focus on the lessons that Christ came to teach humanity - that of unconditional love.

Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke.

Glory to you,

O Lord.

Jesus told a parable to them.

Can one blind man guide another?

Surely both will fall into a pit.

The disciple is not superior to his teachers.

The fully trained disciple will always be like his teacher.

Why do you observe the splinter in your brother's eye and never notice the plank in your own?

How can you say to your brother,

Brother,

Let me take out the splinter that is in your eye when you cannot see the plank in your own?

Hypocrite!

Take the plank out of your own eye first,

And then you will see clearly enough to take out the splinter that is in your brother's eye.

There is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit,

Nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit,

For every tree can be told by its own fruit.

People do not pick figs from thorns,

Nor gather grapes from brambles.

A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart.

A bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness,

For a man's words flow out of what fills his heart.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you,

Lord Jesus Christ.

We love to judge.

It is human to judge.

It is necessary for our survival to judge.

Can you imagine not being able to judge a situation?

If a lion runs up to you,

Hungry lion,

You go,

Ooh,

Kitty,

Kitty.

No we are creatures of judgment.

We judge situations.

We judge.

Oh golly,

There's a lion.

Let me run.

And it served us very well many,

Many,

Many,

Many years ago.

In some way,

We started a cause of more awareness,

Becoming more aware of our surroundings,

Of our neighbors,

Of other people.

And very few of us actually encounter lions,

Especially in the streets and in our daily walks.

Not even here in South Africa,

We don't have lions roaming our streets here in Johannesburg,

Contrary to popular belief.

But the sense of judgment has stayed,

And the sense of survival is still strong enough in us.

And it is almost as if we have expanded so much and we have grown so much in some areas of life that we have forgotten that we have not grown and we have not evolved in all areas of life.

And hence we sit with the situation where we are so advanced technologically and we would like to think spiritually and culturally that we forget that that sense of survival is still very strong enough,

Strong in us.

And that sense of survival oftentimes lets us judge one another.

How many times do we hear survival of the fittest?

True.

It was true back then.

Now is it so true?

Are we in a society where we stop caring,

We have this amazing capacity to care for one another,

Yet we care with conditions?

This one's child is a brat,

So I don't truly care for them.

This one is another skin color to what I am.

They're a danger to my society and to my way of being and to my community.

And so we judge.

This one was born a hundred kilometers or a hundred miles away from here,

Which means they were not born in the same country that I was.

Hence they are the enemy.

And we use these ideological approaches of community to build ourselves,

But we also use them to separate ourselves from each other.

And I'm sorry,

I know I harp on this a lot of times in mass,

But it is so heart-wrenching to see that we want to still be separated from each other.

When Jesus came,

Jesus said to us,

We are all one body.

We are all part of this one beautiful,

Beautiful body.

We are all part of God.

When the Holy Spirit came and entered us all,

We are all,

All of us,

Divine.

What does that mean?

We are all divine.

We all have divinity inside of us.

Something beautiful to say,

And it's something to really feel good about ourselves when,

You know,

If we get together in person or even now online,

We can now send,

You know,

Happy Jesus energy to each other and we feel so good.

And then we walk out of our chapel or out of our homes or wherever we are watching this,

And we notice somebody who believes in things differently,

Who is of another religion,

Who is perhaps of another country,

Speaks a different language.

The world doesn't all speak the same language.

It's for a different party.

And then immediately we forget that Christ is in that person too.

And we go and we say,

Ooh,

I don't like you.

So I'm going to do my utmost to make your life help.

Or I can see that you are struggling.

I have the means to help you.

I have the time to help you change your tire,

But just because you are different,

I'm going to ignore you.

How many of us do that?

I am guilty of that.

I know that for sure.

That is why I hop on this because I recognize myself in the scripture reading,

In this reading of the gospel,

Where Jesus said to his disciples,

Take the plank out of your own eye before you want to even try and remove the splinter out of your own eye.

And why do I do this?

I love finding fault in other people.

That is amazing.

And I can nitpick for days because it gives me an opportunity to ignore the fact that I have to work on myself.

It gives me the opportunity to find time to fix other things and have this glaring,

Glaring challenge in front of me.

Just push it aside because God,

I'm helping.

I'm doing your work.

So you should bless me.

You should actually be thanking me for putting aside my issues,

Putting aside this challenge that I have in order to help others.

Isn't that so saintly God?

Here we read in the gospel.

No.

How can you help others if you can't even look at yourself first?

We judge and we take the survival instinct that we had to learn in order to survive in the bushes and in the wild and we apply it to each other spiritually.

How's that working for us?

Can we see how this concept of being separate from each other is the trigger of wars?

Is it the trigger of the conflict that we are facing at the moment?

Can we see that by pretending that we are different,

That we are not part of this whole body of Christ,

That Christ didn't come to tear down this illusion of separateness,

Of separation,

That by doing so we are going back and we are almost recreating the old law,

The old laws and we are recreating this thing of God's people,

God's chosen race.

Can't we forget that Christ came to break down that rule,

Came to give us two new commandments,

Two new rules to live by,

Love God and love each other,

Period.

Love God and love each other.

How are we doing this?

How are we showing our commitment to the Lord?

Our recognition of the fact that Christ,

That God is in all of us by waging war?

It's a very funny way of doing things.

By not acknowledging each other's pain?

I didn't get that memo.

I'm sorry.

I don't understand.

Yet I do it myself.

So I'm not standing here behind this lectern and preaching fire and brimstone and you are all bad and I'm preaching mostly to myself tonight.

Where is God in all of this?

The real God,

The real God,

Not this image of God that we have created and created our denominations in this concept of God.

And if you do not connect with that expression of God,

Then you are wrong.

Then I start killing you because you are evil.

You don't call God God.

You call God Thor.

Ever thought of that?

I've said this in previous sessions as well,

But I think that God transcends all religion.

God is so much more than what we make God out to be.

God isn't even male nor female.

I think God just is.

We are here to remember that.

That is one of the big life lessons that God is.

That God is all.

God is even part of the people that we hate.

God is even a part of those that instigate wars.

And it's difficult to say that I'm going to pray for that person.

But what else is going to work?

Threats.

We've seen that threats against people who have lost their connection or who have lost the knowledge of their connection with God in them do not work.

It just makes things worse.

And yes,

I know we have to stand up for what is right.

I get that.

But can't we,

While we do that,

Pray?

Awaken Lord in those who are stuck in the sense of survival that they believe that they must impress on the rest of the world and impress on others and other countries and other belief systems.

Awaken in them your compassion,

Father God.

Awaken in them your love and let them see what they are doing.

Let them see that you are in each of those people that they are attacking.

Let them see that you are part of those people that they are creating a hatred towards.

Let them see that we are all one and that these borders that we have created around ourselves and around our countries are man-made things.

That's not what your lesson is.

Your lesson is that of unconditional love.

And God,

We won't get there maybe anytime soon,

But please let us work towards that.

Can't we pray that?

We can't all pack up our things and go and do humanitarian work.

I wish I could.

I tried looking at options and I'm still trying to look at options,

But it is not always practical for all of us to do that.

But we can pray.

We can pray and we can say,

Lord,

Let me start with myself.

Let me recognize the things where I am lacking,

The things where the times where I do not connect with you in the way that I can and the way that I should.

And once I am in harmony with you and with your will,

Lord,

Then let me move out and let me start helping those who you sent to me for help and guard me against savior syndrome where I will go out and I will save the world.

But let me be there for those who need me.

Amen.

Reviews

Thank you for this powerful message! 💕🙏

ow my eye

I must start with myself as well🙏🏻thank you for the inspiration

Heartfelt. Inspires us to do what we can do…that IS enough!

So true and so inspiring! Thank you for your insight!