Judging others has always been a major flaw in our human DNA. While it may seem today to be of epidemic proportion with the popularity and proliferation of the sport of personal destruction and condemnation stretching from the halls of government to the pews of church and all points in between. Actually, our propensity to ravage each other under the guise of righteous judgement has been with us since the dawn of human interaction. It is our great human failing that we seem to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but have little to no idea about how to lead our own.
The following story illuminates this:
For more than twenty-five years, Dr. Thomas Shipp was pastor of a great and caring congregation that began in his living room and grew to more than eight thousand members. Although in constant demand as a speaker, Dr. Shipp often went to small churches on preaching missions.
One Sunday evening he drove from Dallas to a nearby small town to begin a two-day preaching revival beginning that day at their 8:30 p.m. service. A small group of congregants were standing around the front of the church as Dr. Shipp approached and gathered around him. Their obvious spokesperson then said, “Pastor, see that house over there, the one next door to the parsonage and our church? A woman lives there with her seventeen-year-old daughter. It’s so scandalous! Every night at ten o’clock a strange man drives up to the house. He doesn’t leave until 2:30 the next morning. It’s been pretty obvious to us what’s been going on, but now we hear that the seventeen-year-old daughter is leaving town in the morning and going to Kansas City. Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know why she’s suddenly leaving town—she’s gotten herself ‘in trouble.’ Furthermore, the congregant continued, we just know that the man who comes there every night is the one who’s responsible. We can’t believe such sinfulness is occurring in our little town and right next door to our church. Perhaps you may wish to comment on the wages of sin tonight. That’s why we’re letting you know about these indecent people!”
“Well, I’ll sure give it some thought,” replied Pastor Shipp.
He said nothing about it in his sermon but, when the services ended, since he was staying the night at the church parsonage, he watched the house in question. Sure enough, at exactly ten o’clock, a man drove up and went inside. The next morning when he awoke, Dr. Shipp noted that the man’s car was now gone.
As he walked through the small town that day, almost everywhere Pastor Shipp went, people talked about “that girl in trouble.” Shipp finally asked the local pastor, who was accompanying him in his journey through the town, “Have you ever been over to visit the family who lives in the house next door to your parsonage?” The pastor quickly protested, “Brother, I wouldn’t be caught dead in the den of iniquity!”
“Well,” replied Dr. Shipp abruptly, “if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll pay them a visit myself. Gooday, Pastor.”
As the door to the house opened in response to his knocking, Shipp introduced himself to the woman who answered. “Hello, you don’t know me; I’m Tom Shipp from Dallas. I’m over here preaching in the church. I understand that your daughter left town this morning. I just wanted to come by and let you know that I’m thinking of you—this must be a difficult day for you. I don’t even know your name, but I want you to know that I’ll be praying for you today.”
The woman then broke down in tears. Once she was able to regain her composure, she invited him in and exclaimed, “I don’t know what I am going to do without my daughter!”
Once inside the house, Pastor Shipp noticed another person that obviously lived there—the eighty-five year old grandmother of the girl who had left town. Shipp learned that this frail elderly lady was the mother of the husband of the woman who invited him in. He had passed away several years before. The grandmother, who was also widowed, had come to live with the woman and her daughter after she suffered a stroke that affected her breathing ability. She now needed round-the-clock care lest she strangle to death. As such, her daughter-in-law was completely confined to the house due to the care she had to provide. Very few in the small community saw her and none had ever come to call. The now departed daughter did all the shopping.
That evening, Dr. Shipp arranged for a sitter for the grandmother so the mother could attend his last revival service. He opened by having her stand up amidst the packed church and introduced her to the congregation.
“I want you to meet your neighbor and my new friend. This is a great night in her life. You see, she is the woman who lives next door to the parsonage.”
There were immediate and noticeable gasps emanating from those gathered. “Now, now,” Dr. Shipp continued, “I want you to remain silent and hear me out!” He then forcefully chided the crowd, “You think you see with your eyes, but your cold hearts have blinded your vision! This fine lady’s wonderful daughter did have to leave town this morning and she was troubled to do so, but not because of the ‘trouble’ you concocted. Her daughter had to leave home this morning because they no longer had money to buy food to eat, and no one in this town would give her a job. As such, she had to go to another town to work and send back money for her mother and her eighty-five year old invalid grandmother, who stays in the same house and needs constant care to live on. Also, this lady, your neighbor, told me that she wouldn’t know what she would do, if it weren’t for her brother who drives 120 miles every night and stays with Grandma between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. while this woman, my friend, gets four and a half hours sleep.”
As the heads of the congregation began to bow in shame including the church’s pastor, Dr. Shipp continued, “The reason this is such a special night for this wonderful Christian lady who is seated with you tonight is because it’s the first time she has been back to this church since she was six years old, when her father was the founding pastor of this very church. So, tonight, you avowed followers of Christ, I want to leave you with this admonition, which comes not from my lips but His:
“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”
By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Disciples
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William “Bill” Bacque