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\u201cDo not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.\u201d (Luke 6:37-38)

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What things do you feel judgemental about these days?\xa0 What do you condemn?\xa0 There are lots of possibilities these days: I think of the truck protests, health restrictions and mandates, the government, various positions, identifications, and responses in the land of human sexuality, etc.\xa0

It does not really matter which side of these matters any one of us might fall on\u2014the question is about when and where we pass judgement.\xa0 And I would imagine that most of us do: somewhere.\xa0 Every statement and action public or private falls under intense scrutiny these days, and many of us are given to the same.\xa0 \xa0\xa0

Not that this hasn\u2019t always been an issue, but it seems to me that social media has really accelerated our ability to feel righteous anger even as it has improved our capacity for making judgements and condemnations from the comfort of our armchair\u2014this is how the algorithms drive our engagement.\xa0 And while the digital world has probably also widened our portfolio of causes to give to, it would seem to have rather diminished our capacity for forgiveness somehow.

The point, I suppose, is that in light of Jesus\u2019 words\u2014many of us are not nearly reticent enough to pass judgement or condemnation (perhaps because via social media we no longer face the people that we judge or condemn), nor are we perhaps as ready as we ought to be to forgive (perhaps again because we don\u2019t need to face down the people who have hurt us via social media\u2014we just block them).

There are few consequences for stating a bold opinion about matters we likely have very little business wading into.\xa0 Or so it seems.\xa0 Jesus seems to suggest that the more judgement, condemnation, lack of forgiveness and gifts we put out into the world, the more judgemental, unforgiving, and scarcity-minded our world becomes which certainly comes back to us in due course.\xa0 And so, Jesus calls us to something different through a variation of his \u201cdo unto others as you would have them do unto you\u201d principle.\xa0

Who of us likes being judged?\xa0 Then we also ought not be ones to pass judgement.\xa0 Who of us likes being condemned?\xa0 Then we also ought not be ones to condemn others.\xa0 However, should we fail in some way, which of us would not like to be extended the grace of forgiveness and restoration?\xa0 Then we also ought to be people quick to offer that forgiveness and restoration to others.

All of this speaks to a generosity of spirit: a giving that multiplies the gifts swirling around in the world such that we too find ourselves recipients of the very goodness we have sown.\xa0 In doing this, we follow Jesus who himself sowed a profoundly imbalanced amount of grace and forgiveness into the world: forgiving even those who crucified him (forgiving the rest of us through that act too!); condemning not the woman caught in adultery; judging not before the appointed time, leaving wheat to grow alongside the weeds.

In any case, as tomorrow\u2019s text will remind us: most of us plank-eyed people aren\u2019t righteous enough to bear the weight of dealing gently with our neighbour\u2019s sin anyway.\xa0 Jesus is the judge who will meet out justice when the time is right\u2014and this is a work best left to him.

Giving and forgiving though?\xa0 These things have been given to us to do.\xa0 And we already know the end result: a new creation bursting with life where tables are spread and cups runneth over.\xa0 Will this measure that will be measured to you by Jesus on that day inform how you measure out gifts and forgiveness to others today?\xa0

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