Growing up in an evangelical church, as
a child I can often remember Sunday school teachers, preachers, or even my
mother (on occasion) saying that we should “hate the sin, but love the
sinner.” This was meant to be helpful,
to allow me – and others growing up in the culture of the “Bible Belt” – to
love others as Jesus loved (and loves) them.
The problem, however, is that it too many times allows us to pass
judgment on others. (And, I must add,
that I don’t think many of my loving teachers and “elders” meant for this
saying to work in such a way. It’s one
of those sayings that’s meant to be used in a loving way, but this use of it
doesn’t take in the psyche of our fallen nature, or it doesn’t admit how truly
prideful and broken we are, incapable of using such a saying in a constructive
manner.) The fact is that we – in our
human and sinful nature – will end up passing judgment on our neighbor for his
or her sins, for it is almost impossible for us (because of our own sinfulness)
to separate the sin from the sinner.
The Orthodox Church takes a different
approach to judgment. It allows judgment
to remain where it should: with God.
Judgment (and salvation, for that matter) are God’s domain, not ours.
Here are some words from Abba Dorotheos[1]
on not judging others:
The
Publican and the Pharisee
It is one thing to speak evilly or
reproach, it is another to judge, and yet another to belittle. To reproach
means to say of someone that he lied, or got angry, or fell into fornication,
or did some other such thing. Such a one has spoken evilly of his brother, that
is, he has spoken with passion concerning his brother's sins. But to judge is
to say that the man is a liar, an angry man, a fornicator. Here he has judged
the very disposition of that man’s soul, he has pronounced a sentence on his
whole life by saying that he is such a thing, and he has judged him as such;
and this a serious sin. For it is one thing to say "He became angry,"
and another thing to say, "He is an angry man," and as I have said,
to thus pronounce a sentence on his whole life. The sin of judging is so much
more serious than any other sin that Christ Himself said, Thou hypocrite,
cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly
to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye (Luke 6:42), and the sin
of one's neighbor is like a mote—a sliver; while judging is like a beam. So
serious is judging, surpassing every other sin.
And that Pharisee praying and thanking God
for his own virtues did not lie; he was telling the truth, and was not for this
that he was condemned—for we should thank God when we have been vouchsafed to
do something good, as He has helped us and worked with us to do it. The
Pharisee was not condemned, as I said, for thanking God, enumerating his
virtues, and he was not condemned for saying, I am not like other
men (Lk. 18:11); but when he turned his attention to the publican and
said or like this publican. Then he was given over to condemnation,
for he condemned a person and the disposition of his soul—to put it briefly,
his whole life. Therefore, the publican rather than the Pharisee went away
justified.
Nothing is more serious, as I have said
many times, nothing worse than judging, having contempt for or despising our
neighbor.
On
Judgment Remaining in God’s Domain
Why do we not rather judge ourselves and
our own sins, which we know so well, and about which we have to give an answer
before God? Why do we usurp God's right to judge? What do we demand from His
creature, His servant? Ought we not to tremble when we hear about what happened
to that great elder, who upon hearing of a brother falling into fornication
said, "Oh, he has done badly!" Or do you not know about the terrible
story related in the Patericon? For an angel brought [Isaac the Theban] the
soul of someone who had fallen into sin, and said to him, "Here is the
person you have judged. He has just died. Where do you order him to be put,
into the Kingdom or into eternal punishment?" Could there be anything more
terrible than this burden? What else could the angel mean by these words than,
"Since you want to be the judge of the righteous and the sinners, what do
you command for this poor soul? Shall you have mercy on him, or give him over
to tortures?" The holy elder, stunned by this, spent the rest of his life
in moaning and tears and measureless work, praying to God to be forgiven this
sin, and all this after having fallen face to the ground before the angel and
been forgiven, for the angel said to him, "You see, God has shown you what
a serious sin is judging, so that you would never do it again. This signified
forgiveness but the soul of the elder would not be consoled or cease its
lamentations until he died.
So what is it we want from our neighbor?
Why are we so concerned about the burden of others? We have plenty to be
concerned about, brothers! Let each one of us attend to himself and his own
sins. God alone has the authority to judge, to justify or to condemn, inasmuch
as He knows the state of each one of us and our upbringing and our gifts, our
constitution and abilities, and it is for him to judge each of these things
according to the knowledge that He alone has. For God judges the affairs of a
bishop in one way and those of a secular governor in another. His judgment is
different for an abbot or for a disciple; he judges differently the aged and
the young, the sick man and the healthy man. Who could understand all these
judgments except the One who has created everything, formed everything, knows
everything?
I remember once hearing the following
story: a slave ship put in at a certain port where there lived a holy virgin
who was in earnest about her spiritual life. When she learned about the arrival
of the ship she was glad, for she wanted to purchase a little girl. She thought
to herself, "I will take her into my home and bring her up in my way of
life so that she knows nothing of the evils of the world." So she sent and
enquired of the master of the ship and found that he had two small girls who he
thought would suit her. Whereupon she gladly paid the price of one of the
children and took her home. The ship's master left the place where the saint
dwelt. He had not gone very far when he was met by a harlot, totally depraved,
who saw the other small girl with him and wanted to buy her; the price was
agreed and paid, and she took her away. Do you see this mystery of God? Do you
see His judgment? Which of us could give explain this? The holy virgin took one
of these little ones to bring her up in the fear of God, to instruct her in
every good work, to teach her all that belongs to the monastic state and, in
short, all the sweet fragrance of God's holy commandments. The harlot, having
taken the unfortunate child, made her an instrument of the devil. For what
could this plague teach her but the ruin of her soul? What can we have to say
about this terrible fate? Both were small, both were sold, neither knew where
they were going; one is found in the hands of God and the other falls into the
hands of the devil. Is it possible to say that what God asks from the one he
asks also from the other? How could that be! Suppose they both fell into
fornication or some other deadly sin; is it possible that they both face the
same judgment, although they fell into one and the same sin? Could this be
possible? One learns about the Judgment and about the Kingdom of God day and
night, while the other unfortunate knows nothing of it, never hears anything
good but only the contrary, everything filthy, everything diabolical? How can
He allow them to be judged by the same standard?
Wherefore a man can know nothing about the
judgments of God. He alone is all-seeing and can judge the sins of all as He
alone knows. Truly it happens that a man may do some sin out of simplicity, but
he may have something good about him which is more pleasing to God than his
whole life; and you sit in judgment and burden your own soul? And should it
happen that he has fallen away, how do you know how much and how well he
fought, how much blood he sweated before he did it? Perhaps so little fault can
be found in him that God can look on his action as if it were just, for God
looks on his labor and all the struggle he had before he did it, and has pity
on him. And you know only his sin, then how God spared him; are you going to
condemn him for it, and destroy your own soul? And how do you know what tears
he has shed about it before God? You may well know about the sin, but you do
not know about the repentance.
On Not
Judging Others for Your Own Salvation
Those who want to be saved scrutinize not
the shortcomings of their neighbor but always their own, and they make
progress. Such was the man who saw his brother doing wrong and sighed, saying,
"Woe is me; him today—me tomorrow!" Do you see his caution? Do you
see the disposition of his soul? How he swiftly foresaw how to avoid judging
his brother? When he said "me tomorrow" he aroused fear of sinning,
and by this he increased his caution about avoiding those sins which he was
likely to commit, and so he escaped judging his neighbor; and he was not
satisfied only with this, but cast himself under his brother's feet, saying,
"He has repented for his sin but I do not always repent as I should, nor
do I attain to repentance, for I have not the strength to repent." Do you
see the divine light in his soul? Not only was he able to escape making
judgment but he threw himself beneath his brother's feet as well. And we
wretches judge rashly, we loathe and despise if we see something, or hear
something, or even only suspect something! And what is worse, we do not let it
stop at harming ourselves, but we go and look for another brother and say,
"Here is what happened!" We harm him and put vile sin into his heart
also and we do not fear the saying, Woe to the man who gives his neighbor
something dark and dangerous to drink (Habbakuk 2:15)! But we do the
devil's work and are not one bit concerned about it. What else has the devil to
do but disturb and harm us? We are found to work with him for our own
destruction and that of our neighbor, for a man who harms his own soul is working
with, and helping, the demons. The man who seeks to profit his soul is
co-operating with the angels. How is it that we fall into this state unless it
is because we have no true love? If we had true love, then we would view our
neighbor's shortcomings with co-suffering and compassion, as it is
said, Love shall cover the multitude of sins (I Peter 4:8). Love
thinketh no evil; covers everything and the rest (I Cor. 13:5).
As I said, if we have true love, that very
love would cover all sins, as did the saints when they saw the shortcomings of
men. Were they blind and did not see sins? And who hated sin more than the
saints? But they did not hate the sinners all the same time, nor condemn them,
nor turn away from them, but they suffered with them, admonished them,
comforted them, gave them remedies as sickly members, and did all they could to
save them. Take a fisherman: when he casts his hook into the sea and a large
fish takes the bait, he perceives first that the fish struggles violently and
is full of fight, so he does not try to pull it in immediately by main force
for the line would break and the catch would be lost in the end. No, he rather
plays out the line and, as he says, allows the fish to run freely, but when he
feels the line slacken and the first struggles have calmed down, he takes up
the slack line and begins, little by little, to draw him in. So the holy
fathers, by patience and love, draw the brother and do not spurn him nor become
disgusted with him. As a mother who has an unruly son does not hate him or turn
away from him but adorns him with love, and everything she does, she does for
his consolation; so do the saints always cover, adorn and help the sinner, so
that with time he will correct himself, and not harm anyone else, and in doing
so they themselves greatly advance towards the love of Christ.
[1]
Abba Dorotheos was a monk who lived at the end of the 6th century
and into the 7th. These words
on not judging others comes from his book “Practical Teachings on the Christian
Life” as it’s commonly known.
