Sunday, December 28, 2025
Sunday Reflection: The challenge of judgment
My adult life has largely been spent judging other people-- as a prosecutor and as a professor, where I have to issue grades that matter a lot to the people who receive them.
There is a real emotional and moral cost to judging others professionally. I think most people (though not all) would agree that the greater society needs people to perform these two functions, and that we just have to make sure that the people who do them are fair and unbiased.
And that is a part of the cost: to be fair and unbiased is, in an important way, to be selfless. That is, your own beliefs and prejudices can't come into it if the system is to have integrity.
When I look to Jesus for guidance as I judge, I mostly find Him declining to judge at all, and he even teaches "Judge not, lest you be judged." (Matthew 7:1). When he comes upon the people you expect him to judge (the woman at the well, for example) he teaches rather than judges. When he does actually judge people, it is either his own followers or those in power.
And I guess that is part of what I am still learning: when I can, I should teach rather than judge.
