On Being Judgmental

 

Ezekiel 33: 7-9

7 So thou, O son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel: therefore thou shalt hear the word from my mouth, and shalt tell it them from me.

8 When I say to the wicked: O wicked man, thou shalt surely die: if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked man from his way: that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand.

9 But if thou tell the wicked man, that he may be converted from his ways, and he be not converted from his way: he shall die in his iniquity: but thou hast delivered thy soul.

Matthew 18: 

15: But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother.

16 And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand.

17 And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.

18 Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.

19 Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning any thing whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven.

20 For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

The postmodernists insist we must never be “judgmental.” We must never accuse others of wrongdoing. This Sunday’s readings demonstrate that this attitude is unbiblical and immoral.

We are all the sons of men. Ezekiel makes plain that this gives us an obligation to point out to others when they are sinning. If we do not, we will be held accountable for their sin. We have aided and abetted it. Above all else, we owe it to the sinner to advise them of their sin.

A point it seems lost on Pope Francis.

At the same time, this obligation is limited to the “House of Israel.” There is, after all, no point in trying to help someone who does not believe, in the first place, in right and wrong, in ethical monotheism. They are bound for hell in any case.

This principle is shown again in the second reading: one has both a right and a duty to point out when a fellow Christian has sinned, against us or against another. If he (or she) does not accept this and seek atonement and reconciliation, he has, by this, demonstrated he is not a Christian and not a brother. He is “a heathen.”

A second common distortion is also revealed by the second reading. The last verse is often misquoted as “wherever two or more of you are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” And this is used to stress the need for community over against the individual conscience, and so demand conformity. 

But the original is “two,” then “two or three.” If “one” is excluded from God’s presence, so too is any group larger than three. The ideal unit imagined is something the size of a couple or family, not even a typical church congregation. 

Accepting the authority of the latter is simply the ad populam fallacy. If a larger group automatically has more authority than a smaller group, Christianity itself is disproven.

The point is the presence of love; which necessarily requires more than one, as in the Trinity. 

Hence too no doubt the reference to a fellow Christian at the beginning of the passage, and in general,  as “brother.” The reference is to brotherly love, filos.

Whoever has such love is your brother. Whoever does not, is not.