Tuesday 5 November 2024
James 4: 11 – 12
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbour?
Reflection
Jesus said ‘judge not, that ye be not judged’. Usually we think of this in terms of not judging what our neighbours have or have not done. However, when we are tempted to rush to judgement of others, there is often an unspoken corollary, which is that whatever we consider our neighbours guilty of, our sin is not as great.
If we minimise our sin in this way, through judging others to be worse than us, then we will be far less likely to see that our own behaviour needs to be improved. Maybe that is partly why James says that we should be concentrating on doing the law, instead of judging others.
In the bargain, if we concentrate our attention on judging all the wrongdoing in the world, then we could be tempted to lose faith that God’s kingdom can come on earth as in heaven. So let’s concentrate our attention on James’ teaching instead.
James is looking for change – starting with change in us. He wants his readers to see clearly that their own behaviour falls short of Jesus’ teaching, however much they profess to be Christians. He is calling on each of us to go further with our response to Jesus. Not to be satisfied with where we are and certainly not to think that because we are no worse than our neighbours, we do not need to change.
In other words we may call ourselves Christian, but we’ve still got a long way to go. What’s more, changing ourselves (including the little that we can each do towards changing the world) is certainly within our grasp. So let’s actively concentrate on that and leave God to look after the bigger picture (and the judging).
Prayer
Living and loving God,
Open our eyes and our hearts to see your will and your way.
Show us each how we need to change.
Help us to work at becoming more and more like Jesus.
As we strive to model the attributes of your kingdom,
may your kingdom come across this world,
that all may live in justice and peace.
Thanks be to God,
Amen.