“Judge not, that you may not be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: ‘Let me cast the mote out of thy eye;’ and behold a beam is in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”
The Lord here does not say, “Do not make a sinner cease sinning,” for “he must know that he who causeth a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20). Love Itself is reaching out to everyone, and being able to be the light by which someone knows they are loved is the Christian mission. Love of God is a greater priority than comfort of neighbor, but any correction must be administered with incredible care and gentleness. Love is a medicine that cannot be forced into the patient, but must be welcomed by someone that knows that any correction they receive comes from a place of love: “Well ordered words are as a honeycomb: sweet to the soul, and health to the bones” (Proverbs 16:24). Without the sweetness of love, the taste of truth is often too bitter to be stomached: “And I took the book from the hand of the angel, and ate it up: and it was in my mouth, sweet as honey: and when I had eaten it, my belly was bitter” (Apocalypse 10:10). Thinking negatively of someone, however, has no place in the life of love. Each person that is made is madly loved by God, each person you see is a jewel that the King desires with unfathomable desire: “But God, (who is rich in mercy) for his exceeding love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5). The instruction not to judge is not to look down on anyone. If someone is completely lost to sin, it should draw great pity from you: “And Jesus going out saw a great multitude: and he had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd” (Mark 6:34), for they don’t know how loved they are. They are far from love, not seeing without and not holding it within. This is spiritual death, and rather than looking down your nose at them, let your heart be moved with even greater mercy and sorrow than if you saw someone gravely afflicted by physical sickness. Sins against you truly do you no harm, but wound the soul of the one that sins. As for matters that aren’t outright sinful, it is best to assume the best of your neighbor and laud what is good in them. An action that rubs you the wrong way may be done with a heart filled with love, but is simply not expressed according to your liking. Everyone expresses love differently, the differences in love languages between people shows this, and those that do things that annoy you, you are called to love with an equal love as those with whom you get along: “For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans this?” (Matthew 5:46). The Christian life is not in being rid of trials, in fact they shall increase: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Corinthians 15:19), but in loving radiantly through all of them. Returning to the text, the judgment and measure that falls on you is that harboring judgment and poor thoughts about one’s neighbor are actions against love, and do you the harm that you think you are doing to others by detracting them or conceding to thoughts that do the same: “Remove from thee a forward mouth, and let detracting lips be far from thee” (Proverbs 4:24). When you see the small faults in others and you keep them in your mind, rather than gently turning back to thoughts of the Beloved, you are driving a beam into the eye of your soul, filling it with hate rather than love, failure rather than rejoicing, what is ugly rather than what is beautiful, which is to pull your mind into the dirt: “My soul hath cleaved to the pavement: quicken thou me according to thy word” (Psalm 118:25). When love does away with many of your own faults and failures, then you will be able to apply the gentle medicine of love to those who are struggling, for it is love that allows the beam to fall away. It is like a stick caught in wax, to pull on it is to rip apart and disfigure the wax, but to heat it until it melts allows the stick to naturally pass, the wax then being able to be reformed whole and pure. Thus, when you warm the souls of others with love, you do much greater work than if you overwhelmed them with logic or stern correction: “Rebuke not a scorner lest he hate thee. Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee” (Proverbs 9:8). It is your calling to overcome bad love with wondrous love, for when you love, you strive to be better, and when you strive to be better, those around you become better as well. When you see someone struggling in spirit, love them ardently and pray to God to take care of the rest. Finally, in all things be gentle and loving, having pity on the sinner, applying the balm of love to the wounds of sin and hate, and looking at each person you encounter the way God looks at them: As a marvelous treasure, someone made out of love for the sake of love, and you have been placed in their path to love them with the greatest act of love you can recognize in that moment: “In all thy ways think on him, and he will direct thy steps” (Proverbs 3:6).