'I judge no one'

A recent Daily Office Reading (BCP p. 947) from the Gospel of John has a short and surprising declarative sentence said by Jesus: 'I judge no one.'

The context is a controversy with the Jewish religious authorities after he has declared that he is the light of the world. The authorities want to know by what criteria he judges himself the light of the world.

His response to the authorities is that he can make this bold declaration because he knows where he came from and where he is going. He knows he comes from God and is going to God. The Jewish religious authorities judge by human standards but Jesus, because of his total embrace of his divine mission, has no need to judge by human standards or human authority. He simply is the light of the world; that by and in which all else is judged.

But I wonder if it also means more. Maybe it's not just that Jesus doesn't judge by human standards or the authority of others, maybe he literally judges no one in anything. Perhaps in Jesus there is no judgement but we are the ones who, like his opponents in Chapter seven of John's Gospel, a filled with judgement.

There are certainly passages in the scriptures that seem to portray Jesus as a great judge. In particular, I think of the passage in Matthew that is so central to our life at St. Paul's where Jesus famously says 'surely as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.' The context of that passage is the separation of the sheep and the goats before the Son of Man on the throne of glory. Isn't he casting judgement from that heavenly throne?

Yet maybe it is also true that Jesus judges no one. Perhaps it is the case that Jesus is such pure love that whenever we try and approach him with anything less than love, we stall. We are like the goats and not the sheep in so far as we cling to things that are not love. In the end it is not Jesus' judgement that keeps us away from the throne, but our own.

Maybe it is the case that all will be forgotten and cleansed if we will only release anything that is 'not-love' in us. Perhaps there is no judgement from him, only invitation. Perhaps it is we that are the judgmental ones, even and perhaps especially of ourselves. Perhaps Jesus only wants us to release judgement and embrace him and so embrace love.