Today's Gospel

The Danger of Judgment

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where each day we explore the genius of the gospel, the genius of the life and teachings of Jesus, listening for a word, a phrase, or an idea that the Holy Spirit uses to capture our attention. Today's reading is from the Gospel of John 10:31-42.

"The Jews took up stones again to stone him. And Jesus answered them, 'I've shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these good works do you now stone me?' And the Jews answered him, 'We stone you for no good work but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.' And Jesus answered them, 'Is it not written in your law? I said, "You are gods." If he called them gods to whom the Word of God came and Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of Him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, "You are blaspheming because I said I am the Son of God?" If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.' Again, they tried to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands. He went away again, across the Jordan, to the place where John at first baptized, and there he remained. And many came to see him, and they said, 'John did no signs, but everything that John said about this man was true.' And many believed in him there."

When you listen to today's gospel, what is it that captures your attention? When you listen to the gospel, do you see yourself in the different people? Well, we tend to see ourselves in the good people and not see ourselves in the people who are behaving poorly. And in this case, it's people trying to stone Jesus. Did you listen to the reading and think to yourself, "Yeah, I'm like those people trying to stone Jesus." We don't, right? We don't think of ourselves like–we think about ourselves as the other people. We think of ourselves as Jesus maybe even. I don't know.

But the wisdom of pouring deep into the Scriptures is to be able to see ourselves in every person and to be able to see that, yeah, we're capable of really the lunacy that's going on here today, right? Jesus is doing all sorts of signs and wonders, and they're basically saying, "We're going to ignore all of that, and we are going to try and stone you to death because you claim to be the Son of God." And Jesus is saying quite logically, "If you don't believe in me, at least believe in the works." By their fruits, you will know them. And yet they're just completely dismissed.

And when we see this, when we read this, we think to ourselves, "Well, that's unfair. That's unjust. That's insane. That's many things." But you and I, we experience those things in our own lives. And sometimes we're on the other end of those things in life, that we can be unreasonable with other people, that we judge people and refuse to acknowledge the good fruit of their life because we're so fixated on one other thing that we are judging them for. And so today is an invitation to think about, "Okay, who am I judging in a way where I fixate on one thing that they've done and I ignore the good fruit of their lives? Who am I judging? Who am I judging in a way where I fixate on one thing that they've done?" It may have been long ago, maybe 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago, fixating on one thing and ignoring the good fruit of their lives. Have a great day. And remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.