Chris Campbell

Why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God.

Beloved in the body of Christ,

Today's Eucharistic Epistle speaks to a problem that has plagued the church for generations and troubled me for many years: Judgement of others.

We affirm in our Baptismal Covenant and in the teachings of the scriptures that certain behaviors and practices are inherently sinful, and as such should be deemed reprehensible. Yet as our today's Gospel points out the return of the lost sheep to the fold through repentance is praised in heaven more than the sheep who never strayed.

The answer to this seems to be the difference between judgement and discernment.

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

When we approach sin in our lives, we must approach it with the understanding that the damage of sin is not some tally mark on a board, and the judgement of the Lord is not a weighing of pros and cons. Sin is something that damages our very soul by its existence in our lives; the sin itself holds the punishment.

As such, when we approach sin, or perceived sin, in another's life we should not approach it with judgement, instead we should approach it with the hope of redemption. Thus, first discernment is necessary.

The greatest expression of sin is distancing our soul from God, and as such approaching both our own sin—and especially the sins of others—through the lens of discernment will help us discover if what is perceived as sin truly is sin; does it move the soul further from God?

In the end of our lives our souls will be far from God and too bruised to traverse the infinite distance to Him, or they will be close to him and full of grace to speed past the infinite to reach God. But no judgement we pass as mortals can change the result, only by helping discern our sin together can we help one another reach God.

For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

May you live in Truth, Peace, and Love,
—Chris Campbell