“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.”-Romans 2:1
We have all been guilty of judging someone else at one point. We may judge others for partying on the weekends or for something as small as what they do with their hair. We judge our fellow humans for a number of different reasons. We may do it because of where we come from in life and judge others on their lifestyle. We can judge even when we don’t know all the details. It seems as though being judgmental has become a natural part of life. There is no escape from it. Once that thought of judgment passes through your head, you have the choice to either act out your judging or forget it and accept that person.
So what happens when we judge? When we condemn others for their sins, we can be just as bad as them. If we judge other people, how can we avoid God’s judgement on us?
This brings me to the story of a man named Ra’s al Ghul. This Batman villain reminds me a lot of how most Christians can be towards other people sometimes. Ra’s was a criminal mastermind and his goal was to bring the world into a perfect, peaceful balance. Sounds like a nice goal, right? Well, Ra’s believed that the only way to bring perfect balance to the world was to kill off most of humanity. Mainly anyone whom Ra’s and the League of Shadows considered to be “bad”. Ra’s seemed to think that it was his job to pass judgement on others. Whoever Ra’s saw as “evil” or “unfit” in the world, he eliminated. Ra’s saw himself as the good guy. All he wanted was to make the world better, but the way he carried out his plans made him into the villain.
“Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” -Romans 2:2-4
In the scene from the clip, you saw that Ra’s believe he saw terrible people in Gotham City. He looked at the way those people lived, their actions and all of the crime plaguing the city and decided it needed to be destroyed. Ra’s was judging Gotham. Then, Bruce Wayne stood up to Ra’s and told him that not everyone in Gotham was evil. Just because what people did was not always right or not everyone was pure didn’t mean that they deserved to die. Bruce was rebuking Gotham, which is something that we should do to others. Rebuke and not judge.
If we want to, we can live our lives as Ra’s al Ghul: dark, bitter and limiting relationships with other people. We can believe that we are living by God’s law and think that we are better than other people who don’t. But just because we are following the rules doesn’t mean that we are being good people. Ra’s thought that he was a good person for destroying who he thought was evil, but was it the right thing to do?
We can also live life the way Bruce saw: believing that not everyone who didn’t always do right was bad. We’ve all done bad things ourselves, judging being one of them. If we see it as our right to judge other people, what will God’s judgement be on us? We, as humans, weren’t made for judging. It’s God’s job to do, not ours. Unfortunately, we do it anyway. When we sin, God shows us mercy and kindness. If God can be patient with us, we should try and be patient with other people and not judge them. God loves even the bad people the same as He does anyone else. God has no favorites and does not love anyone more than someone else.
Geeks of the Gospel 