Do Not Judge

Matthew 24:28 – “For where the corpse is, the vultures will gather.”

At first glance, this is a non-sequitur. It seems to have nothing to do with Jesus’ description of the coming of the Son of Man. However, reading it metaphorically, as a parable, yields some small clues. If we read it as the corpse representing sinners and the vultures as God’s judgment, it fits right in. It also fits right in with what I read in Bonhoeffer this morning. He wrote that we’re “out of God” when we judge another person, because only God can judge. The question for me is what about accountability? If we truly never judged another, we wouldn’t be able to hold people accountable for their/our actions.

Or would we? There are various ideas and systems being discussed around transformative justice. This term is used in opposition to our punitive justice system. Keeping people out of our racist and abusive penal system is one goal of transformative justice. Another is reconciliation of the parties involved leading to a transformation not only of the perpetrator, but also the victim and the community as well. Everyone has a chance to speak and everyone is heard (ideally). It’s a way of pushing back against the violence and abuse of our penal system, especially in for-profit prisons. And, as someone whose local jail has witnessed nine deaths in the past year, I’m all for keeping people out.

Such a system would require a massive transformation in how we view society, government, and our role in those systems. It would require empathy to listen to the perpetrator as well as the victim and attend to everyone as persons. Attending to perpetrators as people is a political non-starter now, but we are capable of changing that. Recognizing, as our current president is unable to, that immigrants, refugees, Black people, and offenders of all races are people is the key to making transformative justice work. Why is it so difficult for human beings to remember that people who commit crimes are still people with certain inalienable rights.

One reason is that thinking of perpetrators as something different from us, distancing them from us and their own humanity, we never have to acknowledge our own capacity for such behavior. Recognizing our own capacity for such behavior can lead to empathy for those who have committed a crime or even a minor offense. This is why we’re commanded by Jesus not to judge others. In the same circumstances, we’re capable of making the same choices. 

Let’s remember our capacity for hurting others. Remember those behind bars for the color of their skin. Remember too that this includes many Black prisoners. Work for justice in these situations with as much love as we can muster for everyone involved. And without judgment.

B