Judgmentalism -Monday in Holy Week

John 12, 1-11

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)

This story is a powerful foreshadowing of the events that are to be played out later in the week. Today I wonder two things about Judas Iscariot. First is the disdain with which he is treated in this story. He is, of course, the natural villain. It doesn't take much for us to believe that his motives were not good.

If for a moment we stop and choose not to focus our anger on him but rather to identify with him, do we recognise in his response some of our own poverty of spirit.

How easily do we criticise the grand gestures of others, and drag them down to the level of the mundane? Parents who see not their childrens creative abilities, but only the mess they have made! Bosses who cannot see the effort that their employees have put into trying to reach impossible targets, only the fact that they haven't reached them.

It is a small minded-ness that exposes rather more abvout us than it does about others.

It is this second point which might exercise our minds today. What does our criticism, often vicious in the extreme, of others say about me? It is a fairly basic insight that criticism often says more about the one who criticises, than it does about the one who is criticised.
Judas judges the woman by his own standards...not on her own merits, or through the eyes of Jesus.
As we look critically at others, let us also ask what does this also say about us. And what does it ask me to do about my own life...rather than suggesting how others might improve their own foolishness.

And if I tempted am to sin
and outward things are strong
do thou, O Lord, keep watch within
and keep my soul from wrong