William Shakespeare based a whole play on the second
verse of Matthew 7. Measure for Measure is
classified as a 'comedy', and indeed everything works out very well in the end.
But much of the play is dark and disturbing.
Angelo, a noble but stern lord, is left in charge of Vienna while Vincentia,
the Duke, goes away for a spell. At least, he pretends to go away, but actually
he stays near at hand, in disguise. No sooner has Angelo taken power than,
obeying the Duke's instructions, he tightens up the ancient laws, condemning to
death one Claudio, who has fathered a child out of wedlock. Isabella, the
condemned man's sister, pleads for his life, warning Angelo that judgment from
God himself is impartial, and that he too may find himself in need of the mercy
which God provided in Christ:
Why,
all the souls that were were forfeit once;
And
He that might the vantage best have took
Found
out the remedy. How would you be
If
He, which is the top of judgment, should
But
judge you as you are? 0, think on that;
And
mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like
man new made.
Measure for Measure Act 2, Scene 2
Angelo refuses: Claudio must die. But at the same time
Angelo is smitten by a passionate lust for Isabella herself, and offers to
spare her brother if only she will allow him to have his way with her. The plot
twists and turns, but ends with Angelo, his own vice having been exposed,
pleading for the death he richly deserves. But the Duke, weaving the threads of
the story together, pardons one and all, while at the same time a deep and rich
justice is done.
Shakespeare hints throughout at the Christian meanings of
justice and mercy. The sovereign God, who seems to be absent from the world, is
in fact present, supremely of course in Jesus himself. He takes human sin and self-righteousness,
exposes them and deals with them, and yet allows mercy to triumph gloriously
over justice.
There is a mystery here which deserves much pondering. This
is the mystery that lies underneath the present passage. Jesus warns sternly
against condemning others. Of course, this does not mean (as some have thought)
that no follower of Jesus should ever be a magistrate. God intends that his
world should be ordered, and that injustice should be held in check. Jesus is
referring, not to official lawcourts, but to the judgments and condemnations
that occur within ordinary lives, as people set themselves up as moral
guardians and critics of one another.
We rightly guess that he had a particular target in mind.
In 5.20
he has named them: the scribes and Pharisees. Though we know from history, and from
the New Testament itself, that there were many scribes and Pharisees who were
genuinely and humbly pious people, the tendency of hard-line pressure groups -
which is what the Pharisees basically were - is always to create a moral
climate in which everybody looks at everybody else to see if they are keeping
their standards up.
In many countries, this kind of moral climate used to be maintained
in relation to sexual morality. Often, today, the moralism is just as fierce,
but the target has changed. Today it might be, for instance, conservation and
the environment. In some countries, neighbours spy on each other to make sure they
place the right kind of garbage in the right kind of bag, so concerned are they
about proper disposal and the danger of pollution. That word, in fact, is an
indication of what's going on: 'pollution' was precisely what the Pharisees
were afraid of.
Jesus warns against all such 'judgment'. He doesn't mean that
we shouldn't have high standards of behaviour for ourselves and our world, but
that the temptation to look down on each other for moral failures is itself a
temptation to play God. And, since we aren't God, that means it's a temptation
to play a part, to act, to be a 'hypocrite' (which literally means a playactor,
one who wears a mask as a disguise).
With the warning example of Angelo before us, we can see what
will happen to such people. Judgment will bounce back on them, the
measuring-stick they use for others will be lined up against them, and, while
they patronizingly try to sort out other people's problems, their own will loom
so large that they won't be able to see straight. Jesus, we should note,
doesn't rule out the possibility that some people will eventually be able to
help others to take specks of dust out of their eyes. He isn't saying that
there is no such thing as public morality. But he is warning that the very
people who seem most eager to tell others what to do (or more likely what not
to do) are the people who should take a long look in the mirror before they begin.
n N
T Wright ‘MATTHEW 7.1--6 On Judging Others’ in
his book Matthew for Everyone
