Don't judge or condemn

A baker in a little town used to buy butter from a farmer in the same town.  One day he suspected that the bricks of butter that were supposed to weigh two hundred and fifty grams each, were underweight. True to his suspicion, it was underweight.  He proved the farmer a cheat and got him arrested. 

The farmer was produced before the Judge.  The Judge asked the farmer “I presume you have scales and weighing butts?”.  To the shock of the Judge the farmer replied “I have the weighing scales, but I do not have the weighing measure”. 

“Then how do you manage to weigh the butter you sell?” inquired the Judge.
“It’s very simple sir.  I buy bread regularly from this baker.  Each loaf of his bread is marked as two hundred and fifty grams.  I have been using them for some years now as weight measure believing them to be truly two hundred and fifty grams so now I realise they do not weigh two hundred and fifty grams”. The Judge immediately ordered the baker arrested for cheating.

Jesus was so right when He said, “"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. (Luke 6:37) .“Jesus also said “Why do you look at the speck of in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye?”(Mathew 7:3) When men picked up stones to stone to death a woman caught in adultery, Jesus asked “which of you who has not sinned, take up the stone and throw it at her”.  Every man left the place.
Confucius once declared, "Don't complain about the snow on your neighbour roof when your own doorstep is unclean."

We so often keep criticising or pointing fingers at others without realising that we ourselves have faults and frailties and need areas in our life to be corrected. We behave like a businessman who always criticised the dirty window fronts of the shops opposite his shop until someone told him that it was actually his own glass windows that were full of dirt and need to be cleaned. 

People who are conscious of their weaknesses and shortcomings are those who rarely judge or point fingers at others. Speaking of sin, St. Paul says “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), indicating that all of us are weak in some way and so should refrain from hammering others down by criticism or dragging someone to judgement.

Before dragging the farmer to the Judge, if the baker talked it over with him he would have seen who was really at fault and peace would have prevailed.

Every time you point a finger at someone, three other fingers on your own hand are pointing inwards towards you.  What a constant reminder!