In Love there is No Judgment (Easter 5 B)

Jesus to woman caught in adultery: "Where are your accusers?
Neither do I condemn you." (John 8)

In Love there is No Judgment
Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year B)
10th May 2009
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Hong Kong
9:00 a.m. High Mass
11:45 Choral Matins with 1928 BCP Eucharist
Acts 8:26 – 40; Psalm 22:25 - 31 ; 1 John 4:7 - 21 ; John 15:1 - 8

God, breathe into us a desire to change— take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

“God is love.” People often quote this striking line from today’s epistle (1 John 4:16). But they rarely quote the great insight about human nature that immediately follows:

God is Love
and the person who lives in love
lives in God and God lives in that person.
It is in this way that our love has reached perfection.
As a result we are open and confident on Judgment Day
because already in this world we are like Christ.
Love has no room for fear;
Rather, perfect love drives out fear,
for fear involves punishment.
Love has not reached perfection in one who is still afraid.
But as for us, we love because He loved us first. (1 John 4:16-19)

The logic of the passage depends on this insight: “In love, there is no judgment.”

As people who love and are loved, most love we experience is flawed. It is distorted by our demands and by the conditions we place on it. And so it is often rejected, or turns toxic.

When our daughter was at college, she went through a rough time. She stopped communicating with us. Through a lot of hard work, she got back on track. She came home for a holiday and we reconnected. At a joyful moment in private, we reassured her of our love, and said how proud we were of her.

Her body suddenly stiffened; her face went taut. Then she said caustically, “Mom and Dad, I’m glad I meet your approval.”

We were only trying to express love, but all she felt was our appraising her progress, measuring her performance. We loved her, and couldn’t help but want “the best” for her. So our love was mixed necessarily with our judgment of what was best for her, and this judgment of ours provoked fear in her. Things are much better now. But the experience is common, and tells us about love.

Think of times when you have loved or been loved. Think of any kind of love you have experienced—that of a friend, a sibling, a parent, a child, a romantic lover, or even just that of a fellow human being.

When was that love at its best? Wasn’t it always when the love was there simply because of love itself, not because of some need met, some desire realized, or some standard fulfilled?

Think of when love went horribly wrong. Maybe it turned to hatred or loathing, or became abusive in some way. Wasn’t the problem always at root some kind of judgment, condemnation, or criticism?

How many of us have heard the following words where once there had been only words of joyful love? “Stop judging me.” “She is always trying to change me.” “I wish you would take me just as I am.” “Why do you always have to be so critical?” “I love you, but I can’t be with you. It’s just too painful.”

When Saint Paul said, “Love never fails” (1 Cor. 12:8), he was describing love as it ought to be, not as it appears in these harsh words.

We seem to be made in such a way that so far as our emotional selves are concerned, love is incompatible with judgment and fear. If mixed, love is rejected or corrupted. Even a whiff of evaluation will turn an expression of love and approval sour through fear of not measuring up.

That’s why one of the basic principles of counseling is to listen without judging. You cannot build trust as a counselor if you judge.

It’s why most conscious efforts at “tough love” generally only alienate their object.

It’s why Jesus taught us to love, and not to judge.

But wait a minute: Isn’t Jesus going to be our judge? He loves us. How can there be no judgment in love?

Even when we talk about God and Christ, there is no room in love for judgment. At least, that’s how it feels.

When I was a student at the Catholic University of America, I prayed regularly in the nearby National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The main nave is cavernous. On the ceiling above the high altar is an immense mosaic of Christ on the Day of Judgment. As you look up, he peers down at you accusingly, eyes ablaze in anger.

From main nave of National Shrine of the
Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.

Looking up at that mosaic, I always felt condemned, and bound for hell. I always retreated to the crypt church in the basement for prayer. That mosaic was just too threatening. I just couldn’t pray to Jesus for mercy in the nave.

The Day of Judgment is an important part of the Church’s teaching about justice and moral responsibility. But these doctrines do not require us to take the image of God’s wrath more literally than we take God’s love.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “If anyone hears me and doesn't obey me, I don’t judge and condemn him. For I have come to save the world and not to judge it.” On the last day, it will not be me doing the judging, he says, “it will be the truth I have spoken that will judge all who reject me and my message” (John 12: 47-48).

C.S. Lewis describes this by saying that in the end, there will be only two kinds of people, those who have said to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God must finally say, “Alright, have it your own way.”

The Day of Judgment does not mean that God’s love, like human love, is corrupted by judgment and bound to produce fear. When we say “Christ will come again to be our judge” in the creed, we affirm God’s love and mercy, not God’s harsh judgment.

But wait—in this life we have to judge. What if the person we love is doing really bad things? Aren’t we obliged to help? And doesn’t this include recognition of standards?

There are non-judgmental ways of responding to real problems. We don’t accuse or say “you are wrong here.” We talk about how the person’s behavior affects us. We are honest about our feelings, but we don’t try to apply labels. Couples and family counselors regularly teach people how to address real problems fairly. Usually it involves use of the formula: “I feel [fill in the emotion] when you [fill in the behavior] because [fill in how the person’s behavior causes your feeling.]

Just trying not to judge or not to get angry because Jesus taught us this simply won’t do. We end up doing both anyway, and usually alienate ourselves from our own emotional lives to the degree that we disengage from others. That is not love. That is emotional death.

In today’s epistle reading, John doesn’t say simply that love is incompatible with fear and judgment. He says that perfect love drives out fear. It heals the hurt caused by judgment and in its stead gives openness, frankness, and confidence.

In today’s epistle, it is only as we seek to love, and remain in love, that we live in God and God lives in us. He gives us his spirit. As a result, our love is made more and more complete. In the end, our love ends up being like God’s, even here and now.

Paul calls this process “sanctification.”


Today’s gospel describes it in the image of Christ as the true vine and believers as his branches.

Such practice in love must start in love. If it starts through a sense of obligation because of fear of condemnation, it won’t last. That is just going through the motions of love. This is better than not going through the motions. But unless it finds it can root itself in love, even this effort at imitating Christ is bound to corrupt itself and end in contempt and cynicism.

Gratitude for perfect love freely given is the only sure beginning point. Just as the human heart cannot feel love and judgment at the same time, it cannot be full of gratitude at the same time as judgment and resentment.

Trying to build love on anything other than gratitude is like my mother telling me and my brother as little boys to hug, forgive each other, and make up after a particularly nasty fight. We would sullenly go through the motions, and spit out the words. She would say “Now do it again and MEAN it.” Love cannot come from being commanded. It can only come from the gratitude from being loved first.

John describes this: “In this, then, does love consist: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent his son as a means to drive away our failings.” (1 John 4:10).

Friends, God is Love. Our love is imperfect, corrupted by fear and judgment, and often fails. But God’s love is perfect. He has loved us, pathetic creatures that we are, through coming to us in the person of Jesus. And Jesus did not come to judge us. He came to save us. May we be grateful for this, and be transformed by our gratitude. May we let him perfect our love and drive away our fear.

In the name of God, Amen.