Protopresbyter George Gamrekeli
We are often asked what the difference is between judging and reproving, and what discernment is. What does the Lord say? “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Matt. 7:1–2). And as for reproving, the Gospel teaches us: if thy brother sin, reprove him; if he will not hear, then the reproof must be made before two or three. If in this case also he does not hear, then the reproof must be made before the spiritual father and before the Church; and if he will not hear the Church either, then let him be unto thee as a heathen (Matt. 18:15–17). And discernment, as the holy fathers say, is one of the chief of the virtues. Often a believer does not know how to tell judging, reproving and discernment apart, and calls judging a reproof or discernment, whereas judging and reproving differ in their very substance. Above all, judging excludes love; it is a word spoken without love, as the result of a high opinion of oneself. And a word spoken without love leads of necessity to the humiliating of a person before himself and before others. His person is made one with some particular deed; the sin and the error are made absolute; the sin is spread over the whole person and overshadows all his other good qualities. But reproving presupposes above all love for the person who is reproved. The aim of reproof is to lead a neighbour out of his error and to care for his spiritual salvation.
We may bring a plain example of reproof from the Holy Scriptures — namely, let us remember how the prophet Nathan acted when he wished to reprove king David. He came to the prophet as a prophet, and to the king as a layman, and told him the parable of how a rich man took from a poor man the one beloved lamb which he had raised as his own child, and killed it for a guest. When the angry king declared that he who had done this was worthy of death, only then did Nathan disclose to him that the rich man who had killed the poor man's one lamb for a strange guest — for an evil thought — was he himself, who had taken from Uriah the Hittite his one treasure, his beautiful wife. Thus the wise prophet made king David pass sentence upon himself; and such a reproof bore fruit — repentance. This is how judging may be told apart from reproving. But our reproof, although it is often just, because of our lack of love and our faintheartedness bears the character of judging. When we reprove a fault, we speak the truth, but in this truth there is no place left for the salvation of the person and for the desire to lead him out of his error. And a loveless reproof will never bear good fruit, for at such a time many other good qualities of the person are wholly disregarded and forgotten. Therefore, before we reprove a neighbour, we must first pray before God, grow calm, think over what we would say, and only after this speak our word. And the aim at that time, as we have already noted, must be the salvation of the person, not his humiliation. So that true reproof requires of us patience, long-suffering and love; otherwise we shall lose even that little truth which we had, and the matter will be no longer reproof but judging, which will certainly be followed by something worse — namely, hatred will be sown, whose fruit we shall reap, and instead of unity we shall be parted from our neighbour still further.
The cause of all this is again ourselves, for we have not the greatest of the virtues — spiritual discernment. The apostle Paul says: we have the mind of Christ (meaning himself, the apostles and faithful Christians). The mind of Christ means precisely spiritual discernment, and it may be gained by experience, by prayer, by fasting and by spiritual thinking. A man may gain this experience by studying the thought of the holy fathers and their lives. When a man has gained the experience of spiritual discernment, then he will find the right form of Christianity also and will be kept from judging. From this it is plain that the cause of judging is our spiritual laziness; we are too lazy to consider every event and action spiritually, and we judge and speak mechanically, on the surface. The gaining of experience happens when we overcome temptation with faith. And the Lord sends each of us trials enough, that we may better see ourselves. These trials are sent us so that we should set to work first of all by correcting ourselves: by working upon ourselves, by feeling our own sins and overcoming them, we gain the experience of spiritual discernment, which lets us understand what a true reproof should be, and we avoid judging. If we forgive ourselves, then we shall forgive another also; but if we are strict towards ourselves, then we understand how hard it is for another, and we become more loving towards men, more merciful and more forbearing. This is why the apostle tells us: let him bear another's burden who among you is strong, taught and experienced. We may know many examples from the lives of the saints, but without the feeling of our own sins and the experience gained from it we shall not acquire the mind of Christ and shall never be rid of judging. Therefore, when we think about the future, the first thing we must do is to take the beam out of our own eye. Each of us knows this, but sadly does not do it, for which we are punished and shall be punished in the future. This is not only a matter of the individual: it begins in the person and spreads to the family, to society, and then to the whole nation.
So then, if we do not learn spiritually, we shall never be freed from the spirit of judging, and envy and bitterness will always be among us, which of course will bear a bitter enough fruit. Many may justify themselves by the fast pace of modern life, which does not give us the chance to look deeply into ourselves; but I think that this fast pace too is caused by our wrong attitude towards life. The Lord tells us: take no thought for the morrow, for sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. This admonition we have forgotten. Today we have done nothing good, and already we are anxious for tomorrow and try to make it today. Therefore, instead of reality, we fall into a world of notions; and since we are anxious about what has no foundation, we make a foundation artificially, and from this begins the quickening of the pace of life: what has not ripened we want to pluck today, and what has ripened we have no time to gather, because we are already anxious about tomorrow and try to accomplish in one day the work of years. In this respect things outwardly seem to be better in the West, for economically they do and accomplish more; but there man is unseen being broken as a person and as a family, and where the person and the family are broken, there the state too awaits ruin. Economic and political success will be firm only when it has a firm moral foundation. So then, by our wrong attitude we ourselves quicken the pace of life, and then complain that we have no time left to look into ourselves and to know ourselves. The cause of this is envy also, for we compete with one another in gaining material riches and the glory of this world.
On a world scale this process is probably not to be turned back; but this does not mean that the individual person cannot change the rhythm of his own life and by experience and learning cannot acquire spiritual discernment, that is, the mind of Christ. The foundation of this is the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who has not the love of Christ will never attain success in the spiritual life; therefore above all we must search in ourselves whether we have the love of Christ, which is the pledge of deliverance from every sin, and among them from the sin of judging, inasmuch as love for Christ necessarily presupposes love for one's neighbour as well.
