“First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.”
I’ve been pondering these words recently. As Christians, we are taught to evangelise, and spread God’s word and bring others to him. I always thought I was acting like a Christian if I showed myself to others to be doing good deeds, to be saying nice things, to be prayerful. Rather piously I thought “Well, if people know I am a Christian and they see me doing good deeds or saying good things and going to Church, then that might draw them to God.” However, when I recently heard the above words of Jesus to the Pharisees, written in chapter 23 of Matthew’s Gospel, it struck me how, while these may be good intentions, God is in fact more concerned with what we are thinking and feeling, on the inside, rather than necessarily how we are acting.
This reflection led me to pay more attention to what I was thinking or feeling at a certain time in comparison to how I was acting towards others. I found that there would sometimes be instances of a disconnect. Sometimes, for example, I would find myself acting civilly towards someone, whilst inside my thoughts towards such person might be a bit disparaging. Other times, with the aim of pleasing someone, I would say something which sounded positive, although inside my thoughts towards such thing might be quite negative. I realised that, whilst the intentions of trying to make someone else feel better and trying to please were on the one hand noble, the outside of my pot was perhaps cleaner than the inside.
This reminded me of the film “What Women Want”, with Mel Gibson. It’s about a guy (played by Mel Gibson) who is randomly given a gift of being able to read women’s minds and see what they actually think. Suffice to say, he discovers that what women think about him is not necessarily how they act towards him. Indeed, whilst they may act quite civilly towards him, in reality their view is that he is arrogant and fancies himself. For Mel Gibson’s character, this soon acts as a wake-up call, since he always saw himself as something of a stud.
This is not the place to discuss whether we should always show to others exactly what we are feeling or whether we should hide bad feeling towards others. But when I was reminded of the above film, it did make me realise that at the route of all of these bad thoughts towards others is judgements – judgements about others, whether negative or positive. We all make judgements about others, both positive and negative. We are taught from an early age the old adage “never judge a book by its cover”, however in reality, we can often be critical towards another person without necessarily knowing their circumstances. By the same token, we can often put another person on a pedestal, thinking someone is much better or greater than we are.
In fact, we are all made in God’s image, and so all others around us are sons and daughters of God. In this regard, any judgement of others is a judgement of God. When God created us and created the world, He “saw that it was good.” So rather than judge others, either very positively or negatively, we should try and become more accepting to what is around us.
How can we avoid judging others and become more accepting of those around us? Well, as a wise priest once said to me, the first task is being aware of any judgements we make. One tool of Ignatian spirituality which is helpful in doing this is the Examen. The Examen is prayed daily, often towards the end of each day, and gives us the opportunity to look back over each day and see where we were drawn to God by our deeds and also where we felt our actions pushed away from God. It is a useful time to look inside our pots, rather than just concerning ourselves with how they look from the outside. At the end of the Examen, we are also given the opportunity to look towards the next day, and to pray about what we have learned during this prayer time. The Examen is a helpful opportunity to be mindful of where our judgements of others have pushed us away from God, and to pray that we might be more like Christ in accepting his people in the future.
In “What Women Want”, Mel Gibson’s character acquires a certain peace and humility through realising that has not been as perfect as he thought. I pray that, in practising the Examen and being more aware of how we are feeling on the inside, and how judgemental we can be, we can take steps to be more accepting to others, and can also acquire such peace and humility.
The above reflection was written by a young adult who attends First Sunday and Third Sunday Masses.