Countering a hasty judgement

Hello. Today I thought I would talk about not rushing to judgment. Or, in Proverbs 25:8 terms: “do not bring hastily to court, for what will you do in the end if your neighbour puts you to shame?”

I remember reading late last year in Church Times, and it said: “In a statement issued by Lambeth palace at 2 pm on Tuesday, Archbishop Welby said…” And then it quoted verbatim the statement in which the archbishop said he thought he should resign from the church which he loved and stated the hope that this decision would point us back towards the love of Jesus.

And I then immediately messaged my family, without stopping to think, saying I thought it was a statement that seemed to lack an acknowledgement of responsibility. And it was only after that, I thought, hang on, people are often quoted partially or slightly out of context, even when their words are directly quoted. And I went back and looked up the full statement, in which he very clearly acknowledged responsibility. I felt rather guilty and shamefaced. I had rushed to judgement. And it reminded me to be very careful in taking at face value what we read.

We live in cancelling times, and people sometimes say things like, would St Paul be cancelled today. Well of course!

Ah, St Paul says women should be silent (in 1 Corinthians). Cancel him! Except St Paul earlier says women have the authority to puvlicly pray and prophesy; and he seems to say they should only be veiled when prophesying because in the Greek mystery cults that were popular in Corinth women “spoke ecstatically with their hair dishevelled and without veils”.

The Bible, and this is particularly obvious with Paul, were particular people writing in a particular time in a particular context. Paul’s comments in Romans 1 for example seem particularly directed against the Isis cult. But with Paul’s letters we don’t even have the letters he was replying to! We only have half a conversation.

Ephraim Mirvis the chief rabbi gave an interesting talk at Channakuh, about Joseph, he of the dreams and the technicolour dreamcoat. In Genesis we’re given a description of pharaoh’s dreams twice. But, as Mirvis says, “there are intriguingly some small differences in terms of how Pharaoh explained his dreams as opposed to what really happened in the dreams. For example, in the original dreams, we’re told Pharaoh was standing (on the river), and then Pharaoh says to Joseph, “I was standing (on the banks of the river).”
Now, the Jewish commentary says that on every occasion on which Pharaoh deviated slightly from what he had originally seen, Joseph corrected him and said, “No, it’s not on the banks of the river; it’s on the river.” At one point, says the Jewish commentary, Pharaoh cried out to Joseph, “Were you eavesdropping on my dreams?”
It was this that convinced Pharaoh that Josef was not only somebody who knew the interpretation, but someone who knew the dreams…
If you want to know how to understand a situation in order to provide a solution for it, if some of your facts are wrong, then your capacity to provide a solution will be impeded.”

Whether it’s a political statement or reacting to images of war in the Middle East, whatever it is, Mirvis argues that “From Joseph, we learn that if you want to provide a solution, the facts need to be correct.”

We must be very careful it turns out not to rush to judgment about things, because things may be different to what they seem.

As Proverbs 25:8 says: “do not bring hastily to court, for what will you do in the end if your neighbour puts you to shame?”

The Revd. Michael Aylmer, St Mary Magdalene Enfield, February 2025