Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:1-2). He also mentioned complaining about a speck in the eye of someone else, when there is a plank in your own.
This reminds me of “Poor Tom.” You need to meet him. He was
the second of three successive Thomas Fletchalls from colonial
Tom apparently considered being in prison an even worse experience than having to pay debts, so he sold some land, paid his creditors, and regained his freedom. In the meantime he was removed as vestryman in his church, which probably says something about how this unpleasant episode besmirched his standing in the community.
But there is another man, Andrew, with a less than sterling reputation himself, who enters this story. Upon the testimony of “Poor Tom,” Andrew stood before a grand jury accused of “selling liquors at ornery prices,” and without a license. We also know that Andrew was in court at least eight times, one of them trying to collect money owed him for rum he had sold. “The court was not sympathetic.”
We have no way of knowing if Tom was a victim of Andrew’s ornery prices, or if he testified in court under more honorable circumstances. Either way, it’s sort of a “pot calling the kettle black” kind of thing. Did Tom have a plank in his own eye? Did Andrew have only a speck?
Tom had been a church vestryman, so he was familiar with Christian teaching. Did he have some way of rationalizing not paying his debts? Or did he feel twinges of his own guilt as he testified against Andrew?
Shall we risk being judgmental and pronounce both “Poor Tom” and Andrew to be a couple of losers? Or are we sure we want to be judged by the same standard of judgment we’d be using on them? Can we at least learn something from these two interesting characters?