What would the world be like without the labels we apply to people?

I asked my teenage daughter that question and she didn’t hesitate: “Better.”

Imagine.

Imagine a world without the presumptions that accompany labels like:

Rich/Poor/Smart/Stupid/Popular/Geek/Loner/Loser/Liberal/Conservative/Right Wing/Left Wing/Stoner/Jock/Homeless/Psycho/Retard/Wimp/Cool/Hot/Gross/Nerd. You get the idea.

Sadly, I think our tendency to label others is part of our human nature. We categorize people, sometimes to help us sort out those we want to have relationships with from those we don’t. But at the end of the day, if we’re honest with ourselves, our labeling is really a form of judgment.

And judgment, especially coming from we imperfect people, is a tricky thing.

The idea of judgment and its negative implications in our lives has been sitting heavily on my heart since reading The Shack. There is an especially poignant passage I’d like to share that I hope will spark some thinking of your own about the judgments you hold and how they color the way you interact with the people on the other end of your gavel.

In this particular section, Mack, the main character, is having a conversation with the personification of God’s wisdom. She is a beautiful woman, as depicted in the Book of Proverbs, and her name is Sophia. Without giving away too much of the story for those who have not yet read the book, Mack has endured a horrific loss that has impacted his family. He is mad at God but won’t fully admit it. Mack is on a journey of healing and along the way meets a different incarnation of God, each of which has some new insight to add to his understanding of himself and God. In this interchange, Mack has been told that he is going to get to judge God and the world.

“What? Me? I’d rather not,” he paused. “I don’t have any ability to judge.”

“Oh, that is not true,” returned the quick reply, tinged now with a hint of sarcasm. “You have already proven yourself very capable, even in our short time together. And besides, you have judged many throughout your life. You have judged actions and even the motivations of others, as if you somehow knew what those were in truth. You have judged the color of skin and body language and body odor. You have judged history and relationships. You have even judged the value of a person’s life by the quality of your concept of beauty. By all accounts, you are quite well-practiced in the activity.”

Mack felt shame reddening his face. He had to admit he had done and awful lot of judging in his time. But he was no different than anyone else, was he? Who doesn’t jump to conclusions about others from the way they impact us. There it was again, his self-centered view of the world around him. He looked up and saw her peering intently at him and quickly looked down again.

“Tell me,” she inquired, “I may ask, by what criteria do you base your judgments?”

By what criteria indeed do we judge others?

When Mack does not come up with a reasonable answer, Sophia says the following: “Judging requires that you think yourself superior over the one you judge.”

Reading that sentence and the preceding paragraph about how we judge hit me like an arrow to the heart. Literally I felt that conviction pierce me. Yes, I judge others. I judge them based on the impact they have on me. I judge them based on my biases, experiences, expectations, perceptions of reality — on any countless number of influences. But I never really thought of myself as superior in my judging.

And yet of course, there is a piece of superiority that is implicit in judgment.

Scripture states, “Judge not lest you be judged.”

Who are we to judge? Really? Who are we to bring the gavel down on the actions, motivations, thoughts, or opinions of another? I’m not talking about a milky tolerance and political correctness in which everyone gets along and divergent opinions don’t exist. I’m talking about the heart condition that prevents us from real dialogue and relationship because we slap a label on someone based on our own limited understanding of who they are — or who they appear to be based on our biased lens — or who others have told us they are based on their limited and biased lens.

What does judgment do to relationships?

It prevents them from fully blossoming or healing.

I think this occurs most often in families, in the relationships with people who may know us best, but who also push buttons that exist because of a shared history. In those relationships we automatically assume things about each other. They are “unreasonable,” “difficult,” “distant,” “selfish,” “workaholics,” “slackers.” They “always” do something or they “never” do another thing. Often times these judgments lie below the surface, quietly floating like undetected oil in the Gulf of Mexico. But then a storm brews and in that storm the first things that come to the surface are those labels and judgments. The fights become circular — spinning around the eye of of judgment — and resolution or healing get lost in the process.

I have a lawyer friend who calls these judgments our “list of indictments” against the other. When I first heard that term I chuckled, because it seemed so “lawyerly.” But as I’ve reflected on it over the years I find it sadly true. A list of indictments presumes guilt and wrongdoing, intentional hurt, and perhaps most sad, record keeping of the wrongs done.

How do you grow a better relationship out of such a list of indictments? How do your nurture a relationship out of judgment?

I think a beginning to breaking the cycle is to look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Am I perfect?”  An honest assessment of our own shortcomings and failings – our own biases and presuppositions – should, if we’re honest with ourselves, start to thaw the ice of the judgments we hold toward others. When we are willing to check our own “stuff”  to do the very hard work of looking inside to see what is broken in our own lives, I do think it frees us to listen with more open hearts and minds to what others have to say.

I’m not saying there will be rainbows and unicorns dancing in fields of daisies in every relationship in our lives. There will be some people with whom we will never agree and never want to be in relationship with. I am suggesting that recognizing our own shortcomings, and the role we play in our relationships’ success or failure can help move those relationships to a deeper level. But it has to start with our own hard work. Our recognition of our own biases and preconceptions, our own fears and failures, our own hopes and dreams.

None of us are perfect. But we are perfectly capable of being better.

And we do not have to judge another in the process.