So last night I was watching an episode of All In The Family. The episode was from back in December, 1978, when I was just a newly-minted teenager.
For those who are not familiar with this classic 70's sitcom, it featured Carroll O'Connor as bigoted Archie Bunker; Jean Stapleton as his loving wife Edith; Sally Struthers as their "Little Goil", Gloria; and Rob Reiner (later to be the prolific director) as her husband Mike Stivic, not-so-affectionately referred to as "Meathead" by Archie. For the first seven seasons Mike and Gloria lived first with Archie and Edith, then next door to them. Season Eight featured them moving out to California so that Mike could take a new job. Their second season in Cali, the Bunkers, with much ceremony, went out to visit the Stivics in their California digs for Christmas in a special two-part episode entitled California, Here We Come.
The early part of the episode dealt comedically with the Bunkers' trip, and them seeing just how different life was in Cali. Edith's delight in picking a lemon from the lemon tree on the Stivics' patio is not to be missed. But (spoiler alert!) things get real serious, real fast.
It seems that, while her husband bas been thriving as a teacher since their arrival in California, Gloria has languished, finding nothing in common with Mike's friends, and increasingly less with her husband, too. In a private moment with Edith, Gloria confesses that her loneliness and failure to launch in the Golden State has led her to find a "friend". The two women have a good cry together, such a good cry that they use up all the Kleenex, and start unrolling toilet paper to cry into. When Edith continues her weepfest into the room she and Archie are sharing for the holidays, he wakes up and wants to know why she is crying. And heaven help us all, she tells him. Archie is horrified and livid, and wastes no time in finding his "little goil" and lighting into her. In a tirade that wakes Mike (but fortunately neither grandson Joey nor Stephanie, the Bunkers' adopted daughter), Archie condemns Gloria, and winds up by telling Mike, for whom he has had very few kind words over nine years, that he is too good for Gloria. He is ready to share a few more home truths, but fortunately Edith saves the day by asking Mike and Gloria if they still love each other. Of course they do, they decide to try to save their marriage, all is well, Christmas is saved, and Mike and Gloria leave the room to wake Stephanie and Joey up to see what Santa has brought them.
Of course Archie is not happy. Everyone has made up, and no one has paid a penalty for the horrible sin. And here is where Edith, (always the "dingbat" according to her husband) shines the brightest. She asks Archie why he is so concerned, Mike and Gloria are going to try to work it out, isn't that what matters? And Archie insists he is simply representing God's concerns. "It's God's business!" Archie wails.
Whereupon Edith replies quietly, but firmly, "Then let Him tend to it."
Hmmmm. Gives us food for thought.
In the Bible, in Matthew 7:1-5, we are instructed about judging, namely, pretty much, DONT! And 1 Samuel 16:7 makes the reason clear why we should leave the judging to God: "The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
So, clearly judging is God's job. What is our job? "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and loves God." (1 John 4:7). "Jesus declared, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-40).
Yes, I know we are not all Judeo-Christian. Your Crusading Blogger herself is not. But all religions I have ever investigated (and as a soon-to-be Celebrant, I am heavily invested in investigating them all) have in common at least the requirement that we love one another.
If I have leaned heavily on the Judeo-Christian Bible, it's because I am more familiar with its eloquence on the subject. I'll finish with 1 Corinthians: 1-3: "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."
1 Corinthians is a chapter that is familiar to those of us who have been married, or attended lots of weddings -- "Love is patient, love is kind..." It is very obvious what our job is, and it is not to judge. The Bible makes it plain, and on this point, all the major religions agree. Our job is to love, plain and simple. But not easy. We will spend our lifetimes perfecting the process. We don't have a moment to lose -- let's get started. Until we all get really practiced at loving, perhaps we should leave off judging -- let's stay in our own lane.
