Planks and Sawdust

I was reading some parables in look and ran across the familiar parable of the “log” and the “speck”  It reminded me of a sad reality, our propensity as human beings to judge other people.  We judge spouses, kids, friends, co workers, presidents, movie stars - pretty much anyone we see or hear or interact with.  And whomever it is we judge we seem to find some sort of satisfaction in being able to find a weakness or a fault in another, and nail them for it.  And we are good at it – at finding that “speck of sawdust” or something bigger, and making sure that it does not go unnoticed.  We may masquerade it as humor, or concern, or many other things.  But it is judgmentalism.

Why do we like this stuff?  Why is it so “rewarding” to find something about someone else that we can criticize, or ridicule?  Why do we not only point out the “speck of sawdust” in the other’s eye, but actually search diligently for it!  And when we find it, use it to assail the other?  Perhaps because then we don’t have to look at our own stuff.  Perhaps because it is easier to see the flaws in others than to see them in ourselves.  That speck over there is a lot easier to look at than this log – right here! Perhaps it is about power!  We can use our judgments to create a sense of superiority.  I suspect there can be many reasons.

Whatever the reason, Jesus knew about this tendency.  And he knew that often those most powerfully afflicted by this “disease” were those who claimed to speak in God’s name, the religious.  And so Jesus, knowing that this is how we are, felt it important to issue a strong caution to his people:  “Do not judge… do not condemn… why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye?“

What is Jesus saying here ?  Is he saying that we can’t stand for anything? That if we recognize things that are not right, we have to remain silent, that we can’t respond to what we see?  I don’t think so.  If we look at the end of the passage Jesus talks about taking the speck out of the neighbor’s eye.  But Christ clearly says that there is something we must do first before we can even think about doing this.  He tells us we must look first to ourselves.  We must have self awareness.  First notice, and then take the log out of your own eye.  Then you can think about the speck in your neighbor’s.

We must see our own “stuff”, and we must deal with our own stuff before we can even begin to think about anyone else.  This means the beginning of the process is seeing ourselves for who we really are.  It is a prerequisite – that before we start judging, criticizing, correcting others – we look hard at ourselves, and we essentially judge and  correct ourselves.

Actually I hate to use the word judge.  What we need to do, quite simply, is see our own humanity.  We need to see ourselves as a mix of good and not so good, as those who have done well, and done poorly.  As those who sometimes love and sometimes hate.  As those who sometimes live lives that glorify god and sometimes, are rather toadish creatures.

What we need to do is begin the process is abandon the idea that we are  morally superior beings.  We are people who are totally and irrevocably dependent upon the grace of God.  We are the “blind” who would lead the blind.  The ones with a “log” in our eye.

Sometimes we aren’t very “self” aware.  Many of you may be aware of the church in Florida that had set a Quran Burning Day for September 11^th.  When asked why they wanted to do this the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center said they wanted to burn Qurans "to warn about the teaching and ideology of Islam, which we do hate as it is hateful."  That is like saying, “there are people who hate people and I  hate people like that!”

There is something wrong there isn’t there?  Can we be hateful and condemn those who are hateful?  We can condemn hate.  But can we do that in a hateful way and still be authentic?

Before we judge, we have to look long and hard at ourselves.  This reminds us that we too are people who have faults, who have made mistakes.  We too are people who hurt others. Who need to be forgiven, who need grace.  We always have to remember this.  That we are ultimately, no different from those we would judge and condemn.  “Why point out the speck in that person’s eye, and ignore the log in your own?”