Focus on your own log

Matthew 7:1–6 NRSV

1 “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. 6 “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.

Introduction

We love it when the heroes on our favorite teams play well, we cheer them on and hope for a victory. But we are fickle, at best, when it comes to our loyalty to players. When they don’t play well, fans are usually pretty quick to put on our judgment hats and complain, as if we could do better. In our everyday lives, we don’t like to be judged - in fact, for many people who know very little about the bible, they still know the scripture we read this morning. Most people use it as a defense against those that we perceive to be overly critical of us. And yet, at the same time, we are quick to point out the flaws and faults of others. It is kind of a weird dynamic that we live in today. Just look at Facebook, and you quickly can see our tendency to judge others.

Last Sunday night, there was an incident, shall we say, with Will Smith and Christ Rock - you may have heard about it. What’s interesting is that I have seen people adamantly supporting and adamantly judging both men in the days that followed. I’m not going to offer my opinion - but it just goes to underline how we are sometimes quick to judge the life choices of others, but we don’t want anybody to judge our own life choices. It’s an odd place to be in, where we are constantly screaming about how we don’t want to be judged while at the same time spending much of our leisure time judging others.

Apparently, this is not just something that began with the onset of social media & yelp. Evidently it was a problem that Jesus saw in the first century. While Jesus has harsh words about judging others for the very things we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves, we sometimes find ourselves confused about what these words actually mean. Does it mean there is no standard? No discipline? Anything goes?

But maybe we are thinking about it all wrong. Maybe Jesus’s call for us to measure others by the measure we want to be judged isn’t a call to be harsher or to just throw up our hands and say anything goes. Perhaps it is a call to look at others, and ourselves, through a lens of grace. Maybe the fastest way to remove the log is to stop looking for the speck of dust and to look on others, and ourselves, with the grace of God instead.

Body

Not an Isolated Command

It is helpful and important to read verse 1 in conjunction with verse 2, which clarifies what verse 1 means.

Verse 2 says that you will get back what you give out. You will be judged with the same measure that you use. It is not that you won’t be judged - if we were completely honest with each other this morning, we would admit that we all feel judged sometimes. But Jesus urges the disciples to judge with a measure that is full of grace. Be on guard, He is saying, because you will be judged with the same measure you use.

What Measure Are We Using?

It seems from the text that we read this morning that Jesus is noticing that there is some nit-picking going on here. The standard was set so high that there was really no way to go without being judged. Jesus says they were noticing the sawdust in the neighbor’s eye. One fleck of sawdust is hardly a noticeable thing, although you certainly know it when you have a piece of it in your eye! Yet, to find it, somebody has to have clear vision and look very closely.

But this situation that Jesus describes is comedy at its finest. It is an obvious exaggeration to make a point. Not only were they nit-picking about the sawdust in there neighbor’s eye - they were doing so while they had a log in their own eye. Now, I’ve had a lot of things in my eye, but I’ve never had a log in my eye. Think about how hard it would be to even see or care that your neighbor had a speck in their eye if you had a log in yours. Clearly, the thing that was bothering them about their neighbor was not as problematic as the thing that they themselves were involved in.

We can hardly see when we have a speck in our eye - Having a log in our eye would certainly distort our vision. How could someone with that big of a vision impediment be trusted to make any fair or accurate judgments about what they are seeing in someone else?

Commanded to Compassion, Not to Judgment

Jesus’ point here is not just get rid of your log so that you can then be the judge of your neighbor. It could be that removing the log from your own eye helps you see clearly so that you can see that there is nothing actually in your neighbor’s eye.

Perhaps, too, if we focus on our own log, we will be able to empathize with the struggles that others have as well. We all struggle with some things in this life. But we are called to be helpful toward our fellow travelers with compassion and grace. Again, if we could be completely honest with each other this morning, we would admit that we sometimes need help as well. We really do need each other to help us grow in Christlikeness.

Over the past few years, I have actively sought to try to gain perspective in the racial injustices that have occurred in our culture. I haven’t agreed with everything I have read on the topic, but I have begun to see that there was certainly a lack of sight in regard to this issue on my behalf. I have tried to remove the log that stopped me from seeing the issue clearly, and I probably have a long way to go in that regard, but I am working on it. Sometimes we need help from others who have worked to see clearly, so that they can help us. This statement by Jesus is not a command to overlook and never notice when our neighbor does need our help. It is, rather, a call to be gracious with one another because we all need grace. The process might still be painful—it never feels good to have something stuck in our eye, and honestly, sometimes the process of dislodging it often causes more pain before we find relief.

If we are going to accept help from one another, or if we are going to be helpful to someone else, we must be willing to hear the truth and we must be willing to speak the truth. Speaking truth is not the same thing as judgment. I think we need to be careful in this regard. Often, we misuse and abuse others with the idea that we are speaking the truth in love. It is important that we do so, but it is also important that we don’t use that statement as a way to speak the truth in judgment with no regard for the other person. We all need people that will speak truth into our lives! We have watched American Idol for years, and it is obvious - painfully so sometimes - that some of the people that appear before the judges needed somebody, a mom or a dad or a friend to speak the truth in love and tell them that they can’t carry a tune in a bucket. I’ll repeat - we all need people that will speak truth into our lives, but it should always be done in a loving and gracious way.

Judgment seeks to destroy and divide. Whereas what Jesus is calling for here, seeks the well-being of the other person. We should be wary of those who point out faults for their own benefit, who seek to be praised for their correction of others, or who wish to say, “I told you so.” These are judges, not truth tellers.

And we should embrace and be grateful for the truth tellers who humble themselves, take care of their own sin, and journey to help others from a place of genuine humility. We can identify them by the ways they embody the fruit of the Spirit.

Those who seek the destruction of others are like the dogs and pigs in verse 6. They seek only to attack and destroy.

Removing the Log from Our Own Eyes

Lent is a time of self-reflection, of fasting, and of repentance. Its purpose is to reveal to us the places we have fallen short of what God has called us to so that we might remove the things that hinder us and move deeper in our relationship with Christ. This is a season of log removal.

In order to remove the log, we have to admit that there is a log. One of the challenges in this text is that the person with the log is so busy looking for specks in the eyes of others that they don’t seem to recognize their own log. We have to acknowledge that we often fail to recognize our own faults and sins— especially when we are busy pointing out the faults in others.

Removing a log requires surrender. It wouldn’t take a long conversation with a nurse or doctor to learn that removing something from a flailing person would be impossible. In order to have the object that is impairing us removed, we must surrender to having it removed in the first place. Surrendering to the work of the Spirit may require surrendering to accountability, listening to and learning from others, becoming comfortable with our own discomfort, therapy, spiritual disciplines, or any other ways the Spirit reveals to us that we need work.

When we become people who have done the work to remove the log from our own eyes, then we in turn can become the compassionate people who seek to remove the splinters and specks of dust from the eyes of others because then it is no longer about judgment, but about grace and healing.

Conclusion

When we shift the focus away from the speck that is in everyone else’s eye to the log in our own, we discover how far we have to go to live up to the standards God has set for us. But most importantly, we are reminded of the amazing grace of God.

This season of Lent is a time to repent, reflect, and grow, but it should also be a reminder to us of the faithfulness and grace of God. God does not leave us in our mess but stoops down to us in humility to draw near to us in the midst of it. God is gracious to forgive us, and the Spirit is present to help us grow and transform into Christlikeness.

In that vein and with that thought we come to the table this morning to receive the elements of communion. May we come in to this time of transformation and grace with the words of this old song - I invite you to sing this with me as we prepare our own hearts to receive communion together:

Hymn #516 Cleanse Me

The Communion Supper, instituted by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is a sacrament, which proclaims His life, His sufferings, His sacrificial death, and resurrection, and the hope of His coming again. It shows forth the Lord’s death until His return.

The Supper is a means of grace in which Christ is present by the Spirit. It is to be received in reverent appreciation and gratefulness for the work of Christ.

All those who are truly repentant, forsaking their sins, and believing in Christ for salvation are invited to participate in the death and resurrection of Christ. We come to the table that we may be renewed in life and salvation and be made one by the Spirit.

In unity with the Church, we confess our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. And so we pray:

Holy God,

We gather at this, your table, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who by your Spirit was anointed to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, set at liberty those who are oppressed. Christ healed the sick, fed the hungry, ate with sinners, and established the new covenant for forgiveness of sins. We live in the hope of His coming again.

On the night in which He was betrayed, He took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread, gave it to His disciples, and said: “This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

Likewise, when the supper was over, He took the cup, gave thanks, gave it to His disciples, and said: “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.” Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Matthew 26:27–29, Luke 22:19)

And so, we gather as the Body of Christ to offer ourselves to you in praise and thanksgiving. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us and on these your gifts. Make them by the power of your Spirit to be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the Body of Christ, redeemed by His blood.

By your Spirit make us one in Christ, one with each other, and one in the ministry of Christ to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, let us pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, broken for you, preserve you blameless, unto everlasting life. Eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful.

Before the partaking of the cup, let the minister say:

The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, shed for you, preserve you blameless unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and be thankful.