The Gospel According to Matthew
(Matthew 7:1-6)
I miss you all so much! It has been a long time since I have been able to study and worship with you. Today I received a very sweet email from Joanne and it made me miss you all the more. A church family is a wonderful thing to have! As I struggle through my week here, getting ready for the biggest weekend of the year for me, I realize how important it is to have a support around you. A family and wow what a blessing to have you! So this week is really about how we interact. It is about how we see each other. It is about being a safe place of transformation.
READ:
Judging Others
7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
6 “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
"Do not judge." What a liberating teaching this must have been for the Jews. Their culture and religious context demanded and was constructed on the premise of comparing myself to the rules and the people around me. Praise God that our culture and religious context has advanced beyond this behavior and that we are able to accept disagreement without feeling rejected! What, you disagree?!?
We wouldn't think of succumbing to the advertising telling us that to be somebody we need the latest fashion or gadgets? Our kids never say, "everyone is doing it." We've never said, "Brother/Sister So-n-so shouldn't..." or "If they were a better Adventist, they wouldn't..." Oh mercy! Maybe we haven't learned much in 2,000 years.
A favorite modern saying is, "Don't judge me!" We have become so sensitive to the rejection of others that we are unable to see their disagreement as anything other than rejection. Many times a biblical authority is claimed in making the statement, "Don't judge me" but this takes this and the other directives about judging out of context. The presumption behind telling someone not to judge us is that they somehow are the proper measuring stick. The warning given by Jesus is that we should be careful in applying earthly based standards to each other as they will come back to bite us. Only Jesus lived a life worthy of being the measuring stick and therefore in a position to judge.
This warning also has Kingdom life application. Have you ever met a curmudgeon? a joy-sucker? There are many folks that have spent a lifetime of judging the things around them and finding everything lacking. In time, this focus can put us in a place that we cannot accept forgiveness. We are sure that there are ulterior motives - even when it comes from God!
Have you ever gotten a speck of dirt or eyelash in your eye? It is amazing how something so small can render you virtually blind in seconds. Jesus continues the teaching about not judging others with a "visual" illustration. He again calls out the hypocrites as pretenders. Pretenders are the folks looking for the speck in the other person's eye while missing their own issue - the plank in their eye. At one time or another, we all have or will be hypocritical. It is inevitable.
In this illustration, Jesus tells us that we are not to do something that we think we can do - judge others - then gives us an alternative action that we cannot do - fix ourselves. Because we often judge others in an effort to make ourselves feel better, we might be relieved that Jesus has given us a clear path to judge each other. Just get the plank out of your own eye. But planks aren't that simple. They are built up over years of brokenness and pain and get in the way of our seeing physically, spiritually and emotionally.
When you experience the loss of sight in one eye, your brain and other eye will compensate but it cannot makeup for the loss of sight. Our eyes are meant to work together and one of the biggest things effected by the loss of one eye is depth perception. With a plank in our eye we loose the ability to see others deeply often missing the big picture. Missing the big picture can make it difficult to see one another's stuff, history, hurt and heart. The loss of spiritual depth perception is what makes it impossible for us to remove our own plank. In time, we get used to the loss and it becomes everyday, normal to us. Only the one with perfect vision - Jesus - can remove the plank from our eye. In telling us to remove the plank from our own eye, Jesus is calling us to focus on him allowing him to heal us - physically, spiritually and emotionally.
Judging assumes that the measuring stick I use is full and right. But too often, judging is an attempt to gain affirmation that my own brokenness is better than yours. It is about telling you that I'm right and more importantly that you're wrong. When I'm focused on the speck in your life instead of looking to Jesus to address the forest in my own life, I miss the grace being extended to both of us. This is mostly because when we use each other as the measuring stick, we can justify the belief that we don't need as much grace. Big mistake! In Ministry of Healing (p.
489) Ellen White writes, "If we have sense of the long-suffering of God toward us, we shall not be
found judging or accusing others."
Jesus ends this section by comparing two animals that were scavengers with things of value. Dogs in bible time didn't enjoy the same status they do today. They were considered on the same level as pigs. In linking dogs to pigs, Jesus links sacred things to pearls which were known to have great value. So, what is sacred? To give something the attribute of Sacred is to say that it is of God and belongs to Him. As the Son of God, the things that Jesus has been teaching are sacred because they are from God. Sacred teaching doesn't however have much value to those not interested in Kingdom living. There are some dogs and pigs among us but for those who are disciples of Jesus, Kingdom living is about healing our relationship with God and each other. We need to stop using each other as the measuring stick and surrender to the Plank Remover.
So does all of this mean that we shouldn't call sin by its rightful name? That you shouldn't call me out on my stuff and me call you out on yours? Do we need to be faultless in order to hold each other accountable. I think the answers are NO. As with with all of the teaching we have looked at in The Sermon on the Mount, it is about our motives. Are we being judgmental for the purpose of making ourselves feel better?
We need to careful, even responsible, with the Sacred. It is beautiful, tough and healing!
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