It’s hard to miss the meaning of the reading from Matthew (7:1-5) when Jesus is heard talking about judgment. His image of having a wooden beam in one’s eye and not noticing it is outlandish hyperbole by anyone’s reckoning. But it does capture our attention, which is the obvious purpose of Jesus, I suspect. The question at hand might rather be whether or not I notice the specks in my own eye. That seems to me the more difficult test. I can easily rub my eye and (perhaps) get rid of a speck—or grab some eye wash and blot it out. It may be too easy to find such a remedy. I still don’t want to think of a wooden beam…so how do I stop judging?
Whatever it takes to wake up the vagaries of your mind is the essential question here. What might you suggest to help others accept people without judging them? Do you judge yourself? If so, might that be a first step in changing your judgements of others? Instead of judging yourself or anyone else, why not try to just love without judging? You know: “Love the sinner, not the sin.” Then pray for the possibility to forgive—yourself and everyone else. It will be difficult but certainly worth the effort.
This morning, another entry from Meg Wheatley – from a different book of hers:
Sometimes I’m convinced that I have something in my eye but it turns out that my 70-year old eyes just need a little lubrication on occasion. That’s an easy fix as were the days when, as a child, I occasionally had to go to my mother for help with getting something tiny like a fleck of dirt or – at worst – an eyelash out of my eye. It was always amazing how much larger the offending material appeared than it really was.
I almost disregarded the first reading from today’s lectionary (ACTS 9:1-20) – not because it held nothing worthy of comment but because it seemed so familiar. I know the story of Paul’s conversion and know that it appears in the liturgical calendar more than once a year. I decided, however, to read it again for a possible point of inspiration and, of course, I was not disappointed.
In case anyone was in doubt about the meaning of the directive at the beginning of today’s gospel passage where Jesus said, “Be merciful, just as your heavenly Father is merciful,” the rest of the short text (LK 6:36-38) sounds like a “call and response” chant that a teacher might use in school to define what s/he means. Teacher: “When I say ‘Stop judging,’ you say…” Students: “And you will not be judged.” Following are prompts to stop condemning, forgive, and give, with the overarching conclusion that “the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”