Books of the Bible
Specks and Logs           

Matthew 7:1-5

JOHN
Grace to you and peace from God our Father...

ED
And our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ...

BOTH
Amen.

JOHN
The title of the sermon for you who are taking notes is "SPECKS AND LOGS."  Write that in the space marked "title." The text is Matthew 7:1-5.

ED
The theme for today is a famous teaching of Jesus. Write the following words, down, kids. “First, take the log out of your own eye before you take the speck of dust out of your neighbor’s eye.” Again, “First, take the log out of your own eye before you take the speck of dust out of your neighbor’s eye.”

JOHN
This teaching of Jesus is so graphic, so visual, so seeable. We can all see the log in our eye that needs to be taken out before you take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

ED
This is the tenth dialogue sermon. These dialogue sermons are based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. As we know by now, Jesus was teaching large crowds on the shores of Lake Galilee. After finishing teaching the large crowds, Jesus invited a small band of his followers up onto a mountainside overlooking the lake. Jesus was going to give his small band of twelve followers an entry-level course in “Christianity, 101,” called Beginning Basics for Believers. In his course, Jesus talked about the important everyday issues of life such as anger and hate, love and marriage, worry and prayer, money and sharing.  Jesus then addressed another important issue: judging others. Jesus knew that most people were very skilled at pointing at other people's sins while minimizing their own. Jesus then said to his disciples...

JOHN
"Do not judge, so that you may not be judged."  Don't condemn others lest you yourself be condemned.  "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?"  Don't be judgmental!

ED
We human beings are so instinctively judgmental. It is easy to make snap judgments in our minds. For example, we hear teenagers quickly appraising the situation and saying:

JOHN
Her clothes are … so old fashioned.

Ed
He doesn’t have any personality.

JOHN
She’s boring. Really boring.

ED
Kind of ugly.

JOHN
Not cool.

ED
Kind of dumb.

JOHN
A real wacko.

ED
Adults do the same thing.

JOHN
We make snap judgments about those people all the time.

ED
Those people don’t look too smart.

JOHN
Those people are white trash.

ED
Those people begging on the street corner are just rip offs.

JOHN
Those people don’t disciple their kids very well.

ED
Those people aren’t such good parents.

JOHN
To be honest, those people are right wingers, nothing but fanatical right wingers.

ED
To be honest, those people are liberal and left, nothing but fanatical left wingers.

JOHN
And so we as human beings make numerous snap judgments about people all the time.

ED
Jesus’ teaching about specks and logs is a really well known saying of Jesus. People really relate to this one.   We hear it quoted over and over again and again, as much as any Bible verse. 

JOHN
"Judge not, lest you be judged!" “How can you pull out a speck from another person’s eye when you have such a large log in your own!”

ED
John, when is this verse most likely to be quoted? 

JOHN
It's when people are on the defensive.  It's a clever way to turn the tables on someone who is confronting you about a particular issue.  "Who are you to judge me?"  We use it to protect ourselves.  It's another way of saying, "Mind you own business!  Don't be so judgmental! Don’t be condemning of my choices."

ED
King Solomon wrote a wise proverb. “Correct an insolent man and he will hate you.  Correct an intelligent man and you will gain a friend.”  John, tell me, is there is a difference between criticism and condemnation?  What do you think?

JOHN
I think so.  Criticism can be either constructive or destructive.  Constructive criticism given in the spirit of love is intended to help the one being criticized.  On the other hand, destructive criticism given in the spirit of condemnation does nothing but tear down a person.  That's simply condemnation.

ED
John, tell that story you told me about when you were in college.

JOHN
My first year back at college I didn't have much of a social life.  I spent almost all of my time either in class or studying.  The second year I began to lighten up a bit and concentrated a little more on social interaction.  That's when I made the varsity crew team and started to get a little too proud of myself.  I had a real close friend at that time by the name of Ralph.  Ralph talked to me one day and said that I was beginning to act like a "Big Man on Campus" and was ignoring some of my friends.  He said that my head was getting a little too big for my own good.  And Ralph was right.  I hadn't been taking care of my friendships and I needed to cool my jets and think about what I was doing.  To this day I consider Ralph one of my best friends because he was willing to challenge me and give me a word of truth in love which is exactly what I needed to hear.  That was constructive criticism in the spirit of love.

ED
That’s good. I remember a similar situation of two people being critical of me. This happened to me more than thirty years ago, but it has stayed with me through all these years. I was in CPE, clinical pastoral education at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois. There were two supervising pastors. I felt my two supervisors had totally different attitudes towards me. One supervisor didn’t like me very much and his criticisms felt sharp and stinging. What he said about me was true, but I couldn’t hear him because I felt he didn’t like my kind of person. The second supervisor offered the same criticism about me, but way down deep, he liked me and my kind of personality. I was able to accept the legitimate criticism from the supervisor who fundamentally loved and appreciated me as a person. From the other supervisor, I only heard condemnation and destructive criticism.

JOHN
So, one of the first points of the sermon is this: Jesus is not trying to discourage loving honesty.  Things that you may need to tell a person to protect him or her from future embarrassment or harm.  That kind of loving honesty is one of the greatest gifts you can give or receive.  It takes a special friend to do that.

ED
John, what was the original setting for this teaching about judging?  Was Jesus thinking of anyone in particular when he taught about judging?

JOHN
Well, of course it was the Pharisees who had a tendency to be very judgmental.  They were intensely religious.  They made sure they practiced all of their religious rituals and that was what made them so much better than everyone else.  The Pharisees were very quick to point out who the "sinners" were and you could be sure they were not among them.  They were better because they were intensely religious and the sinners were not. 

ED
They were intensely religious rather than intensely loving.  Jesus was talking about love  not religion.  Jesus was an example of loving all kinds of people like tax collectors and prostitutes. Jesus didn’t condemn the tax collectors and prostitutes who were “easy targets” of criticism by the Pharisees.  The Pharisees just didn't “get it” that Jesus loved sinful, imperfect, flawed people.

JOHN
The Pharisees acted like they knew the mind of God.  They seemed to know who would be saved and who would not.  They would judge as though they were God.  That reminds me of another time when I was in college and there was this guy who was going to be a Baptist pastor -- a conservative Baptist pastor.  He knew that I was interested in the Lutheran ministry and so he used to lie in wait for me and always try to get me to argue with him about things like infant baptism, immersion vs. sprinkling, women in ministry, all those differences between our two traditions.  One day during a discussion we were having he made the announcement that according to him Lutherans were saved.  I thanked him for pronouncing Lutherans saved and then asked him who he thought he was to be able to determine who was and was not saved?  Talk about judgmental.

ED
That does bother us doesn't it? When others seem to know who is saved and who isn't.  Other religions like the Mormons and the Jehovah Witnesses say they are the only ones who are the true church and only they will be saved.  We bristle when the Mormons suggest that only those belonging to their Mormon Church will be saved. We bristle when the Jehovah Witnesses say that only 144,000 will be saved and only Jehovah Witnesses are part of God’s elect. We bristle when we hear that only Catholics or Lutherans will be saved. All these groups used the Bible and Bible verses to prove their judgments. Today, I hear similar judgments: only Christians are going to be saved. People in other religious of the world are not. They are going to hell.  People persistently use selected Bible verses to condemn and judge other groups. And to be honest, I bristle when I hear Christians say that they seem to know who are not going to be saved and who are not going to be saved, and use the Bible to prove their point of view.

JOHN
These groups are like the new Pharisees today always quick to judge others as though they speak directly for God.  We know, however, that only God knows the heart and only God will judge in regard to salvation.

ED
As John and I prepare our sermons, we often talk with people in our parish about the text we are addressing. The other day, I talked to some of the retired people during our Tuesday morning Bible Study and asked them about this business of judging. They had some interesting things to say. One older person said that it is much too easy to judge grandchildren. She said that seniors are not try to impose the way seniors lived on the grandkids today and look judgmental on our grandchildren simply because the grandchildren do things differently than we seniors do. Another older person reminded us that when we point a finger at others that three fingers are pointed back at ourselves. And still another said that this teaching of Jesus is similar to his teaching not to throw stones. People who live in glass houses are not to throw rocks. 

JOHN
I thought about the topic of judging and figured a good person to talk to about this would be Judge Darrell Phillipson.  He does it for a living.  So I called up Darrell and asked him what he thought.  He said that he felt Jesus was referring to the hyper-critical person who says, "everything you do is wrong and what I do is right.  I know how to live my life and you ought to live yours the way I live mine.  There are eleven billion people and none of them live their life the way I want them to. We apply our standards to other people and then judge them accordingly.  This creates separation and distance between ourselves.  Darrell said that when he meets with his group of friends the most important judgment is that they love me.   I am not a bad person but maybe what I am doing is not a good thing to do. That kind of judgment or criticism in the spirit of love is a good thing.

ED
We have to be especially careful when it comes to the controversial issues. There are a many issues today that can result in conflict and we often impute God’s righteousness to our own point of view. Some of the dividing issues today are about gay marriages, the ordination of gays, the war with Iraq. Peoples’ feelings become quickly hot about these issues. Quite often, we feel that God’s righteousness and verdict is on our side of the argument.

JOHN
That can be difficult.  The attitude is:  I am convinced that I am right and you are wrong but you are not at all convinced that you are wrong.  That's where the difficulty comes in.  That can create some real conflicts.

ED
Long ago up, Jesus was sitting on a hillside, overlooking Lake Galilee. Jesus and his disciple were sitting on grass, and all of them were looking out at the beauty of the lake below. Jesus was teaching them about the basics of Christianity, of what it means to be a follower of the kingdom of God. Jesus was giving his new disciples a new way of living, a new moral law, a new moral order. He talked about practical issues such as anger and hate, love and marriage, worry and prayer, money and sharing. And Jesus then added one more issue for human beings when he said:

JOHN
Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.  Do not condemn lest you be condemned.  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.

ED
The Apostle Paul said that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Not one of us is without sin.

JOHN
Recognizing the sin in our own lives is a prerequisite to helping another person see the sin in his or her life.

ED
In other words, first…first…first… take the log out of your own eye before you try to take the speck of dust out of your neighbor’s eye.

BOTH
Amen.

 
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