I have spoken before about the late Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest, seminary professor, and writer about Christian spirituality. Late in life, Nouwen left the university scene for humbler work as the pastor for a L’Arche community in Canada called Daybreak. L’Arche is a network of faith-based communities for people with developmental disabilities. Nouwen speaks of the shock of discovery of learning that he did not take Christ to the profoundly developmentally handicapped; rather, he found Christ already at work in their lives. Nouwen found that not only did the residents need to receive love, but that they needed to give love as well. Nouwen found spiritual healing from the hands of the people he had come to serve. As L’Arche founder Jean Vanier said of one of the profoundly cripped L’Arche residents:
Because he is so broken, in some easy we can allow him to reveal to us our brokenness without getting angry ... He is so broken that I am allowed to look at my own brokenness without being ashamed. (The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 85)
What is it that Nouwen and Vanier understood about grace and healing that we need to learn?
Commentary
Today’s passage is a bit messy, because it appears in three of the gospel accounts, but the context is slightly different for each. Mark 4:24 sounds a lot like v2 in Matthew’s account; however, the context—Mark 4:21-25—is very different. Mark is more focused on progressive revelation that comes through one’s response to the gospel—the more we respond to what we have seen, the more we can see. Luke 6:37-42 has more in common with Matthew’s account. [1] In fact, gives a fuller interpretation for v2 in Matthew. However, v39-40 contain a warning not to follow blind guides, which Matthew lacks (pop quiz: Where have we seen that recently in Matthew?) Also, only Matthew’s account contains the warnings given in v6.
v2 judge...measure. An unfortunate attempt at parallelism in English subtly obscures what’s going on. A judge determines: (1) trial procedure; (2) verdict (guilty or not guilty); and sentence (probation, fine, jail time, etc.). Each of these actions requires a judgment, but they are distinct actions.
v4,5 take/remove. In these two verses, three times an object is taken out, or removed, from one’s eye. Strangely, the verb here is the same verb commonly used for casting out demons (e.g. Matt. 7:22; 8:16,31; 9:33,34; 10:1,8) and exiling the unworthy (e.g. Matt. 21:12,39; 22:13; 25:30)—but also for sending forth a divinely-inspired force (e.g. Matt. 9:38)! The verb is forceful, frequently used for God-sized actions, and conveys a sense of the zealousness by which we go after those specks the eyes of others—zealousness which Jesus is willing for us to use to attack the log in our own eye!
v6 Only Matthew gives us this statement by Jesus, which neither seems to fit nicely with the verses before nor after. The general consensus, by Matthew Henry et al, is that Jesus is warning the disciples not to mediate God’s secrets to the coarsest of persons. (Does that even remotely make sense—not to give God’s grace to those in greatest need?). What is the context for putting this verse here?
Application
Christians have problems with justice. On one hand, we are told to love our neighbors; we are told that God loves mercy, not sacrifice. On the other hand, we are told to be pure, to have nothing to do with idolaters and divisive persons. The experience of many Christians having confronted others (Christians or non-Christians) about a problem is a rebuke, "Who are you to judge me? ‘Do not judge, lest you be judged!’" In this post-modern age, where the growing norm is a lack of norms, many Christians are increasingly wary of trying to hold any one to any standard. Who are we to judge?
A few possibilities have been offered up over the years:
Yes: We are to be light in the darkness, and that includes judging sin as such. Of course, the world won’t appreciate us; but we’re not called to be appreciated, we’re just called to be obedient. (Call this the church-against-the-world approach. Is this combativeness Christ-like?)
Sometimes: We are called to judge those in the church, not those outside the church (1 Cor. 5:12). By this logic, the ‘brother’ in v3,4,5 is a real brother or sister in Christ, and we should judge them in the right way, after examining ourselves first. However, non-Christians are dogs and pigs (v6) and we shouldn’t waste our time with them. (Call this the church-outside-the world approach. Is this isolationism the way that Jesus ministered?)
No: Church judgmentalism and legalism are false teachings brought into Christianity by the former Pharisee Paul. The "real" teachings of Jesus found in the gospels speak of mercy and love, while most of the places speaking of judging those in the church, excommunicating people from church, etc. are in Paul’s letters. (Call this the church-is-love approach. Does Jesus ever enter into peoples’ lives and not change them?)
What is the right answer?
First, Jesus says that some sorts of judgments are to be made by his disciples in dealing with others’ sins. v5 implies that we are to deal with the specks in another’s eye—that is an exercise of judgment. However, we are to first deal with our own sins in order to see clearly.
The stumbling block to righteous living is not dealing with our own sins first. We want the lifestyle, we want the accolades, without doing the work or dealing with the pain. We imitate the righteous lifestyle, while Jesus wants us to identify with his lifestyle. Imitation is only form without substance, while identification entails the desire, the openness, and the willingness to do whatever is necessary to become like the original. Identification with Jesus demands that we put aside every pretense of goodness and wait for God to raise us up.
When we do not deal with out own sins first, the sin in others that we find so troublesome is frequently something about ourselves that we hate. Gossips hate gossip by others; tellers of white lies hate the lies of others; adulterers are scandalized by the adultery of others. What we hate about ourselves, we cannot stand to see in others. When we see it, we can be brutal in our zeal to expunge it in others, because we know how hard we have unsuccessfully fought to expunge it in ourselves. However, Jesus says we are blind guides in our zeal; we cannot see clearly to remove the other’s speck. The guilt and the shame of the log in our own eye cloud our vision and impair our judgment. We cannot help; we cannot heal.
I wonder if, "Do not judge, in order that you will not be judged," does not have a more practical interpretation. We are familiar with the moral failures of famous Christians, like Ted Haggard. Christians hypocrites are excoriated by the secular press for judging others for the same sin the hypocrites have in their own lives. When the dogs and pigs of the secular press get a whiff of this sort of hypocrisy, they judge the hypocrites ferociously! Would Haggard and others have been judged more mercifully if they had dealt with the sin in their own lives first? Would they have been judged more mercifully if they had shown more mercy to others?
The Discipline of Identification:
Listen until You Can LoveJudgment sets us in opposition to the one being judged—it is difficult to love someone to whom we are opposed! We listen to somebody until we make a judgment about the person, and then we shut down; we stop listening.
Is it possible to listen to a person past the point of judgment? Can you persist in listening to a person until you find something within them that you can love?
The mystery is that the lovable thing that you find is almost always something you have in common with the other person—a point of identification. The thing in common is sometimes a virtue, but more often it is a shared weakness—brokenness that allows us to look at our own brokenness without being ashamed. Identification will lead to love; love will lead to mercy; mercy will lead to forgiveness and healing ... first for the other, and then for yourself.
Points to Ponder
Vanier said, "Community is the realization that evil is inside. Not only inside my community, but inside me." What might happen if ...
... during an argument you listened past the point of judgment until you could find something lovable in the other person?
... you looked within yourself for that thing you find so offensive in other people?
End Notes
1 - Even the larger context is similar. Matthew’s account is part of the Sermon on the Mount, while Luke’s version is part of the Sermon on the Plain, Luke’s parallel to the Sermon on the Mount.
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