Sermons

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Eye Problems
February 9, 2003
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
8th in a sermon series on the Gospel of Matthew
Matthew 7:1-5

Today is our third and last look at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, as we slowly make our way through the Gospel of Matthew. This Sermon is FROM Jesus, and FOR his disciples of Jesus. And in this sermon, Jesus relentlessly tells his disciples that he is not interested in the APPEARANCE of faith…he is not concerned with just OUTWARD lifestyle. He is probing deep into the realm of the inner character of his disciples. He is after their HEARTS.

And Jesus has an interesting way of getting at this. In the beatitudes of chapter 5, he calls people “BLESSED” that we wouldn’t have thought of. In much of chapter 6, he comments on some of the commandments by saying, “You’ve heard it said that…but I say…” And then in chapter 7, he says quite simply, “Stop doing these things…and do these others.” In every case, Jesus goes deeper than the disciples had heard or thought about. So be careful. He’s after our hearts too.

Today we’ll read just five verses from chapter 7.

A mother says to me: “My son just moved in with his girlfriend. I think that is flat out wrong, in God’s eyes and mine, and I told him so. But when I told him, he snapped back “Who are you to judge me? Christians aren’t supposed to judge…it says so in the Bible.”

The mom is a little shell-shocked. Where does it say this? Well, right here, doesn’t it? “Don’t judge.” I hear this verse quoted an awful lot today. I hear it quoted by people outside of the faith who feel that Christians are putting a moral guilt trip on them. In a much more discouraging vein, I hear it from people who ARE Christians when they want to justify a particular lifestyle or philosophy: “Don’t judge me, and I won’t judge you. We don’t have any right to judge each other.”

Is that right? Is this woman’s son correct? And if not, what do we do with this verse, chapter 7 verse 1, “Don’t judge?” The first thing we’ll have to do is what we do every time we open the Bible. We will need to, in fear and trembling, try to interpret what this verse says. And the first rule for doing so is this: Read any verse, or any passage…in the context of ALL of scripture, the whole Bible. So let’s take this concept of judging…sometimes translated discern, or choose, or pass judgment…and see where else it appears in the New Testament.

We don’t have to go far in Matthew to see “judging.” In fact, just three verses down, Jesus says, “Take the log out of your own eye…THEN you will see clearly so you can help your neighbor’s vision.” He doesn’t say, “Don’t worry about your neighbor’s vision” (more on that in a moment).

If we go a little further, down to verse 15 in Matthew 7, Jesus says, “beware of false prophets in sheep’s clothes…" His admonition is “Judge them by their fruit, whether they bear fruit or thorns. Discern whether the tree is good or bad.” Clearly, he is calling his followers to judge the genuineness of someone’s motives.

Or a bit later in chapter 10, Jesus tells his disciples to go out in ministry, and enter villages, and find out “who is worthy,” who is receptive…and stay with them. They’ll need to make a judgment call.

In chapter 16, Jesus warns the disciples to watch out, to beware…of the religious leaders of the day…some will do damage. The disciples must judge who those are.

In chapter 18, Jesus lays down the rules for confrontations that must take place inside of the church. When people have a complaint against another, how they must go first themselves, but later with others to point out the fault committed. Judgments have to be made by the larger church community over what is right and wrong.

In the gospel of John, Jesus is even more straightforward: “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

In Luke, Jesus says “Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?

In Romans, the Apostle Paul says, “you better not judge others for a particular behavior…and then be doing it yourself.” In I Corinthians, Paul says, “Those who are spiritual judge all things.”

So what do we do with all this? Clearly, Jesus is NOT saying don’t judge right from wrong. He is not saying don’t be discerning. He is not saying don’t confront someone over their behavior. In fact, I would argue that when taken as a WHOLE (not one isolated verse, taken out of context), the New Testament in general and Jesus in particular advocate over and over and over that Christians are called to make judgments all the time. We ARE called to discern right from wrong, we ARE called to stand up and contend with people, we ARE called to teach against philosophies and lifestyles that are in contradiction with the gospel, we are called to make decisions on the issues and the people that advocate them of our day. Sexuality, homosexuality, materialism, new age spirituality, environmentalism, abortion, war. These are not somehow neutral things. Day in, day out, making judgments is part of our life. So what does Jesus want us to do?

First, Jesus says: JUDGE FAIRLY. If you are going to decide what or who is right or wrong…do it fairly. The way you want to be judged. One way of doing that is before you judge…make sure you know the whole story. The WHOLE story.

It’s a crummy feeling to be judged or labeled when someone doesn’t know your whole story. When we were in Minnesota, one year we decided to homeschool our two youngest kids. We just thought it was something we wanted to try, a gift we could give them for that one year, so we did (or rather, ANNE homeschooled…I taught math). But much to our surprise, we were prejudged many times by people who knew nothing of our story. One group of people assumed that if we homeschooled, we were arch-Republican, conservative, right wing, don’t-let-the-world-spoil-our-kids people…and we had people literally walk away from conversations with us. But there was another group as well, a sort of elite educational group who assumed we were so disgusted by public school incompetence and so brilliant ourselves that we were doing it “the way it should be done ( i.e. the way THEY were doing it!).” Neither was remotely true of us. But few people bothered asking. It was a bad feeling.

We need to know the WHOLE story…to judge fairly. That will slow the whole judgment process way down, won’t it? I had a professor who said that if you were going to disagree with someone…you had to start by being able to state the other person’s position so well that they would say, “Yes, that is what I am saying.” Only then could you fairly state yours, or why you find fault with theirs.

The Jesus Seminar is a group of quite liberal Christian pastors and scholars who have invested a great deal of time and effort, and written books that “deconstruct” the Bible. They believe that they have found new ways of discerning things that are in scripture that Jesus didn’t actually say or teach…in fact, much of the New Testament they have chopped up in this way. A few years ago, I was at a class with Dale Bruner, a Bible scholar for whom I have great respect. Someone asked him one day about the Jesus Seminar, which he is not fond of. But it was so interesting to hear him sigh and say, “I wish they’d quit writing books. It’s getting exhausting for me to keep up on reading them all.” To which, of course, someone in the class asked, “Why would you want to read all that material anyway?” And Dr. Bruner said, “It’s only fair. If I’m going to disagree and argue against them…I need to know what they have actually written and said.” Judge fairly.

Jesus gives another prerequisite to our making judgments: JUDGE YOURSELF FIRST. This, once again, will slow down the process considerably. And as Steve said last week, don’t miss Jesus’ humor in this case. The picture Jesus paints is absolutely ludicrous. How can you help someone with a speck of dirt in their eye…if you have (pause…pick up the log, go set in on communion table)…a LOG in your own? I brought a log. Some versions say a “plank.” Here’s a plank. So you see the log. You see the plank. And here on my finger is the speck. Can you see that? No? You might have something in your eye!

Only in a cartoon could someone have a log in their eye. But imagine if you did! Imagine trying to help someone with a piece of dirt in their eye…and you with this big log sticking out! First of all, you couldn’t get within three feet of them, because of that log! If you tried, you would repeatedly smash them in the face! Before you could be any help at all, you’d have to deal with yourself first!

Notice that Jesus does NOT say that there is no speck in the other person’s eye, NOR does he say that there is not a role in helping them get it out. But he does say…judge yourself first. Look to yourself first, and take care of the things you can recognize that would block you. Better yet, allow God to deal with those things first.

If your judgments are fair…if you have put yourself to the test first…perhaps, PERHAPS then God could use you in helping someone else. But it’s dicey, isn’t it? A person’s eye is a very sensitive thing…extremely sensitive! If you had a problem with your eye…who would you trust to look at it? You don’t let just anybody put their hands close to your face, or pull your eyelid back to see closely what’s going on. Only someone you really trusted would be allowed that close. First of all, they couldn’t have a log sticking out of their eye!…It would have to be someone you trusted. Someone who would treat you with care and gentleness. In the same way, if you are going to be open to criticism (in the best sense of the word), it would be from someone you trusted…who had examined their own life, and didn’t come with an attitude of arrogance or judgment.

Here’s the final thing I think Jesus is saying throughout the New Testament: DON’T JUDGE PEOPLE. Or maybe better put, YOU ARE NOT THE FINAL JUDGE. The judgments that we execute are perhaps over attitudes, motives, actions, speeches, philosophies…but they are not final judgments over a person. That is not our role. We don’t decide who goes to heaven or who goes to hell. We don’t decide that people are beyond the range of God’s love and grace. Jesus is the one who ultimately judges. There is a powerful picture of that Jesus in Matthew 25, judging the sheep and the goats. But the last time I looked at it, Jesus didn’t have any assistants there.

At our house, there are a few words that are off limits if they are ever attached to people. One of them is LOSER. That is a word of judgment, not of an idea, or an action, or even a motive…but of a person’s character and ultimate worth. We can’t go there. Another is HOPELESS. If we believe in the redemptive power of love that Christ brings, then no one is ever beyond the bounds of hope…No one is irredeemable by Christ. It is JESUS who makes the ultimate judgments, and there is great hope in that fact for all of us. Because the Jesus who one day will judge with finality…is the same Jesus who one day hung on a cross and died on our behalf. So we avoid those words that judge people.

Now, here’s your training camp for all this…and you’re going to think it’s silly. The place you are trained on this is close to home…in fact, it’s your car. You’re driving on the freeway, and someone cuts you off without signaling or checking. What are the first words out of your mouth? [Don’t say them now!] What do you say? Let’s be mild: “Idiot.” “Jerk.” I’ve been brought up short on those this week. What’s the difference between calling someone an “idiot” and saying they made a poor decision? It’s actually a big difference, I think. And though our attitude in driving a car seems like a silly example…it’s a place we draw the line between a judgment that marks a person…and that which merely discerns good and bad behavior. Deciding that someone said a stupid thing is quite different from calling them a stupid person.

“Don’t pick on people,” is the way Eugene Peterson translates this passage, “don’t jump on their failures or criticize their faults…that critical spirit has a way of boomeranging…it’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own.”

Jesus knows that if left to ourselves, we so easily fall into a spirit of self-righteous criticism, of being hypercritical, of delighting in criticism for its own sake. Jesus knows how easy it is for us to take on a judgmental attitude…the kind of attitude that is NOT to characterize those who pursue God’s kingdom. And to this attitude, Jesus says, “Don’t.” Actually, it’s stronger than that. He says, “Stop it!” And instead, He calls us to judge fairly, to judge ourselves first, to be gentle and gracious with one another, and he reminds us that we are not the final judge. You see, Jesus knows that being judgmental really is not an eye problem at all. It’s a heart problem. Let’s pray.