Oct 1 2019 Matthew 7:1-12

Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' while the log is in your own eye?

Jesus is schooling his disciples on all things Love. This is the section of Matthew that is rich with pithy comments about love and judgment. Ask, and you shall receive. Do not throw pearls to swine. It concludes with the Golden Rule, do unto others, as you would have them do to you. I am grateful for the opportunity to sit with these dense readings multiple times, in morning prayer, during regular Sunday Eucharists. This is why I can read and meditate on the same section repeatedly; what strikes me about Scripture is entirely driven by the world around me, where I find myself today, and where the Spirit is pointing. Today, it’s the opening statements that deal with judgment and hypocrisy.

I’m struck by the disparity of things stuck in eyes. In my neighbor, there might be a speck. Specks are small, although in your eye, a speck is sufficiently problematic. But, Jesus says, don’t even bother noticing the speck in your neighbor’s eye, when you have a log in your eye. This has always struck me as absurd, being as literal and concrete as I have been. How could a log be in my eye? The image in my head is kind comical. But immature concreteness aside, it is striking that the language Jesus uses is so excessive, there must be something to this. It’s not that I have a bigger speck in my eye that I should notice. No, it’s a log.

In the past, I’ve dismissed this reading because of the absurdity of the log. But this morning, I’m sitting with that log. Why a log? Why that big? Of course I would notice a log in my eye! And if I really had a log in my eye, how could I bother to care about anyone else’s specks? 

Maybe that’s the point. Our own foibles and shortcomings are like an unnoticed log in the eye. First, they blind us to what’s going on. We can’t see clearly, past our own problems. Not only that, like a log protruding from someone’s eye, our foibles and shortcomings are clearly visible to others, certainly to God. And yet, with those ginormous personal shortcomings, we dole out advice and judgment about others. If my baggage is both as blinding and unseen to me, while obvious to others as a log in my eye, I should be way more cautious about handing out pronouncements and judgements about others.

This morning, I’m thinking about Jesus’ use of exaggerated language, and how rather than dismissing it as absurd, I should pay closer attention, precisely because of its scale.