The Plank

" Jesus told His disciples a parable, 'Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? . . . Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,' when you do not even notice the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye.' " -[Luke 6: 39-15].


When I read this Scripture, I have to laugh. Yes, Jesus does have a sense of humor. He also has a perfect sense of the ironies of life.

I can imagine this story, in Luke 6, as part of a modern-day comedy routine, it is that fresh and modern.

We contemporary folks tend to dismiss Scripture as awkwardly worded with its thee's and thou's; or, as filled with archaic advice.

The fact is, the Bible is filled with advice that is just as relevant today. In Matthew, for example, Jesus teaches, "Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear . . . Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? . . . Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, [for] each day has enough worry of its own." -[Matthew 6:25-34].

And then, we encounter Luke 6.  Jesus asks, "Can a blind person guide a blind person?  Will not both fall into a pit?"

Martin Luther King, Jr. said essentially the same thing in his statement at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama: "The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everybody blind. Somebody must have some sense, and somebody must have some religion."  He gave the example of driving from Atlanta to Chattanooga with his brother one night. The cars traveling in the opposite direction were not dimming their lights, and so King's brother vowed, "The next car that refuses to dim the lights, I'm going to refuse to dim mine."

King told his brother, "Wait a minute, don't do that. Somebody has to have sense enough on this highway to dim the lights, and if somebody doesn't have sense enough to dim the lights, we'll all be destroyed on this highway."

In other words, somebody has to have sense enough to be kind, first.

I am struck lately about the amount of judgment and hate speech emanating from so many sources. [Of course, evil and criminal acts can, and must, be investigated and punished by the proper authorities].

Most of the news that is broadcast today is ALL about pointing out the splinter in the other guy's eye.  One political side will expose corrupt behavior about the other side. So, the other side will ratchet things up with an expose about the first guy's behavior.

The news media even has a name for this - "What about-ism".  News item: "What about the Republicans. Look what they did wrong." Next news item: "What about the Democrats. Look what THEY did wrong." What about, what about, what about. Endless counter charges, no solutions.

We can go along this way forever, until we are ALL blind.

The danger is that in my personal life, I can be lured into the same pattern of speech. In my daily life, I am finding that I have to fight to stay objective, and fight to insert positive observations into my talk. Consuming too much "blaming speech" tends to tempt me to lose sight of self reflection and discernment about my own behavior.

In Luke 6, Jesus suggests "Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye."

In other words, we have strayed very far today from the concept of minding our own frailties, first, before we excoriate the other guy.

We have also strayed very far today from the concept of removing the splinter from our brother's eye. In other words, instead of minimizing our own sins, or of skewering the other person, maybe we ought to pitch in and help the other guy to be a better person - in other words, help the other person to lighten his burden of blindness and darkness.

Because, in the end, taking care of our own soul and of our own spiritual health, does not always mean rubbing it in that we are right and the other guy is so very wrong. Spiritual health means sometimes exercising Mercy over self-righteousness.

No one likes a hypocrite. Jesus says as much here, very plainly - "You hypocrite! You do not even notice the plank in your own eye!"

After all, we are ALL sinners. And in a never-ending spiral of recriminations and hate, do we even see clearly enough to stop rejoicing at another's faults, long enough to put our energy into solving the real problems at hand?

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