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Gospel: Luke 6:39-42
Jesus told his disciples a parable:
“Can a blind person guide a blind person?
Will not both fall into a pit?
No disciple is superior to the teacher;
but when fully trained,
every disciple will be like his teacher.
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 wooden beam in your own eye?
You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first;
then you will see clearly
to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Four monks took a vow of silence.
One day, while they were walking together down a dusty road, one of them stubbed his toe against a rock and cried out, “OUCH!”
A second monk turned to him and said, “You fool! You just broke your vow of silence!”
Another turned to him and said, “Now you’re the fool! You just broke your vow of silence by telling him that he broke his!”
The fourth monk stopped, smiled, and said aloud, “I’m the only one who didn’t.”
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Jesus uses the same type of humor in today’s Gospel by poking fun at our pride. “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?” he says.
Sight is a curious thing.
Eyes allow us to appreciate the beauty of God’s creation – the glow of sunrise, the twinkle of the stars at night, the blue of water, the face of our beloved. But it can also be misused to judge and criticize the imperfections of other people without noticing our own.
This is the irony of the eye.
It cannot see itself. Nor can it look inward. Eyes can only look outward, allowing us to see one of two possibilities: beauty or imperfection.
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No one is perfect.
“All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God,” Saint Paul says. Meaning, sometimes it is right and necessary to correct a friend, a neighbor, or a colleague who has done wrong.
But before criticizing someone else, the Lord commands us to take a hard look within, making sure that we are not guilty of the same offense – or a greater one – lest we be hypocrites.
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Think of the four monks.
They all broke their vow, while judging others for doing the same. Jesus might ask them the what he asks us today, “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?”
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Image credit: (1) Crosswalk.com (2) The Parable of the Mote and Beam, Domenico Fetti (3) Cerebral Faith