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Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 7:1-5
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
We need each other, but we need each other to be for each other.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 1:Welcome today on this Thanksgiving weekend. If we haven't met in real life, my name is Jeremy. We're really glad that you're here with us. We never take it for granted that you would take part of your weekend to come and worship with us. It really does mean lot to us.
Speaker 1:Today, we are continuing in the Sermon on the Mount. We have three weeks left, including this morning, to get through this last section in Matthew chapter seven. But before we get rolling today, one community note. Every fall, there are always new people coming and joining us and finding their place here in the Kilometers community. We kicked off the fall season in September, and there were actually over 1,200 people that joined us on that one Sunday.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people for this space. It's also a record for us for the fall. But if you are new to Commons and if this space is a place you're interested in making your home, one of the ways you can make an investment here is financial. We don't make a big deal about giving on Sundays because we never want your generosity to be an awkward moment for you or for anyone else. But we are supported by this community.
Speaker 1:We don't receive any outside funding from the government or other institutions for what we do here. And if you want to contribute, you can do that online anytime. Through your giving profile, you can set up an automatic donation. That kind of support really helps us when it comes to forecasting and budgeting. But you can log in to make a one time donation, a recurring donation.
Speaker 1:You can stop your donation or change your donation, and you can do all of that for yourself online. Head to commons dot church slash donate if that's something that's valuable for you. And particularly on this Thanksgiving weekend, we just wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributes to our story in all kinds of different ways. It really does mean the world to us, and it's part of this generous life that Jesus orients us toward. Now, last week, we looked at a section of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus was talking about giving, not to the church, but to the poor, and he framed it as a question of intent.
Speaker 1:For Jesus, our experience of religion is defined by what we want out of it. In fact, he says that if what you want from religion is praise and admiration and a little bit of an ego boost, fine. Just don't be surprised when that's all there is to it. On the other hand, if your intent is to see God, if you want to become the person God imagines you to be, if your desire is to connect yourself to the source of love that sits at the center of all things, then for Jesus, it's not your performance that matters. It is all of our broken best attempts to step outside of ourselves that actually draws us closer to the divine.
Speaker 1:And one of the questions that gets asked coming out of this is, okay, well I get what you're saying Jesus. We all know people who seem hypocritical and that's infuriating, but how can I ever possibly get my motives in check the way that you're asking? Now, I want to be a good person. I wanna be generous, but I'm always pulled in the direction of my ego. How could I ever do anything purely enough for God?
Speaker 1:And I talked about this a little bit on YouTube this week. But for me, that question and the very fact you struggle with it is the answer. We are social creatures by design. We're drawn to community. We need love and praise.
Speaker 1:That human beings fundamentally need to be acknowledged by our peers in order to actualize ourselves. So feeling that tension, being drawn to both generosity and acknowledgment of it is perfectly normal. And I don't think that Jesus is encouraging us to try to seclude ourselves and live our lives in some kind of anonymous bubble. Remember, Jesus also tells us to gather and pray with each other, and we all know people who have lived generous lives and that has inspired us to follow suit. So this isn't about Jesus enacting a new law and a new rule.
Speaker 1:This is about what it is that drives us at the core. Look, I lead a pretty public life. Most of my random thoughts are captured and then broadcast online for anyone to listen to. I spend most of my week preparing to get up here on a Sunday and talk in front of people with lights and a camera and a microphone strapped to my face. And it would be blatantly dishonest of me to say that ego doesn't factor into any of that.
Speaker 1:But I would probably argue that anyone who pursues a career that involves speaking publicly, regularly, particularly about the divine already has some ego issues they should be working on. Because let's be honest, isn't me right now. This is me after spending a week preparing to present the best, most polished, most eloquent version of myself to you. Now, I take that very seriously as part of my job. Right?
Speaker 1:None of you want to see me get up here rolling out of bed without any thought put into what I'm gonna say. But at the same time, how do you spend all week preparing to present the best version of yourself in the best light and then turn around and say honestly that your intent is pure? And for me, it always comes back to asking myself the question. Do I regularly, consistently, honestly ask myself what it is that drives me this week, this moment, right now? I know my ego is in there always.
Speaker 1:I know it's part of the mix. I know I won't ever achieve humility in the model of Jesus, but maybe I don't need to. And maybe if I can at least find the courage to be honest with myself, I can ask myself the question, am I here because I wanna help? Am I here because I have something to offer? Am I here because I'm leaning into the purpose and the passion that God has given me today?
Speaker 1:Well then maybe I don't need to beat myself up over the fact that I'm human. And that there are all kinds of competing intentions within me in any given moment because when I'm honest and I'm aware about all that, then I can choose to lean into the best of those intentions by choice. And when I lean into the person I'm becoming, and I can trust that as I do that Christ will meet me and work with me and continue to transform me slowly. And when that happens, well then that's at least the start of everything we talked about last week where all the rules and the instructions and the lessons begin to fall away. And like riding a bike, I can actually just start to enjoy the ride.
Speaker 1:Now, if you worry about your intentions, trust the fact that your desire to find your way toward God is in fact pleasing to God. And, that realization itself will slowly begin to change everything about you. Now, today, we're gonna talk about what happens when we externalize all of that and when we start judging each other. But first, let's pray. Good and great God, give us pure hearts that we may see you, humble hearts that we may hear you.
Speaker 1:Hearts of love that we may serve you, hearts of faith that we may live toward you. God, grant us reverent hearts that we may worship well here and in the worlds that we occupy. May our intentions always be pure but when they are not, would you keep us humble enough to notice and to return and to repent and to be transformed every single time. May we never lose hope even in our failings but only see the long slow beauty of our becoming. Invite us, embrace us, slowly help us become everything you imagine us to be.
Speaker 1:In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Okay. Today, we are gonna follow Jesus into, I think, some of his hardest words for us because we're gonna follow him into a conversation about judgment. And I say this is hard because, honestly, who here doesn't love to judge each other?
Speaker 1:I mean, I've seen reality TV. I know what that's all about. There is no reasonable reason to watch that stuff other than to sit back smug and satisfied, comfy on our couches judging the participants. That's what it's about. I get it.
Speaker 1:In fact, this week, I came across a clip of a young girl sitting on her couch doing a little bit of judgment of her own. She is not watching reality TV here. This is a two year old watching the Incredible Hulk do his thing in the Avengers for the very first time. Take a look at this. Is he back in the case?
Speaker 1:Yeah. He racking the piece? I love it. She is rightly distraught with the carnage that is rotten by the Hulk, and yet not enough to stop her from eating her crisps, which is pretty great. By the way, that right there, what you saw, is exactly the opposite reaction to what my son had upon seeing the Hulk for the first time.
Speaker 1:He thought it was an instruction manual, and all he wanted to do was smash everything he could get his hands on. Clearly, she has much better judgment than he. But today, we need to talk about escaping judgment, shaping judgment, our hypocrisy seeing and helping each other. But to do that, we are gonna jump in and read from Matthew chapter seven. This is starting in verse one where Jesus says, do not judge or you too will be judged.
Speaker 1:For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged as well and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when all the time there's a plank in yours? You hypocrite. First, take the plank out of your own eye.
Speaker 1:Then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye. So, very famous passage, lots to unpack, and for me, some really practical implications here for life together. But, let's go back to the beginning here. Because Jesus starts by saying, do not judge or you will be judged. For in the same way you judge, you will be judged as well, and the measure you've used will be measured against you.
Speaker 1:And there's two interesting ideas here for me. First is the idea that we can possibly escape judgment for ourselves by refusing to judge those around us. The second is this, that if we can't do that, then perhaps we can at least shape our judgment in positive ways for ourselves. So let's take a look at these ideas. Do not judge or you too will be judged.
Speaker 1:Well, the issue here is that I think sometimes what we want to do is universalize the particular. And what I mean by that is we wanna take one line from Jesus. Let's be honest, we do this with the Bible all the time. But we take one line that applies to a specific conversation or moment or situation and we universalize that into a rule that stretches across all of time and space. Well, the word here for judge is the word krino in Greek.
Speaker 1:And it's important for us to realize that this is not a particularly heavy loaded word like judgment is in English. This is in fact just a simple normal word for making a decision or a choice. It means to prefer or to select. So last week, we were visiting a family here at the church and they had us over for dinner, and our son was with us, and the kids were playing, and they were having a great time, and our host interrupted to ask if anyone wanted dessert. We have homemade ice cream, he said.
Speaker 1:Would anyone like some? And at that point, all of the kids screamed for ice cream in unison on cue, and my son participated in the volume of that moment, but then you could see him think about this for a second. And returning to the solemnity of the choice put before him, he asked, what kind of ice cream is it? Chocolate, said our host, and I breathed a sigh of relief because I know that my son happens to love chocolate ice cream. And yet, he replied, actually, today I prefer mint, and I was hoping that's what we would be having.
Speaker 1:Now, awkward social cues aside, that right there is actually nothing more than the kind of preference that a word like crino can imply. It does not mean that you are an awful person. It does not imply that you are vicious in your judgments. It simply means that today you prefer mint to chocolate. In fact, in John seven, Jesus will say, do not judge by mere appearances, judge correctly.
Speaker 1:Same word. So the idea here is not that we can't or shouldn't or won't ever make judgment calls in life. That's just not realistic. And we shouldn't universalize this particular moment by taking it too far out of its context. Right now, we have an election coming up in Canada, and hopefully all of us are thinking about what it means to judge correctly.
Speaker 1:This is part of our responsible participation in democratic government. It's good. So the idea here is not that we can avoid judgment either in our personal lives or the judgment of God. The idea is that a normal healthy positive practice of judgment can very easily turn into something vindictive and toxic if we let it. This brings us to the second question.
Speaker 1:If we can't escape judgment, can we at least shape it to our advantage? Now, cards on the table here. I am firmly of the belief that God is for us. God is on our side. God will do good for all of us in the end, but that does not mean I believe we will escape the judgment of God.
Speaker 1:Because as I see it, the judgment of one who loves us and judgment by one who is looking out for our best interest, judgment by one who wants the best for us and in us, this is actually not something to be avoided. But I would argue that that kind of judgment, if it exists, is something to run toward. Listen to how Jesus talks about this. He says, in the same way you judge, this is how you will be judged and the measure you use will be measured to you. From the onset of this discussion, about judgment, the posture of Jesus is divine generosity.
Speaker 1:Now, I don't think Jesus is saying you can go out and rob a bank and get to heaven and say, well, technically, God, I never judged anyone else on their bank robbing ways. So I guess we should just call it even. I don't think that's how it works in the end. Now, our position in the universe is always going to mean that our ability to judge rightly will always be filtered through a glass very very darkly. Divine judgment is inherently different because God's perspective is unencumbered by our bias, but maybe there is something to this.
Speaker 1:Maybe Jesus is saying that if your judgments are generous, if your judgments are gracious, perhaps if your judgments are intended to bring the best in those around you out just like God's are. Perhaps if your choices have been intended to heal instead of punish, to build up, instead of tear down, if your judgment has been oriented toward looking out for those around you rather than yourself, then maybe your judgments will be more aligned with God's than you realize. And, maybe judgment will actually be your welcome into the process of restoration that God has always imagined for you. See, I actually find Jesus' words here incredibly comforting when I understand that God is always for me. Because that means that even divine judgment will only ever heal me.
Speaker 1:And look, if I have hurt you, if I have wounded you somehow intentionally otherwise, I want you to judge me. Now, carefully and graciously and honestly and personally to me, somewhere inside I know that my injury of you is injury of myself. And, the only way that I can begin to heal all of that is to become aware of all of this. And maybe when judgment is for us, even the moments we run from can touch us. And, this is why after telling us not to judge, after telling us to be careful when we judge, Jesus now tells us how to judge.
Speaker 1:He says, you hypocrites. First, take the plank from your own eye then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brothers. And now, think we start to see the whole point of this section here. The honest, helpful, other centered judgments that help each of us become the best version of ourselves, this is a gift. So now we've got to ask, what does it mean to take the plank from your own eye, and then what does it mean to remove the specks from our neighbors?
Speaker 1:And there's a couple things that are important here for me. First, there's this idea of a hypocrisy. Jesus touched on this last week, so it's an important idea for him. And you've possibly heard this before, but the Greek word here, is actually just the normal Greek word for an actor. And in Greek, theater actors didn't just play their part, they would actually wear a mask that indicated their part to the audience.
Speaker 1:Maybe they just weren't as good as facial expressions as we are now, who knows? But the truth is, it's actually largely in the wake of Jesus that hupokrites takes on this modern connotation of hypocrite. At the time, it would have been heard simply as actor and I think that's actually really important for us Because hypocrite feels so negative. Like it's so confrontational and for Jesus to call us hypocrites just feels unnecessarily mean. Chill, dude.
Speaker 1:Because what happens is we kind of instinctively shift the narrative a bit. Well, he's not talking to me. He's talking about them. Except that we've already talked about who he's talking to here and it is us. Remember, the audience here, these are rural Jews and religious elites and Roman centurions and day laborers from the Decapolis.
Speaker 1:This is not an invective pointed at the overly religious. This is for all of us. All the poor in spirit who are blessed because the divine has come near to us. And so sometimes, instead of reading you hypocrites, I find it helpful to go back and read something like, all you who feel the need to play your role. Because I'm not a hypocrite.
Speaker 1:At least I don't like to think of myself that way. However, I do know that I often play a role. And I protect my role at times. I know, as we talked about in the opening, I project the preferred version of myself at times, particularly when I'm feeling insecure. And so reaching back behind the loadedness of the English word hypocrite to remember that in situ, Jesus is speaking much more casually here.
Speaker 1:It actually helps me to internalize what he's saying. That sometimes, my faults are much easier to notice in someone else. And once I do that, I notice a few things. First, that Jesus is bang on when he uses the words dokos and carphos here. In the NIV, which I read earlier, that's plank and sawdust or speck.
Speaker 1:But more literally what these words mean is log and twig. Because part of the idea here is that they are the same thing. A log is a twig, a twig is a log, all of it just depends on your perspective. Part of the image here is obviously about hyperbole. How could you ever get a log stuck in your eye?
Speaker 1:That's part of the joke. But for all intents and purposes, a twig in your eye might as well be a log. And you might resonate with this, but here's what I notice about myself. The first faults that I will notice in you are invariably the things that I know I struggle with myself. Now, you know what really annoys me?
Speaker 1:What will set me off and send me down a spiral of negative thoughts? It's loud, opinionated, long haired men who think they get to speak for God. Maybe not the long haired part. I kind of like that part, but for the most part, the things that we and I instinctively notice in others are the things that we struggle to keep in balance for ourselves. Right?
Speaker 1:As an Enneagram eight, anyone who wants to dominate the room and fill a moment of silence with their opinion or their preference, that drives me nuts because that's what I'm here for. Look, I know that's not healthy, and I know that when I'm anxious or insecure, slip back into that unconsciously. I know that I have lots of work to do, and I know that silence and submission are some of the most important spiritual disciplines in my life. But when I see the worst of me in someone else, I can project all of that onto them. And the twig in my eye that sometimes seems so large and implosing up close when I'm doing my own work, all of a sudden it begins to fade away until all I can see is what's wrong with them.
Speaker 1:Part of what Jesus is saying here is that what you notice over there is probably the same thing that you should be aware of over here. So don't despise that. Don't ignore it. Recognize that your instinctive frustration and your primal rage about them can actually be a gift back to you if you learn to channel it appropriately. But for that, you've got to remember that a log and a twig are essentially the same thing differentiated by proximity.
Speaker 1:Remember, when you are irrationally upset with your coworker, it probably means you've got some work of your own to do and even that can be a gift when you recognize it and you metabolize it. So, know this. The difference between a log and a twig is largely your perspective. Jesus is not saying here that you are worse than your brother. Jesus is saying that you may not be seeing things objectively.
Speaker 1:And for Jesus, that's okay once you're aware of it. Because this is important here, you will never see things objectively. Objectivity is not a thing that exists in your life. Everything in your life is filtered. Everything in your life is colored.
Speaker 1:Everything in your life is seen through the lens of your experience, history, your position in the world. And for Jesus, once you acknowledge that, once you understand that, you will actually have something incredible valuable to share with those around you because of your perspective. First, take the log from your own eye, then you will see clearly enough to remove the twig from your neighbors. There's two final things here that are important for me as we close. The word that the text uses here for see clearly is the Greek word, And is the normal word for seeing or sight in Greek.
Speaker 1:But is the preposition that indicates a marker of extension through an object. That sounds fancy, but basically in Greek, they use dia the way we might use via. So you got here today via your car or via the road system or you entered this room via the doors. And so bleppo is to see, dia bleppo is to understand via our sight. And this is really what Jesus has been getting at all along.
Speaker 1:The good judgment involves more than just what you see on the surface. It involves your understanding. It involves your heart and your spirit, your willingness to look inward, your best intentions, your hopes for another person. Good judgment is far more than just being objective. Good judgment is that which chooses to be on the side of the best possible outcomes for all.
Speaker 1:And this is why when all is said and done, when we have understood grace, and when we have looked inside ourselves, when we have done our own work, and when we have chosen the best for everyone, Jesus finally says, we will now see clearly enough to help each other. Because in the end for Jesus, we desperately need each other. And his teaching here in this section is not designed to say, let everyone do their own thing. Let each to their own. No judgment is good judgment.
Speaker 1:He's actually saying something much more profound than that. He's saying that we need each other, but we need each other to be for each other. And, if you have ever been told, or you've picked up, or you've assumed along the way that the judgment of God was anything but for your good. If you've ever received from the church the idea that judgment was less than healing or less than holy or less than the goodness of God poured out for you. If you have ever believed that you deserved less from those who follow God than the infinite grace extended to us by God, then I am sorry.
Speaker 1:Because that means that we have misunderstood the teachings of Jesus. And we have not seen things clearly and we have not done our own work and we have been consumed with twigs and lust past logs and I am sorry. Because in the model of Jesus, the only one who gets to judge you is the one who shows you they are already for you. And trust me today, the God of the universe is on your side. May you begin to sink into God's love.
Speaker 1:May the community that surrounds you embody God's grace. And when the moment is earned, may those that love you the most help you become everything you were meant to be. May we judge each other well and may that only ever be received as our gift to each other. Let's pray. God, for all of the moments where we have lost sight of what it means to judge well and we have allowed our biases, our perception, our preferences to be imposed on another, we are sorry.
Speaker 1:For the moments where we have projected things we needed to work on in ourselves on another, we have taken the twig in our eye and turned it into a plank to battle someone with, we're sorry. God, for all those spaces where we have work to do, would you be present to us by your spirit, helping us to become aware, helping us to remove our biases, helping us to use our history as a lens through which to see the world and add color, add perspective, but never confusing our perspective on the world for the truth. Would we only ever before each other? As we do that work and your spirit is in us and we become more like you, may we actually begin to offer ourselves to each other as a gift. May we judge and build up.
Speaker 1:May we heal and restore. May we help each other become the best versions of ourselves. And may we know that our judgment will only ever be received as gift when it is offered in the graciousness of God. It's a hard line and help us to find it as we move through this world. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen.