Matthew 7:1-5
Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. 2 For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.
3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.
One of my favorite podcasts tells of a fictional small town in the northern USA called “Lake Wobegon.” At the end of every podcast, Garrison Keillor, the story teller, says, “And that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”
Think about that. How can ALL the children be above average? We have an almost unstoppable tendency to overrate ourselves and our children. This is called the Lake Wobegon Effect or Illusory Superiority. Most of us think we are better than most other people. For example ...
We think we are better than most others. We think we are smarter, kinder, holier, cooler, and more compassionate. But the hard truth is: we’re wrong. For the most part, we are just like all those other schmucks we’re judging!
First, I need to say this very clearly. I am guilty. I judge others harshly far too often in far too many ways. I am a perfectionist. I tend to expect perfection from myself and from others. Since none of us are perfect, I find lots to criticize. In fact, part of my psychological difficulty is that I tend to judge others harshly to help me feel better about myself. I am guilty. I myself need more of God’s grace, especially on this issue.
Now, let’s take a closer look at the text from Matthew 7. Verse 1 is the most famous, “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged,” or in the old King James Version, “Judge not, lest ye be judged!” (Your voice just has to get deeper when you say that.) This has lots of connections with Jesus’ other teachings. “God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7). “Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matthew 6:12). “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15). This is a big deal for Jesus.
Verse 2 increases the intensity through repetition. This isn’t really clear when we translate it into English, but in Greek it’s pretty striking. The Greek root word for “judge” is kri, and the Greek word for “measure” is metr – as in “meter.”
With the judgment (krimati) you judge (krinete) you will be judged (krithesesthe).
With the measure (metro) you measure (metreite) it will be measured to you (metrethesetai).
Jesus is saying, “Hey folks, you’re going to get it just like you give it. God is going to measure you with the same stick you use to measure others. If you judge others harshly, they and God will judge harshly right back at you.”
Verses 3-5 are actually pretty funny. Jesus has quite a sense of humor. It might help us understand this if we look at a few pictures.
Step 1: We notice that our friend has a problem, “a speck” in his eye, maybe a speck of sawdust.
Step 2: We offer to help, “Here let me help you get this speck out of your eye.” So far it all sounds reasonable enough.
But then comes Step 3: Jesus says that we actually have a huge log (or plank or beam) in our own eye. This is where it gets funny. Can you imagine walking around with a huge log sticking out of your eye? And, then we have the nerve to try to help someone else with a speck of sawdust! “Excuse me buddy,” wham! – we hit them in the head with our plank. “Well that was uncomfortable, but at least you won’t move now while I’m working on your eye!”
Notice that the sawdust and the plank are made of the same thing: wood. So often when we criticize others, we have the same problems in ourselves, only in larger measure. “Quit judging me! You are so judgmental!” “You know that Sally girl? Ooh, she’s such a gossip! I can’t stand gossip.”
Jesus pushes us to Step 4. Stop pretending. Take the log out of your own eye first. Deal with your own issues first. Face up to your own sin and bad attitudes first. Before we do this, we have no right to say whether someone else is in the wrong. Our vision is impaired. We can’t see clearly about what is right and wrong in others until we sort out what is right and wrong in us. As one pastor said, “Look at yourself first. You may not like what you see!”
The point here is humility and honesty. We are only ready to help others when we are being honest with ourselves about our own sinfulness and weakness.
Only from a point of humility, can we move on to Step 5: helping someone deal with a problem in her life. There is a key point here that is often overlooked. Step 5 is helping someone deal with a problem. Step 5 is not talking to person A about person B’s problem. Step 5 is not throwing out an insulting criticism. Step 5 is not cutting off a friendship. Step 5 is going to someone humbly and having an open, caring conversation – with the goal of helping that person.
If you are talking to someone about a problem someone else has, there is a very good chance that you are in the wrong. If you’re so concerned about the other person, do Step 4 (check your own heart) and then do Step 5 (talk directly with the other person).
Now it’s time to get specific. How are we likely to judge others? How are we likely to condemn others and to be ungracious to others? Here are a few of the most common ways.
1. We tend to judge others wrongly when they judge us. As soon as someone starts criticizing us, we get on the defensive. We defend by counter-attacking. We immediately notice 100 things that are wrong about the other person: “How can he say that when he’s this and he’s that?!”
Arthur Boer wrote a book about dealing with difficult people, and it has a great title: Never Call Them Jerks. The way we respond to criticism says more about us than the actual complaint. If we join in the judging game, we’re just as wrong as they are.
2. We tend to judge others wrongly when they have a different perspective. We Westerners have a real problem with this in Korea. How many times have you heard someone complain about something in Korea by saying: “That’s just stupid!” or “Random!” or “This is crazy”? When we say things like that, we are judging wrongly. If we’ll take the time to listen and ask questions, we’ll usually find that the discomfort we feel comes from a differing perspective on the world. Neither perspective is wrong or random or crazy. There is a logic; it’s just different.
We also run into a similar problem here in our church. Our church is a beautiful and painful mixture of people from many different perspectives. We have young and old, conservative and liberal, modern and post-modern. We are naturally going to disagree about a whole lot of things. That’s OK. But if we increase that disagreement to judgmentalism, we will destroy our community.
We have people here who think absolute truth is The Most Important Thing Ever, and we have people here who think absolute truth is a foolish and impossible ideal, and we have everything in between. We can get into a lot of trouble if we start judging each other on these issues. And this judging can go both ways. Sometimes the liberal folk can feel like the victims of judging even while they judge “those narrow-minded, bigoted, fundamentalists.”
We have got to learn to live with each other and love each other. We can’t write people off or send them to hell in our minds because they disagree with us – even if the issue seems very important to us. We need to find the grace to embrace our diversity as God brings us together through Christ.
3. We tend to judge others wrongly when they lack something. She is out of fashion. He dresses too casually. Her personality is a little rough. He doesn’t have very good social skills. Can you say “awkward?!” His mind doesn’t work quite as quickly or as logically as ours. She doesn’t have a very good job.
We can look at what people lack and decide that they are worth less because of what they lack. We naturally tend to distance ourselves from these people. We don’t want to hang around them. We might even make jokes about them. This is just wrong. This is judging.
We all have “issues” we haven’t dealt with. We are all lacking something. The way of Christ and the way of our church is to embrace our differences as God is bringing us together through Christ. We especially need to work hard to embrace those who don’t seem to fit in. This is a core part of being a loving community.
4. We tend to judge others wrongly when they have debatable ethical positions. In Romans 14, Paul says we should accept each other “without passing judgment on disputable matters” (Romans 14:1). There are lots of disputable matters. In Paul’s time, one of the big issues was what kind of food was OK to eat. Over the last 50 years, some big issues have been what kind of clothes are OK, what kind of entertainment is OK, and what kind of drink is OK. These are debatable issues, and we should not condemn or judge others because they debate the issue differently from us.
Let me speak to another big issue: homosexuality. You might think this is not a “disputable matter.” Wake up! This is probably THE most disputed and debated issue of our time! It is definitely “disputable” or “debatable.”
So what do our texts today say about this issue? A paraphrase from The Message might help us here: “It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt?” So often, our disagreements about homosexuality turn into contempt and judgmentalism. We’ve got to stop this.
No matter what we believe about this issue, or other issues like this, we’ve got to love each other as people. I feel so sick when I see how many people are driven away from God because of the judgmental attitudes of Christians. Way too many Christians go out of their way to reject “the gay lifestyle” and gay people. If you know someone who is gay, you need to go out of your way to show them love. This is the way of Christ. Love your neighbor as yourself.
My prayer is that we will be a church where everyone is welcome and feels welcome – conservative or liberal, fundamentalist or post-modern, straight or gay. My prayer is that we will be a community that invites all people to be renewed by God’s love so that we will love God, ourselves and others. My prayer is that everything we do will draw people to God and God’s people, not push them away from God and God’s people.
Let me wrap up here. “Do not judge” does not mean don’t think. It doesn’t mean don’t evaluate whether something is right or wrong or good or bad. It doesn’t mean don’t criticize anything at any time. Jesus does a lot of thinking and evaluating and criticizing in the right context.
“Do not judge” means that we judge issues critically, but we judge people mercifully and humbly. Remember the limitations of your knowledge. You don’t know everything there is to know, and you don’t know that person’s history or current circumstances.
And we remember that we are sinners, too. Remember what Paul said in our Epistle Lesson: “So don’t make judgments about anyone ahead of time - before the Lord returns. For he will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. Then God will give to each one whatever praise is due” (1 Corinthians 4:5). You just might have a plank in your own eye. I just might have a plank in my own eye.
Here is the heart of the gospel. God loves us ALL. We have ALL sinned, and we ALL fall short of God’s dreams and expectations for us. We ALL need grace. But the wonderfully good news is that God offers grace to ALL of us through Jesus Christ. Jesus was crucified and raised for us so that we will not be judged by our weaknesses and failures but by his strength and love. Now, as God pours his love into our hearts through his Holy Spirit, we can live like God. We can become people of “compassion and mercy, slow to get angry, and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness” (Psalm 86:15).
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
God, have mercy on us all.
God, show mercy through us all.
Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. 2 For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.
3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.
One of my favorite podcasts tells of a fictional small town in the northern USA called “Lake Wobegon.” At the end of every podcast, Garrison Keillor, the story teller, says, “And that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”
Think about that. How can ALL the children be above average? We have an almost unstoppable tendency to overrate ourselves and our children. This is called the Lake Wobegon Effect or Illusory Superiority. Most of us think we are better than most other people. For example ...
- 68% of the professors at the University of Nebraska (in the USA) said that they are in the top 25% of professors at University of Nebraska.
- 87% of the MBA students at Stanford University said they were in the top half of MBA students at Stanford.
- 85% of high school students said they were better than average at getting along with others, and 25% said they were in the top 1%!
- Have you ever complained about bad drivers? Well, that makes sense because, in one study, 93% percent of drivers tend to consider themselves above average drivers!
We think we are better than most others. We think we are smarter, kinder, holier, cooler, and more compassionate. But the hard truth is: we’re wrong. For the most part, we are just like all those other schmucks we’re judging!
First, I need to say this very clearly. I am guilty. I judge others harshly far too often in far too many ways. I am a perfectionist. I tend to expect perfection from myself and from others. Since none of us are perfect, I find lots to criticize. In fact, part of my psychological difficulty is that I tend to judge others harshly to help me feel better about myself. I am guilty. I myself need more of God’s grace, especially on this issue.
Now, let’s take a closer look at the text from Matthew 7.
Verse 2 increases the intensity through repetition. This isn’t really clear when we translate it into English, but in Greek it’s pretty striking. The Greek root word for “judge” is kri, and the Greek word for “measure” is metr – as in “meter.”
With the judgment (krimati) you judge (krinete) you will be judged (krithesesthe).
With the measure (metro) you measure (metreite) it will be measured to you (metrethesetai).
Jesus is saying, “Hey folks, you’re going to get it just like you give it. God is going to measure you with the same stick you use to measure others. If you judge others harshly, they and God will judge harshly right back at you.”
Verses 3-5 are actually pretty funny. Jesus has quite a sense of humor. It might help us understand this if we look at a few pictures.
Step 1: We notice that our friend has a problem, “a speck” in his eye, maybe a speck of sawdust.
Step 2: We offer to help, “Here let me help you get this speck out of your eye.” So far it all sounds reasonable enough.
But then comes Step 3: Jesus says that we actually have a huge log (or plank or beam) in our own eye. This is where it gets funny. Can you imagine walking around with a huge log sticking out of your eye? And, then we have the nerve to try to help someone else with a speck of sawdust! “Excuse me buddy,” wham! – we hit them in the head with our plank. “Well that was uncomfortable, but at least you won’t move now while I’m working on your eye!”
Notice that the sawdust and the plank are made of the same thing: wood. So often when we criticize others, we have the same problems in ourselves, only in larger measure. “Quit judging me! You are so judgmental!” “You know that Sally girl? Ooh, she’s such a gossip! I can’t stand gossip.”
Jesus pushes us to Step 4. Stop pretending. Take the log out of your own eye first. Deal with your own issues first. Face up to your own sin and bad attitudes first. Before we do this, we have no right to say whether someone else is in the wrong. Our vision is impaired. We can’t see clearly about what is right and wrong in others until we sort out what is right and wrong in us. As one pastor said, “Look at yourself first. You may not like what you see!”
The point here is humility and honesty. We are only ready to help others when we are being honest with ourselves about our own sinfulness and weakness.
Only from a point of humility, can we move on to Step 5: helping someone deal with a problem in her life. There is a key point here that is often overlooked. Step 5 is helping someone deal with a problem. Step 5 is not talking to person A about person B’s problem. Step 5 is not throwing out an insulting criticism. Step 5 is not cutting off a friendship. Step 5 is going to someone humbly and having an open, caring conversation – with the goal of helping that person.
If you are talking to someone about a problem someone else has, there is a very good chance that you are in the wrong. If you’re so concerned about the other person, do Step 4 (check your own heart) and then do Step 5 (talk directly with the other person).
Now it’s time to get specific. How are we likely to judge others? How are we likely to condemn others and to be ungracious to others? Here are a few of the most common ways.
1. We tend to judge others wrongly when they judge us. As soon as someone starts criticizing us, we get on the defensive. We defend by counter-attacking. We immediately notice 100 things that are wrong about the other person: “How can he say that when he’s this and he’s that?!”
Arthur Boer wrote a book about dealing with difficult people, and it has a great title: Never Call Them Jerks. The way we respond to criticism says more about us than the actual complaint. If we join in the judging game, we’re just as wrong as they are.
2. We tend to judge others wrongly when they have a different perspective. We Westerners have a real problem with this in Korea. How many times have you heard someone complain about something in Korea by saying: “That’s just stupid!” or “Random!” or “This is crazy”? When we say things like that, we are judging wrongly. If we’ll take the time to listen and ask questions, we’ll usually find that the discomfort we feel comes from a differing perspective on the world. Neither perspective is wrong or random or crazy. There is a logic; it’s just different.
We also run into a similar problem here in our church. Our church is a beautiful and painful mixture of people from many different perspectives. We have young and old, conservative and liberal, modern and post-modern. We are naturally going to disagree about a whole lot of things. That’s OK. But if we increase that disagreement to judgmentalism, we will destroy our community.
We have people here who think absolute truth is The Most Important Thing Ever, and we have people here who think absolute truth is a foolish and impossible ideal, and we have everything in between. We can get into a lot of trouble if we start judging each other on these issues. And this judging can go both ways. Sometimes the liberal folk can feel like the victims of judging even while they judge “those narrow-minded, bigoted, fundamentalists.”
We have got to learn to live with each other and love each other. We can’t write people off or send them to hell in our minds because they disagree with us – even if the issue seems very important to us. We need to find the grace to embrace our diversity as God brings us together through Christ.
3. We tend to judge others wrongly when they lack something. She is out of fashion. He dresses too casually. Her personality is a little rough. He doesn’t have very good social skills. Can you say “awkward?!” His mind doesn’t work quite as quickly or as logically as ours. She doesn’t have a very good job.
We can look at what people lack and decide that they are worth less because of what they lack. We naturally tend to distance ourselves from these people. We don’t want to hang around them. We might even make jokes about them. This is just wrong. This is judging.
We all have “issues” we haven’t dealt with. We are all lacking something. The way of Christ and the way of our church is to embrace our differences as God is bringing us together through Christ. We especially need to work hard to embrace those who don’t seem to fit in. This is a core part of being a loving community.
4. We tend to judge others wrongly when they have debatable ethical positions. In Romans 14, Paul says we should accept each other “without passing judgment on disputable matters” (Romans 14:1). There are lots of disputable matters. In Paul’s time, one of the big issues was what kind of food was OK to eat. Over the last 50 years, some big issues have been what kind of clothes are OK, what kind of entertainment is OK, and what kind of drink is OK. These are debatable issues, and we should not condemn or judge others because they debate the issue differently from us.
Let me speak to another big issue: homosexuality. You might think this is not a “disputable matter.” Wake up! This is probably THE most disputed and debated issue of our time! It is definitely “disputable” or “debatable.”
So what do our texts today say about this issue? A paraphrase from The Message might help us here: “It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt?” So often, our disagreements about homosexuality turn into contempt and judgmentalism. We’ve got to stop this.
No matter what we believe about this issue, or other issues like this, we’ve got to love each other as people. I feel so sick when I see how many people are driven away from God because of the judgmental attitudes of Christians. Way too many Christians go out of their way to reject “the gay lifestyle” and gay people. If you know someone who is gay, you need to go out of your way to show them love. This is the way of Christ. Love your neighbor as yourself.
My prayer is that we will be a church where everyone is welcome and feels welcome – conservative or liberal, fundamentalist or post-modern, straight or gay. My prayer is that we will be a community that invites all people to be renewed by God’s love so that we will love God, ourselves and others. My prayer is that everything we do will draw people to God and God’s people, not push them away from God and God’s people.
Let me wrap up here. “Do not judge” does not mean don’t think. It doesn’t mean don’t evaluate whether something is right or wrong or good or bad. It doesn’t mean don’t criticize anything at any time. Jesus does a lot of thinking and evaluating and criticizing in the right context.
“Do not judge” means that we judge issues critically, but we judge people mercifully and humbly. Remember the limitations of your knowledge. You don’t know everything there is to know, and you don’t know that person’s history or current circumstances.
And we remember that we are sinners, too. Remember what Paul said in our Epistle Lesson: “So don’t make judgments about anyone ahead of time - before the Lord returns. For he will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. Then God will give to each one whatever praise is due” (1 Corinthians 4:5). You just might have a plank in your own eye. I just might have a plank in my own eye.
Here is the heart of the gospel. God loves us ALL. We have ALL sinned, and we ALL fall short of God’s dreams and expectations for us. We ALL need grace. But the wonderfully good news is that God offers grace to ALL of us through Jesus Christ. Jesus was crucified and raised for us so that we will not be judged by our weaknesses and failures but by his strength and love. Now, as God pours his love into our hearts through his Holy Spirit, we can live like God. We can become people of “compassion and mercy, slow to get angry, and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness” (Psalm 86:15).
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
God, have mercy on us all.
God, show mercy through us all.
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