20 June 2016 - eye doctor

I'm glad someone painted this.

[ Today's Readings ]

Stop judging, that you may not be judged.
For as you judge, so will you be judged,
and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

Judgment of others is dangerous. We often use it as a tactic to exonerate ourselves. We point to someone who is worse than us in the hope that then God won't notice what we have done. The goal of judgment is never to be helpful to the one we judge. In pointing out the beam in our brother's eye we are merely criticizing. Even if we talk about removing it, this stems from a feeling of superiority. We can't actually see well enough to be helpful.

Yet "every prophet and seer" of Israel speak words which sound like judgment.

Give up your evil ways and keep my commandments and statutes,
in accordance with the entire law which I enjoined on your fathers
and which I sent you by my servants the prophets

But these words are not like our words about the beam in the eye of our brothers. These words aren't spoken for the sake of the prophet or his ego. Indeed, these words often cause the prophet more trouble than they seem worth. But the prophet speaks them anyway. He speaks them out of concern for the nation.

Our nation venerates other Gods and follows the rites of pagan nations just as Israel did. Our nation needs the saving message of the prophets as much as them. We reject his statutes and the covenant he made with our fathers. We desperately need to be called back to the right path.

Have not you, O God, rejected us,
so that you go not forth, O God, with our armies?
Give us aid against the foe,
for worthless is the help of men.

We may well be called to speak the message of the prophets. But it is not judgment for the sake of judgment. It is a message of mercy. We must first examine our own consciences so that we can remove our own planks. We need to see very clearly indeed to be useful to a culture in so much darkness. We ourselves only remove the plank from our own eye by the mercy and grace of Jesus we find in the sacraments. Knowing this prevents us from being proud when we tell others that they do not see clearly. There is only one hope to any of us seeing clearly, the light of the world, Jesus Christ. It does no service to anyone to let the world sit in darkness when we have seen this light. But it is worse to flaunt the light we've found as if we ourselves earned or discovered it. We receive the light of Christ as mercy. And as mercy, not judgment, we share it.