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. A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thorn bushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. (Luke 6.39-45)
At first glance, our selection from scripture today seems like a scattering of sayings or, as one commentator suggested, a series of images like you might find in a slide show. However, I think there is a glue holding everything together. So long as we remember that we are still in the Sermon on the Plain, as we have been for the last several Sundays, then we should know that Rabbi Jesus is offering a class on discipleship. The Sermon on the Plain might rightly be seen as a boot camp for recruits, those who want to become disciples.
Then, this is more instruction on his part. The goal of these sayings is to form and inform the consciousness of the crowd so that they might become good and strong disciples. In other words, these instructions are for the earnest students who sit in the front row of the classroom, not for the class clowns and daydreamers who tend to fill the back rows of a classroom.
The point is made clear when Jesus says “no disciple is superior to the teacher, but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.” So, as the rabbi or teacher, Jesus is here providing training to those who want to be his followers, the objective, in the end, being that they “will be like their teacher,” that is, like Jesus. When that objective or goal is reached, then the disciple can be said to be “fully trained.”
In his effort to teach or to train these neophytes or beginners, Jesus works with several images that bring home his lesson plan. The first is that of blindness. He asks those in front of him, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?” The answer is obvious. No one can guide another if he or she also is blind. Of course, while Jesus may be using the image of blindness, he is not talking about physical blindness so much as he is talking about spiritual blindness.
So, the disciple shouldn’t be concerned about telling someone else how to live his or her life until and unless the disciple’s own life is set on the right path. We can’t lead if we don’t know where we’re going. Nor can we lead if we’re going nowhere all the while we think we’re going in the right direction. It is cautionary. Discipleship begins with working on ourselves, not in working on others.
It is beautifully expressed in an old rabbinic story that tells about a man who approaches a rabbi, wanting to complain about all the dirt and filth in the streets in Jerusalem, asking the rabbi what can be done to clean up the mess. The rabbi’s answer is simple. If everyone would clean the dirt off their own front stoops, then the streets would become clean. In other words, the clean-up starts at home. The path to discipleship starts in working on oneself, cleaning up our messes and bad ways, not on working on others, telling them what is wrong with their lives.
That, of course, smoothly moves into the second image that Rabbi Jesus uses, asking the people, “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?”
It is a picture-perfect image. Matthew uses it also in his own gospel as does an earlier gospel called “The Gospel of Thomas,” which is a collection of sayings of Jesus. Some scholars want to see the exaggeration in the image as a sign of Jesus’ humor. I, for one, find nothing funny in it. There may be something absurd about saying there is a wooden beam in someone’s eye, but the image is in the service of something profoundly serious.
Nor do I think Jesus chuckled or smiled as he asked the question. It is unlikely, given that the next thing out of his mouth are the words, “You hypocrite!” While Luke uses the word less often than Matthew, he also uses it for the same purpose, attaching it to Jesus’ strongest critics, accusing them of putting on a show with their religious deeds while their inner hearts are cesspools of corruption.
“You hypocrite!” Jesus says, “Remove the wooden beam from your eye first. Then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.” Again, the point is similar to the one he had made earlier with the blind person. The disciple begins with himself or herself. If we want to follow Jesus, then our time should be spent on forming and conforming our lives to his own, not in pointing out the flaws and failures in other people’s lives.
It is not so much that we turn a blind eye to other people’s faults. As a rule of thumb, they’re fairly obvious to anyone who looks. The problem is that our time should be spent looking at our own faults, which by some trick of the mind never appear as obvious to us. It’s an ugly trait of us humans, how easily we can point out other people’s moral shortcomings, and how effortlessly we fail to see the shortcomings in our own lives.
Again, we have no business telling other people how messy their houses are when our own homes could benefit from a thorough cleaning. The true follower of Jesus does not concern him or herself with the untidiness in other people’s lives. They accept the fact that there is plenty of dirty laundry in the hampers in their own homes. They may have to lift the lid or look in the closets or corners of the bedroom, but it’s there. We’re all works in progress, which means we need to be working on ourselves, not on other people’s lives. “Stay in your own lane,” to use another popular image.
The third image that we find in the selection today is that of a tree. Rabbi Jesus says, “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit.” While the image is somewhat different from the other two he has used, it still looks to the same end. The one who follows Jesus sincerely and faithfully will prove it by his or her deeds. It is another way of saying actions speak louder than words. A disciple is defined by good deeds, not by bold proclamations or self-righteous assertions. He or she doesn’t need to tell others how good they are. Their actions speak for themselves. So, if we’re fully committed to being a follower of Jesus, then it will be clear by what we do, not by what we say.
That moves us to the final image that Jesus uses in training the would-be followers who stand before him. He talks about the heart. “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil, for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”
In many ways, it is the perfect coda to the instructions to the class that Jesus is offering in the Sermon on the Plain. Here he is talking about a person’s character or core of being. For the disciple, character is foundational, meaning it is the fundamental and first thing that defines the follower of Jesus. Everything else follows. Or, as Jesus says, a person with good character does good things. A person with bad character does bad things.
In other words, character defines a person. It is the engine that drives the person in one direction or in another direction. The choices we make, the actions we take, the roads we travel are all determined by our character. Hence, ensuring we have a good character is essential to our formation as a follower of Jesus. Bad characters don’t make good disciples and they give a bad name to Christianity.
So, how do we form a good character and avoid a bad character? Everything Jesus has said up to this point shows us the way. It begins with the clear-eyed intention to “be like our teacher,” that is, like Jesus. If we keep that objective before us always, then we are going to do as he did. We will avoid self-righteousness, simply another word for blindness about oneself; we will not rush to judge others, knowing we have no room to judge; and we will strive to do good with our lives, understanding that a tree is known by its fruit.
As most everybody knows, building good character is a lifelong chore and challenge. For the disciple, it requires a daily commitment to the ways of Jesus, renewed each morning as the sun rises, a commitment borne out in compassion, generosity, and self-sacrifice. We stay at the task, even though it is difficult, definitely different, and our success rate is disappointing on most days.
The brutal truth is that we will never be fully trained or like our teacher, an impossible standard that Jesus puts before us today. But we can get close and closer with each passing day, so long as we remain committed to the cause. For the faithful followers of Jesus, failure is not an option. Our world has enough examples of failures to live as Jesus lived. We don’t want to add to it.
In one of Nathaniel Hawthrone’s short stories called “The Great Stone Face,” he tells of a young boy named Ernest who grows up in the shadow of a great mountain. Living in the valley beneath the mountain, he looks up each day at a rock formation that resembles very much a human face. A prophecy in the village maintained that one day a child would be born who would become “the greatest and noblest of persons,” his face resembling that of the Great Stone Face on the mountain.
Gazing at the mountain every single day, Ernest becomes a friend to the Great Stone Face and grows into a mild, quiet, and intelligent young man. Others outside the village hear of the prophecy and come to town, claiming to be the one prophesied. They are inflated with their own self-importance and want for public acclaim. One is a rich man, another an army general, another a politician. But none resembles the Great Stone Face.
The people are disappointed that the prophecy seems destined to fail. Over the years, Ernest has grown into an old man and now spends his days as a humble lay preacher. One evening, asked by the people to provide the villagers with an impromptu sunset sermon beneath the mountain, Ernest delivers his remarks with his usual humility and grace, the image of the Great Stone Face high above him.
At one point, someone in the crowd, looking at the genuineness and goodness on Ernest’s face, shouts, “Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face!” The crowd looked and saw that it was true. But Ernest, having finished what he had to say, walked slowly homeward, still believing that someone wiser and better than he himself would appear who bears resemblance to the Great Stone Face.
Of course, Hawthorne makes it clear to the reader that Ernest is the one prophesied, his friendship with the Great Stone Face having been built over the many years by his always looking at its face, has resulted in his becoming “like his teacher.” It is easy to see the moral of the story. And it also tells us what we are to do if we want to become like Jesus. We keep our eye on him every day, learning every inch of his face, taking to heart the lessons that we find there, and one day we also may bear his image upon our own. We will not be superior to him, but we will have become fully trained in his ways.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 