“SPECKS AND PLANKS”
Saint Luke 6. 36-42
The Fourth Sunday after Trinity: 1 July Anno Domini 2007
Fr Watson
Be merciful. But you are not. You are vengeful and you keep score. You say you forgive but you don�t cast sins against you into the deep, you remember like an Elephant from the Sanhedrin.
You may show some level of benevolence to your own loved ones; to those friends of yours who agree with your way of doing things; with your Pastor until he steps on your desires; but Christ simply says �Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.� The Lord is merciful to the miserable; to the lowly and despised; to the unlovable, mean, nasty, vindictive, dirty, hurtful kinds of people that you don�t like; that you would much rather make sure get �what�s coming to them.�
Jesus says that your neighbor is simply everyone you come into contact with. The ones you are to be merciful towards are the �sons and daughters of Adam,� your fellow �mud men.� But you�re not.
Judge not and condemn not speaks the Word.
Now this does not mean that you cannot discipline and punish your children. This is not an excuse for bosses, managers, employers and others in authority to shirk their responsibilities in constructive criticism as well as in reprimands and even firings. And most assuredly this does not mean Pastors cannot exhort, reprove and chastise with the Word of Law sinful men and women. A Pastor exercising the Key of Binding is not what the Lord�s Word prohibit.
Jesus isn�t talking to ecclesiastical or worldly authorities in Saint Luke�s Gospel this morning, He is talking to you.
Love your neighbor as yourself. You could do this by forgiving your neighbor when he or she wrongs you. You are merciful when instead of punishing, seeking a �pound of flesh,� and having it �your way,� you remit and lose your neighbor of his burden.
You are no longer blind dear ones. You now see by the light of He Who is the Light of the World and a lamp unto your feet. You had the cataracts of trespasses cut off your infant eyes at the Holy Font. You are led by the Spirit to where Christ has located His light for you�here, at His Preaching of Peace and His Supper of Salvation.
It isn�t so much your neighbor with a �speck� in his eye compared to you with a plank in your own, as it is all sinners having huge beams of wood stuck in their eyes. Your neighbor, as he interacts with Christ has a huge plank in his eye too. But you are not damned because your neighbor is not good to you; you are condemned because you are not good� period. No, there is no one who does good, no not one.
But be at ease this morning beloved; take assurance that not only do you see again but you are freed from that large imposing beam which would otherwise not only block your vision, but penetrate all the way into your head, your brain, mind, heart and soul and impale you like sinful snake on the end of a gaffe. You see, sin isn�t just a piece of inanimate cellulose which gets in the way, rather the �Old Adam� in you, which daily slithers around seeking what diabolical mischief it can reap, is like a serpent crawling in and out of your eye sockets, blinding you to the Word, the Light, the Life of Christ. The reason you fear not and tremble no more, is that Jesus is the actor, the rescuer, and the snake hunter. The Carpenter�s Son knows a thing or two about planks, beams, and yes, snakes. This eternal carpenter not only constructed the cosmos He cobbled you together. This master-craftsman of the First Article is also the Repairman of Righteousness for He totally restored your burnt-out ghetto, your trailer-park torso of trash by the greatest renovation of all.
Jesus took the beams and planks out of your head, out of your eye-sockets, and let them be used to beat Him bloody; let them be used to hoist Him up on the �petard� of your sin.
You need never look to yourself to get that nasty sin-splinter out of your pupil; that glass shard of trespass out of your cornea. Jesus gives you back your sight as surely as He did to the Blind Man at Jericho. You need never look to yourself to be the perfect neighbor, loving all the undesirables, and all the ones who hurt you and abuse you. Jesus loves in truth and purity. Jesus born of woman, laid in a wooden crèche, crucified on wood, is the Good Samaritan who rescues all victims of sinful violence and degradation. You need never look to your own actions, works, or even your own faith, to make things right with God; to pay back for all the times you pretended the beam was not in your eye. Jesus is the remover of planks, beams, specks, and sin.
His eye surgery on you is now complete.
The snake is crushed. The slithering one has no more freedom to make its home in your skull because Satan had his own head crushed�crushed on the top of �Kraniou,� i.e. �Calvaria,�Calvary, Golgotha�the place of the skull. You will never have the permanent skeletal head of an eternal cadaver because you will rise again with the Resurrection of the Dead.
You will never be blind in hell because you have His light in your eyes. You reflect by faith the very light of He Who is God of God, Light of Light, and the Transfigured One. Christ gives you the Life of the World to Come. And even now He gives you today Body and Blood; forgiveness and peace.
In the Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost