Readings of the day: Sirach 27:4-7; Psalm 92:2-3, 14-15, 15-16; 1 Corinthians 15:54-58; Luke 6:39-45
Teaching two Bible courses as I am this semester here at St. Joseph’s College, I am realizing something more constantly and profoundly, but that I have known for as long as I can remember. I realize how much I appreciate the Bible not only as sacred, divinely-inspired text, but as works of literature. I appreciate the different literary genres and devices in the text: Works of poetry, prose or narrative; apocalyptic literature with its often fearsome and graphic symbolism; the use of irony, metaphor, and even hyperbole.
Yes, hyperbole: The writers of the Bible were not beyond using creative, literary exaggeration to make a point. Could we say that Jesus was not beyond hyperbole, either? We hear an example of it in today’s Gospel, from Luke. Jesus asks why his disciples who have a log in their eye do not notice the log in their eye, but readily notice “the speck in [their] neighbour’s eye.” Of course, Jesus means this, quite on purpose, to evoke the most ridiculous of images in his hearers’ minds: Somebody staggering about with a massive beam in their eye. First of all, by what kind of horrendous accident would somebody have taken a log beam through the eye? (I do not even want to think about this). Second, that person needs to be admitted to emergency immediately! Third, even the person hapless enough to have been stuck with a mere speck in the eye could experience a lot of pain.
Clearly, Jesus is exaggerating the size contrast between the speck and the log to make a point. And most if not all of us understand the point he is making: Sin can inhibit not so much our literal eyesight but the insight of our consciences into our own sinfulness and weakness, so that we become much less capable of discerning our own faults than we are at pointing out the faults of other people, even when they are less significant than our own.
I notice this as a university instructor and academic: I am much better at correcting even the fine details of somebody else’s writing than I am at correcting my own. I think to myself that, all those times in school when teachers would insist that we have somebody proofread our work for us, even if we thought we were good writers: My teachers were not kidding! When I write, I appreciate somebody who is adept at spotting all the specks (and the occasional log) in my written work. At the same time, I do not think most or any of us really appreciate the “speck-spotters” we encounter outside of maybe the academic setting; people who criticize others for every little fault, who are almost certainly not without fault themselves. But do we realize readily when we become the pedantic “speck-spotters”?
With the log and speck in the eye scenario, Jesus uses analogy and hyperbole to make a point that is very relatable to our everyday lives; to our experience as Jesus’ disciples. And Jesus introduces the log-and-speck saying with another parable, which also includes an element of hyperbole. He asks, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into the pit? Like the log-and-speck analogy, the proverb of the blind person guiding another blind person plants a ridiculous image in our minds. “Can a blind person guide a blind person”? Jesus’ question is purposely designed to draw from us a decisive answer: “No, of course not”!
That is, we lean decisively toward answering “no” to whether a blind person can guide a blind person, until we change our perspective on this little hyperbolic proverb; until we think about it from the perspective of a blind person. Mary McGlone, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Louis who writes for the National Catholic Reporter in the U.S., asks whether another blind person might, in some situations, in fact be the best possible guide or teacher for a blind person. Somebody who is blind, says Sr. Mary McGlone, may in fact “be the best teacher of the blind”; the one who best understands “the challenges blind people have to overcome… A sighted teacher might talk about a white cane; the non-sighted teacher realizes that the learner [if the learner has never been able to see] has no concept of whiteness” or colour.
Today’s Gospel parables (or, really, proverbs that use hyperbole for effect), part of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, are all about changing our perspective. They are a good preparation for Lent, which, by the way, begins this upcoming Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. In Lent, we speak of changing our perspective; changing our minds (which is the literal meaning of the Greek word metanoia that our Gospels use for “repentance”). And today’s Gospel reading gives us an opportunity, sisters and brothers, to practice this change of perspective; this change of mind and heart; this repentance to believe in and live the Good News that is essential to Christian discipleship.
Jesus invites us to change our perspective; our minds and our hearts; to repent. Even if we have not sinned (at least since our last confession); even if we are not blind: Think the word of God; interpret it; live it from the perspective of the blind person; from the perspective of the sinner. This is the only way to be a true, authentic disciple of Jesus and not a hypocrite.
Incidentally, the word “hypocrite,” one of Jesus’ most frequent reproofs in the Gospels, evokes somebody playing a part, pretending to be somebody or something that person is not; literally-speaking, one under a mask, as an actor in theatre in Jesus’ time. A hypocrite is somebody consumed by playing a part that is not them; that is not authentic. A hypocrite plays the part of one without sin; pretends that he or she is not a sinner. A hypocrite is unable (or unwilling) to interpret; to live; to be a disciple of Jesus and a person of God from the perspective of the blind; the weak; the sinner. A hypocrite becomes unwilling to change one’s perspective, one’s heart and mind, in the way Jesus asks of us.
Hypocrisy, if we think about it in this way, is a serious sin, if only because Jesus himself, although he never sinned, is the model for us of shifting perspective. Jesus became human, one like us in all things but sin. In so doing, Jesus saw the world from our perspective, the point of view of us sinners; the blind; the weak; the perspective ultimately of looking upon us and the world from the cross. Jesus is the model for us of metanoia, even though he never committed any sin.
And we celebrate this every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist. Every Mass, we begin our Eucharistic celebration by changing our perspective. We begin every Mass not by looking for the specks in the eyes of our neighbour while ignoring any potential logs in ours, but by praying, “I confess to almighty God… Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” We pray for God’s mercy even if we are guilty of no sin, even if we have just been to confession minutes before Mass.
Why? We begin our Eucharistic celebration this way because none of this is about our sin. None of this is about us at all. All of it is about God, in Jesus Christ, having chosen freely to live from our perspective, that of our human nature weakened; blinded by sin, so that we might change our perspective to be more like that of God. That perspective of God is not one that seeks the faults of others to condemn them, but one that has mercy on our faults and seeks what is good in us, so that we might be saved.
Maybe paradoxically, we change our perspective to be more from God’s point of view of loving mercy toward us by changing our perspective to empathize more with one another and our weaknesses; our blindness; our susceptibility to sin. Sometimes the best teacher of the blind is another blind person! But how do we do this? In one word: Listen.
The Book of Sirach, from which we hear today, invites us to listen before we speak. To speak without listening first; without searching, as well as we are able, for good will in the other person first, is to reveal too soon where we lack wisdom. It is to reveal our faults; our sins. It is to reveal our uncanny ability to correct the work of others much better than we are able to correct our own. It is to reveal the ridiculousness of the logs in our own eyes while we spot the specks in the eyes of our sisters and brothers. It is to reveal our hypocrisy.
Instead, the word of God urges us—starting with me, first and foremost—to listen, to empathize, to discern good will in our sister; our brother, to change our minds and hearts (to repent!) before trying to change another person. This is authentic faith. This is wisdom. This is the way of the Good News of Jesus Christ that we celebrate and try to live, here and now.
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