Remove The Timber

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.” (Luke 6:39-42)

Once again, Jesus targets hypocrisy with a splendid comparison – the splinter versus the wooden beam.  We all have wooden beams in our eyes, and we must recognize how those beams cloud our vision.  They do a lot of damage and send poor signals to our brains.  In fact, our color vision can be reduced to black and white indicative of racism and racist behavior.   We don’t recognize the beauty in our neighbor lying beneath their skins given color by red and blue blood traversing through all of us regardless of nationality and heritage.

The author Paulo Coelho has said: “The eyes are the mirror of the soul and reflect everything that seems to be hidden; and like a mirror, they also reflect the person looking into them.” Splinters and beams block or destroy eye color, and the soul is hidden.  There are no reflections.  They become dead, wooden eyes.  

We all need bright eyes to reflect Jesus’ image.  Time to remove the timber.

Deacon David Pierce