—Jesus, Matthew 7.1-5 KWL
Jesus teaches us this because the most usual ways to fake goodness is with misdirection: We preach goodness. We point to other people’s evil. And we ignore, or hide, our own.
Usually this passage is translated, “Don’t judge,” and that’s another legitimate way to interpret mi krínete. But judging is a concept which can be positive or negative: We can decide something is good, or better, or preferable. Criticism, even when it’s meant to be constructive, is always negative: We’ve said something is bad or wrong, and needs fixing. Or destroying. And Jesus’s teaching emphasizes this negative aspect. Don’t judge something to be wrong—because those who do it, in order to justify themselves, will immediately turn round and criticize us right back. And how well can we stand up to it?
Not very well, usually. I don’t. I’m a sinner, same as you. I can nitpick your flaws, but I have plenty of my own flaws. And as Jesus teaches, I need to concentrate on my own flaws way before I can help another person with theirs. I need to stop hiding them, stop pretending to be an expert, and work on my own sin.
But it’s far easier to just hide my own sin, and be a hypocrite. Which is why we Christians tend to do exactly that.
Speaking out against evil.
Yes, there’s actual evil in the world. Yes, we Christians need to speak out against evil.
We need to do this for the sake of the victims of evil. Remember them? Yeah, we Christians tend not to talk about them very much. We only harp on the evil. Fr’instance, Christians complain about drug use in our communities, yet never bother to help the addicts, or never confess our own terrible experiences with drugs or the drug culture; we think our anti-drug slogans and lectures are “help.” Christians complain about teenage sexual activity, yet never bother to interact with the teens as positive role models; we just ban the practice, ban the prophylactic measures, and are stunned when we find out kids are having sex anyway, and catching STDs or making babies. Christians fret about abortion, yet never do a thing to provide or fund abortion alternatives or aid impoverished single mothers—and again offer lectures instead of help.
Humans regularly offer advice, not help. ’Cause talk is cheap. Loving our neighbors is hard. It takes time. It takes money. And we don’t care about ’em that much. Far easier to stand on a soapbox, preach against the evils of the world, condemn people for going astray, and never lead. But as I said, it’s the usual way Christians practice fake goodness. We talk about goodness. We don’t practice it. Or when we do, we don’t take sinners in hand and demonstrate it. (Or when we do, we don’t demonstrate it lovingly and kindly. We preach and judge and condemn throughout.) The reason Christians have such a widespread and rotten reputation as “holier than thou” is entirely because of how rampant this problem is.
Thanks to this well-deserved reputation, our preaching against sin does not work. Oh, we’d love to think it does. We point to the occasional success stories of one little church having an impact in their community. We totally miss the fact that these churches have an effect because their people act among their neighbors, instead of only speaking out. We try to give impact-making speeches, have no impact, and blame that on the devil, or on the rampant apathy and evil in our culture, or on one of many scapegoats. We dismiss our own hypocrisy ’cause we think the Holy Spirit should work in spite of it. And while he can work in spite of our hypocrisy, most of the time he won’t: If he did, it’d look like he endorses our evil, and it’d give Jesus no glory. And the Spirit is all about bringing glory to Jesus.
Yes, we need to speak out against evil. But even more important: We need to be rid of our own evil. Our talk might mean a few people will repent, but our repentance means, by definition, people are repenting: Instead of possible repentance, we have actual repentance. Instead of what could happen, something is happening. And its chances of growth are exponentially greater.
So we need to stop fighting evil solely with words, and do it by practicing love—and by publicly fighting our own sins.
Don’t hide the beam.
I, like every Christian, have a metaphorical support beam in my eye. Hiding it, or pretending it’s not there, or disguising it as other things, is not gonna develop the Spirit’s fruit of goodness. It’s just gonna convince non-Christians—who know Christians are supposed to be and do good—that I’m just another self-righteous Christian hypocrite. It’s gonna give them a valid excuse to ignore me, because nobody should trust hypocrites.
Hence I’ve gotta get the beam out. But more than that: I have to visibly get the beam out. My sins are obvious to other people anyway. It does me no good to pretend otherwise. So I may as well admit them… then show everyone how I fight ’em.
That’s not easy for a lot of Christians. For that matter, it’s not easy for a lot of humans. Because we’re proud. We wrongly think admitting our sins will undermine our testimony—that people will be less likely to listen when we admit we’re flawed people. We forget human nature: People love to hear about other people’s flaws. (It’s the entire basis of the gossip industry.) And while they’re busy listening to us confess all, they’re still paying attention to us when we give God the credit for why we’ve decided to change, and how we’ll be empowered to change. Oh, they’ll be ready to jump all over us when we screw up again—but they won’t think we’re jerks when we admit, “Yeah, I’m a flawed person, but I’m trying to do better,” and try again.
In contrast, they do think we’re jerks when we admit no such thing. I’ve met plenty of jerkish Christians who love to quote the old line, “Christians aren’t perfect; just forgiven.” Meaning it’s okay for them to lie to me, swindle me, ignore me when I’m in pain, treat me like dirt, or knee me in the groin: God forgives them every time they crap all over me. They feel forgiven, and rejoice in their right standing with God, and feel great about themselves… even though to me, and the rest of the world, they’re savage, unfeeling animals. I’ve been that sort of jerkish Christian. Worse, I couldn’t even use the excuse that I was a pagan jerk turned Christian jerk: I’d always been a Christian jerk. But as I’ve said, pagans know better: They know Jesus never told us it was okay to be jerks.
So I need to publicly, humiliatingly, demonstrably ask forgiveness of those I’ve hurt. I need to change my ways. Not secretly, not quietly, not subtly. Not by proclaiming, “I’m forgiven,” and figure that means I don’t need to ask their forgiveness any. I need to repent, and they need to see my repentance. Yeah, they might initially figure it’s all an act—just as they figure whenever some politician or celebrity gets religion, goes to rehab, does some community service, or some other act of penance. But if I keep it up, they’ll know it’s real. They’ll know it’s fruit. They’ll know something changed my life. And they’ll listen when I point to Jesus.
Whereas if I speak out against sin, beam firmly and visibly in place, unrepentant yet still claiming my own forgiveness, my words are gonna fall on deaf ears. And they should. Again, nobody should trust a hypocrite.