Today's Gospel

 

The mote and the beam.

Luke 6:41-45

41 Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?

42 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.

43 “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.

44 For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.

45 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.”

Today’s gospel reading, from Luke, illuminates familiar passages in Matthew,

First, we have the passage best known in Matthew for the often quoted phrase “judge not, lest ye be judged.”

But here only the words that follow appear: about removing the beam from your own eye before removing the splinter from your brother’s.

This makes it clear that the command is not to judge as such. That was not the message, but rather not to judge others by a harsher standard than you judge yourself—it is against hypocrisy, not against making moral judgements, including of others’ actions.

“Judge not, lest ye be judged” is a phrase conveniently ripped out of context by the wicked to protect themselves from criticism.

The reference to the tree and its fruit—“by their fruits ye shall know them”—here is clarified; it refers not to moral deeds, but to speech. 

What counts as evil speech? 

Not necessarily evil counsel, for that would not be easily evident. Not lies, for the same reason. Not things that are intentionally evil—the tree does not deliberate over its fruit, and this coming from the heart implies something the evil person cannot hide with any cunning.

I suggest that “evil speech” means ugly speech; that this is an aesthetic judgement. It is speech that “tastes” bad, as a fruit can taste bad or look ugly. Someone who can speak beautifully is a good person; someone who cannot is a bad person.

And for “speech” here, read the arts broadly. “The arts” was not a concept available to Jesus or his listeners in the New Testament. But, as among Arabs today, the essential art among the ancient Jews was the art of fine speech.