"Fault-Finding 101"

A high-powered evangelist once went to a small town in Alabama to conduct a tent revival. After checking into the luxurious Four Winds Motel and Bait Shop, he walks down to the coffee shop and sits down next to one of the most forlorn looking people he's ever seen.

The reverend was the type of person who in his own estimation can judge people by their facial expressions, and within five seconds had his counter mate pegged. He puts down his coffee cup, looks the fellow straight in the eye and asks, "Are you saved?"

The man replies, "Nope. I got saved in the big tent meeting last year. I think about eighty-seven of us was saved in that meeting last year, but I ain't saved no more."

The man rises from his stool and walks sadly away. After finishing his coffee, the evangelist is approached by a lady who overheard their conversation. She informs the preacher that the sadsack to whom he just witnessed is none other than Carl, the town drunk. "Carl's got a reputation for getting saved every meeting. He'll be all serious for a few weeks, get cleaned up, go to church and stay away from the bars. But because he's nothing but a lowdown good-for nothing drunk, we all know it won't take too long for ol' Carl to resume his boozing ways."

The first night of the revival finds Carl sitting on the back row. At the service's conclusion, when the evangelist invites those in the tent to come forward, to repent and to make a public confession of faith, Carl stays in his seat. This scenario is repeated through the fifth night. People are coming forward in droves, but not old Carl.

Finally, the last night of the meeting, the evangelist preaches about the River of Life, of having the assurance of going to a place where one never hungers nor thirsts. And when the altar call comes, the preacher is exhorting everyone in the tent to pray, "Lord, fill me up! Lord, fill me up!"

At that, old Carl can't stand it. He gets up out of his seat, runs up to the altar, gets down on his knees and begins yelling at the top of his lungs, "Lord, fill me up! Lord, fill me up!" To which the coffeeshop lady in the front row yells out, "Don't do it, Lord: He leaks!"

I have always been fascinated by people who can gather all the facts, hear all the arguments, consider all the evidence, render a verdict, and then pass sentence on another human being. I'm not referring to the men and women who don black robes and answer to the title, "Your Honor." No, I allude to those who are judge, jury and often jailer toward other people. The kind of people who can see someone else far across the room and are able, without hearing them say as much as a single word, to find fault with them.

In this morning's text, Jesus says three things right in a row. First, "Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?" Second, "A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher." Third, "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?"

In a way, these three statements or questions seem a little disjointed. He first refers to a blind person, then a teacher, then a neighbor. But there is a connection, a logical pattern to what Jesus is saying here, and it has to do with standards. A pastor friend once told me that in all the years of his ministry, he found these passages to be some of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible, because too many people believe it to means we shouldn't hold others up to any standards.

To me, the key word in understanding these four verses is a term that's not even in the text: the word discern. In the scriptures, ten words are translated into the word discern. Six of them are in Hebrew; four of them are in Greek. All ten refer in some way in using the senses in order to assess people, places and things.

The first word we want to look at, and I literally mean LOOK at, is the Hebrew word yada. In Hebrew class in seminary, Dr. Jackson was always giving us hints on how to remember Hebraic words, and this is one I remember. It's like the exclamation one makes after finding something for which you've been looking. One of the more common ways of saying, "I found it," is by singing, "ta-da." "In the future when you find something," Dr. Jackson told us, "don't sing 'ta-da' but rather "ya-da."

Yada means, literally, to ascertain by seeing. It means that you use your sense of sight in order to come to a decision about something. And for every human being with the ability to see, this is probably the most common means of discernment. I can discern by looking at this stained glass over here that its colors are gold, purple, white and maroon. At least that's the way that I see it.

What's the trouble with yada? What is the fundamental flaw with yada? Well, I stated that the colors are gold, purple, white and maroon. What if you don't see it that way? One of the most vehement arguments Jeanette and I ever had was whether the color of the living room in our apartment was white or brown. I said it was white, she said it was brown. We were looking at the same wall in the same apartment, but coming up with two conflicting discernments.

The trouble with discerning something by yada, by eyesight, is that even though you may have 20-20 vision, you can never see something in its totality because most of the time, all you can see is the surface of something.

The second word the Hebrew uses for discernment is the word shama, which means to hear intelligently. It means that you use your sense of hearing in order to come to a decision about something. One of the first things a Jewish child learns is what is called the shama, which is "Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is one." And for most people, that is how they gather most of their information, through hearing, through conversation. A person does not need to read, for example, the pledge of allegiance in order to recite the pledge of allegiance.

But what's the trouble with shama? What is the fundamental flaw with shama? The difficulty can best be illustrated this morning by that television commercial for Sprint Wireless. A football team needs a backup for O'Neal. What they get instead is The Captain and Tennille. So instead of a backup quarterback on the football field, the commercial shows The Captain and Tennille on the football field singing "Do That To Me One More Time." The trouble with hearing, and I can speak to this first hand, is that hearing involves discerning both vowels and consonants. A person who doesn't have 20-20 hearing may hear the vowels but not the consonants. It's like an old Jimi Hendrix song with the line, "Excuse me while I kiss the sky," and everyone thinks he's singing, "Excuse me while I kiss THIS GUY."

The third word we want to wrestle with is a Greek word called diakrino, which means to gather information subjectively or to apprehend spiritually. It's probably the trickiest one because it is the act of using ones feelings in assessing a person, place or thing. It means going on a hunch.

To discern with diakrino is that adage that even though you are seeing something with your eyes, what you are seeing just isn't right. Even though you are hearing something with your ears, what you are hearing just isn't right.

C.S. Lewis was a scholar, author and speaker. This was a man who had keen eyesight and hearing, yet his diakrino wasn't shabby either. He tells the story of having a speaking engagement in London. He had received a phone call requesting his services. This was shama. He wrote the engagement on his appointment book. This was yada. So when the day of the speaking engagement came, he was about ready to board the train when he began having the feeling that he was supposed to get a haircut. He fluffed it off, yet the feeling persisted. He had a speaking engagement and didn't need a haircut, but as the diakrino kept building in intensity, he cancelled his speaking engagement and promptly walked to the barbershop. As soon as he walked in the front door, the barber broke down in tears, exclaiming, "Oh, Dr. Lewis, I was PRAYING intensely that you would come. I have a problem that I think only you can help me with."

It's good to be subjective and to let your gut feelings have a little wind to their sails, but what is the fundamental flaw with diakrino? It's that we can't always trust our feelings. Feelings can certainly be wrong. How many times have you had a hunch about something that turned out to be totally off-base?

The fourth word we want to examine is the Hebrew word bin, not to be confused with my West Virginia nephew whom everybody down there calls "Be-in." Using bin to discern means to use ones rational and intellectual faculties in order to assess a person, place or situation.

Now, in order to rationally ascertain something, you have to use yada and shama in order to get there. In other words, you have to either see or hear, usually both, in order to gather information, and then you use your noggin in order to process it all.

But what's the inherent problem with bin? Well, the trouble with this comes with the seeing and the hearing. What if what you base your intellectual knowledge is faulty? What if your mind tells you that you saw Osama bin Laden at Tabaka's the other day when in fact it was Pastor Levi from the Bible Chapel, who now sports a beard? What if your hearing heard something that wasn't really factual?

So, here's what Jesus is saying. First, not all of us have 20-20 vision. And if you have low vision, you have no right to lead others with your limited powers of observation.

Secondly, not all of us have 20-20 hearing. Have you ever heard a deaf person speak? Most, but certainly not all, deaf people speak unclearly because they cannot hear what they are saying. That's what Jesus is saying about teacher and pupils. A teacher who teaches someone, who is instructing someone NOT to eat tapioca pudding, but then runs home right after lecture and gets into her tapioca pudding stash, is not practicing what she preaches. She says one thing, but the students, because of her hypocrisy, are hearing something totally different.

Thirdly, not all of us have the same level of rational prowess, and if you cannot discern things logically, you have no business leading others logically.

The point in all of this is when Jesus says, "And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye?"

Specks. Foreign bodies in the eye. Sometimes we all get these little things that float across the eyelid on which you can never completely get a clear focus. An ophthalmologist once told me the technical, medical term for these: "floaters." These mysterious things are nothing more than little specks of dirt that are caught on the eyelid. Floaters are so small and minuscule that no one else can see them but you, or a doctor peering into your eyes with magnifying equipment.

The word that Jesus is using here refers to a little speck of sawdust, a wooden floater. This sawdust flies in the eye because someone is cutting wood. According to Jesus, the lumberjack spewing sawdust is none other than someone who is discerning without having all the cylinders of sight, hearing, critical-rational and gut-feeling clicking in synch with each other.

That's what happens when the censorious lumberjack saws others down with heavy judgments, nitpickiness, faultfinding, harshness and meanness. Faulty discernment causes the sparks to fly, and sawdust goes airborne and lands on everyone.

Ironically, it's not the one with the floater who has the problem: it's the one cutting who has the bigger obstacle. The one cutting into somebody else is in the line of fire and inevitably the recipient of a big chunk of wood flying up and landing in the eye.

Here's the crux of the matter: in order to truly find fault with someone else, we have to have better than 20-20 vision. We have to have eyes that are like electronic microscopes. The last time I checked, no human being has eyesight like that.

In order to truly find fault with someone else, we have to have perfect hearing. The last time I checked, no human being has that good of hearing.

In order to find fault with someone else, we have to have perfect rationality and unflawed logic. The last time I checked, even the smartest geek in the world doesn't have all the knowledge that God has in His little pinkie.

And finally, in order to truly find fault with someone else, we have to be perfect with our gut feeling about things. The last time I checked, no one is subjectively correct 100% of the time.

To find fault with others, without seeing all the facts, hearing all the facts, knowing all the facts and feeling all the facts leads only to drilling holes in our souls. We leave a sawdust trail. We leak.

In the second century, a group of monks lived in the Egyptian desert. These men and women, called anchorites, lived very austerely and subjected themselves to an extremely high standard of conduct.

It is said that one of the younger monks was caught breaking the Sabbath: being leisurely on a Sunday. The other monks were incensed and immediately convened a trial in order to censure the young monk.

Sitting in a circle, each monk, after hearing the evidence, casts their votes to expel the offender from the community. Finally, the last monk to speak is the aged patriarch of the community, Abba Moses. After hearing the harsh words of his brethren, Abba Moses stands. With every eye fastened on him, Moses walks to his knapsack, pulls out an old clay pot, and fills it with water. As he holds high the pot, water begins pouring out, some from cracks, some from holes.

Abba Moses then says, "You are asking me to judge the heart of another when my own soul is filled with holes."

God grant us grace, in our dealings with one another, to be generous, to be wide in grace, and to be long in mercy. Perhaps then we won't leak.

© Rev. Duane Brown, 2004