DYNAMIS!
A publication of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral
Wichita, KS
Saturday, July 2, 2005
Deposition of the Robe of the Theotokos in Blachernae
Kellia: Deuteronomy
29:2, 9-21 Epistle: Romans 3:19-26 Gospel: St. Matthew 7:1-8
Moral Evaluation: St. Matthew 7:1-8, especially vs. 5: “Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye,
and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” We are continually
forced to make “judgment calls” about people, ideas, proposals, offers, and
invitations. Most all of our choices
involve a degree of moral evaluation.
That is, they force us to decide between what is good and what is bad,
what pleases God and what does not.
Often, decisions place our relationships and personal integrity “on the
line.” Thus, we learn to gather facts,
research implications, pray for guidance, and examine our own hearts.
In the present reading from St.
Matthew, we return to the Sermon on the Mount, to a passage in which the Lord
Jesus provides a guideline for addressing all moral evaluations (vss. 1-2), the
necessary state of life we must have before making choices (vss. 3-5), God’s
standard for facing obvious wrong (vs. 6), and an admonition to pray when
confronted with choices (vss. 7-8).
The Lord’s guide for all moral
evaluations is not to usurp His place as Judge. The dread Judgment Seat of all men belongs only to the Lord Jesus
(Acts 10:42). Who are we in any case to
judge, as the Prophet David reminds us: in God’s sight “shall no man living be
justified” (Ps.142:2 LXX)? There is
much in every man’s heart that is unknown, both good and bad; but God knows the
hearts of all men (Jer.11:20).
“Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, Who both
will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the
counsels of the hearts” (1 Cor. 4:5).
Judging will be avoided when we remember that we ourselves are sinners
and are apt to judge falsely, pridefully, or rudely. The Lord vehemently directs us away from judging others, that we
presume not against Him - a much greater sin.
Before we make an ethical evaluation
- and we must make moral decisions every day - let us heed the Lord’s
admonition: “remove the plank from your own eye” (Mt. 7:5). This is the disciple’s way, the essential
state of life for all Christians to embrace before making day-to-day
choices. Notice, the Lord Jesus focuses
attention on the eye, on the way we see others, on our moral perception. Observe that He urges us to invest our
primary energy in this life in the correction of our own faulty powers of
discrimination. He knows perfectly well
that we have to make evaluations.
Hence, if our lives are devoted to Him, we are to attend, above all, to
purifying the eyes of our own hearts rather than taking moral inventories of
other people.
Does this “necessary state of life”
required of all Christians, this focus on our own faults, imply that we may
ignore wrong doing, or blithely pass over evil? When the Lord says, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Mt.
7:1), does He mean we are to live as if sin is not in the world? We cannot avoid meeting reprobate, godless,
and immoral people. Even fellow
Christians fall into sin. Hence, St.
John urges that we “try the spirits whether they are of God” (1 Jn. 4:1).
Of course not all attitudes, choices
and people are “of God.” Therefore, let
us not accept relativist morality.
There is right and wrong. This
is why the Lord directs us not to give “what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your
pearls before swine” (Mt. 7:6), and why St. Paul warns us that “many walk, of
whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the
enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction, whose god is their
belly, and whose glory is in their shame” (Phil. 3:18,19). May the Holy Spirit guide us “into all
truth” (Jn.16:13)! Finally, the Lord teaches us how to
make the decisions involving right and wrong: pray incessantly and knock at
heaven’s door until all is made clear (Mt. 7:7,8). God will help us.
O
Christ our God, Thou dost guide the meek and give light to Thy People: grant us
the grace of Thy Holy Spirit that we may be saved from all false choices and in
Thy Light see light.