The speck, the log or the beam

EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME | 2 MARCH 2025 LUKE 6:39-45

The arresting, almost Monty Pythonesque ‘parable’ in today’s gospel of the speck and the log (more familiarly a ‘mote’ and a ‘beam’ in the Douay-Rheims and Authorised Version) follows on from what was said in last week’s gospel about judgment: “Do not judge, and you yourselves will not be judged; do not condemn, and you yourselves will not be condemned; grant pardon, and you will be pardoned.” In this week’s gospel, that proclivity for condemning others is traced to its origin in hypocrisy, one of the very few things against which Jesus consistently rails in the gospels.

The best-known illustration of this universal vice is the account in John’s gospel of the woman taken in adultery. In an exquisitely poised paradox, Jesus suggests that, objectively, only the sinless could ever be in a position to censure the sins of others. But precisely because they are without sin, the sinless are the last to ‘cast the first stone’. Jesus himself exemplifies the reaction of the truly sinless: rather than condemning the woman, he helps her to leave her sin behind.

The word ‘hypocrisy’ comes from the Greek for ‘speaking from under or behind’, originally referring to actors who in Greek theatre spoke from behind a mask, which both designated their character in the play and enabled them to project their voice.

The word’s extension is apt: hypocrisy involves acting as if, or better pretending, that we are somehow superior and therefore in a position to lecture or at least find fault with others. What hypocrisy seeks to conceal is, of course, the very opposite: the hypocritical are usually even more debilitated by their flaws and failings than most, but are either in denial or afraid to be known as they really are. Frequently, hypocrisy focusses on the faults from which we ourselves suffer, but instead of a bracing bout of self-criticism, we indulge in the much less arduous exercise of criticising others for the very same faults.

When we are tempted to engage in such criticism or indulge in what St Thomas More called ‘the poison dart of murmuring’, we should jot down the precise nature of the faults we dislike/deplore/despise in others. Almost unfailingly, the picture that emerges will be a familiar one: it will be a portrait of ourselves. The truth is that most of us have far too many failings of our own to deal with, without intrusively peering into the souls of others, often under the guise of offering ‘help’.

The stark reminder in this gospel of our proneness to hypocrisy concludes this series of extracts from Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, which parallels Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. Both were regarded by our ancient and medieval forbears as the quintessential statement of Christian moral teaching. Only in the early modern period did they come to be understood as counsels of perfection or, as Martin Luther saw them, an impossible ideal.

That side-lining of the beatitudes was allied to the by then already well-entrenched view that morality is essentially a question of laws, rules, duties, obligations and, above all, obedience. In the light of that distorted understanding of morality, the Sermon on the Mount/Plain makes little sense as a moral charter.

Read, however, in the light of a more ancient and traditional understanding of morality, namely, as the quest for happiness, flourishing and authenticity, secured in virtue, the Beatitudes present us with the very core of a distinctively Christian moral outlook, which has nothing whatever to do with cramping legalism or fear-fuelled scrupulosity, or even polite respectability. In the Beatitudes, the world of worthiness, fair-play, decency, and measured giving, gives way to a topsy-turvy world of unpredictable and un-calculating generosity, life lived with trusting abandon, with a confidence and security that exceed anything wealth or reputation could ever afford us.

Underlying the Beatitudes is the moral imperative of integrity and authenticity, specified by reference to the heart, understood not as the locus of sentiment or romance, but as the seat of our true selves, created by God in his own image and likeness.In this sense, the heart is where all the most important battles in life are won or lost. “For”, as Jesus in this gospel says, “a person’s words and deeds flow out from what fills the heart.”

The Sermon on the Mount/Plain turns the world not so much inside out as ‘outside in’. It directs our attention away from a law imposed from outside of ourselves, towards a ‘law’ arising from within, from both the God-given, God-crafted gift of reason, and God’s gift of Himself, the Spirit at work within us, the work of grace.

Jesus says explicitly: “I give you a new law, love one another as I have loved you.” Using the word ‘law’ analogically, as Jesus himself does, St Thomas Aquinas comments: “The New Law consists chiefly in the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is shown forth by faith working through love.” And, “The Old Law was a written law to be obeyed, whether out of fear or for reward”, whereas the New Law “is instilled in our hearts…and is called the Law of Love.”