Seeing Clearly

Warren E. Berkley

Have you ever had eye surgery? Did you exercise any discrimination in selecting the surgeon? I’m sure you wanted a surgeon with good vision.

For those who have not experienced this kind of surgery, consider: Suppose you have something in your eye, requiring a surgical procedure to remove it; a little speck or a painful foreign substance lodged in your eye that requires surgical removal.

You are in the treatment room, ready to undergo this procedure, and you hear someone fall just outside the door. A moment later, a man stumbles into the room, holding to the wall to find his way. You suddenly discover, the doctor getting ready to operate on your eye is visually impaired. He is blind! He holds the wall, stumbled over things and cannot find you or his instruments. OK, do you want to go through with the surgery?

This is the very thing Jesus said, in His condemnation of hypocritical judging. “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the peck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck out of your eye’; and look, a plank is in your eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye,” (Matt. 7:1-5).

You cannot see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye, when you have a plank in your eye. Blind eye surgeons – what a thought!