“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye?” Matthew 7:3

Rev. Clevis O. Laverty

This brings us back to that grand old custom of picking someone else apart while we are in the process of adjusting our own halo. Sometimes it slips a little.

It is a sort of transfer, it transfers a man's thoughts away from himself. While he is busy looking at his neighbor's faults, he can avoid looking at his own more serious failures. Those who fail the worst seem to find the most fault with others. It also interferes with our efficiency as a working Christian unit. Jesus was the world's greatest efficiency expert. This I will come back to a little later. I just want you to be thinking in terms of efficiency as we go along.

Of course, it seems to be rather common knowledge that the Bible prohibits mote picking. Isn't that so? But the Bible doesn't prohibit mote picking. In fact, it rather commends it. The Bible commands us to reprove, rebuke and in the Levitical law are the words: “Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him.” The Bible even states that if we fail to warn sinners, then their blood will be upon us. The very heart and essence of the Gospel tells us to go to the lost, and remind them of their sins as well as tell them of the wonders of good clean living.

Ah, sounds like the preacher has had a rough week; he's talking in circles again. First he tells us mote picking is bad, and then he tells us it is good, and then has the nerve to prove it with the Bible in both instances. That's what I did.

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye?” Sounds like it forbids us to do the same, doesn't it? However, I didn't stop at the period but at the comma, took it out of context as it were.

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the log that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the log of thine own eye; and then thou shalt see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother's eye.”

When we read all of the instructions, we find that we have to be equipped in order to follow Jesus' orders to minister and preach the gospel to the sinner. The command of Jesus was not against mote picking but the failure to equip ourselves to do the picking.

The Pharisees provided the instance: they bleated and carped at “lesser breeds” who failed in some splinter of the law while they were guilty of a whole tree full of pride and inhumanity.

Take a look at some of our big rapacious corporations who not only do not recognize their own moral crimes but rub their hands together in self satisfaction when by some legal trickery, they have pulled a fast one on some small company and wiped it out. They wouldn't hesitate to fire and pass judgment on a man for helping himself to six bits out of the stamp drawer.

The work of Jesus is not merely to spread the gospel around, to take his teaching into our jobs with us, but that we should undergo moral preparation that will enable us to do these things in His light and do them efficiently. The team that is prepared is the one that is efficient.

Let me tell you a true story of a preacher and a church who were too busy seeing the splinter in each other's eye and neither of whom had bothered to prepare themselves by self-examination so that they could be an efficient team working for the Kingdom.

This Methodist preacher had asked his district superintendent for a change of parish: These people were impossible; they were humanity at its worst; there wasn't one decent soul that was within any reasonable distance of being saved. The people. They too went to the district superintendent and requested in strong terms that they have a new minister: the one they had was no good; he couldn't preach; he couldn't lead them; in fact, he was just a plain disciple of the devil. So the district superintendent agreed that at the next annual conference they would surely have a new preacher, and he also assured the minister that he would have a new parish. The Sunday before Annual Conference, he preached his last sermon, and he laid it on. He just cleaned himself out of everything that was bothering him. He went up one side and down the other telling the congregation just what he though of it in no uncertain terms. When he finished the seats were all empty, not a skeleton left. Someone said he called a spade a spade; someone else said that he went further and called the spade a damn shovel. Then came the conference, and somehow or another the wires got crossed and when the bishop announced the appointments, this church didn't get a new preacher and the preacher didn't get a new church. The following Sunday, he appeared in the pulpit, and this is what he said: “I didn't like you before, and I don't like you now, and you know it. You don't like me, and I know it. But we're stuck with one another for another year, so let's get together, get the work done, and make the best of a bad bargain.” Now, remember, I said this was a true story, and it has a rather startling ending. When next conference time rolled around, the district superintendent came by and told the preacher that he would definitely move him this time. The preacher said: “I would rather like to stay here. There are some fine people in the town, and we have several good projects going.” The district superintendent went to the people, and they told him: “We'd like to keep our minister—fine fellow; right on the ball, best we ever had.” I don't have time to explain this one, but there must have been considerable self-examination by all concerned resulting in an efficient team.

We come now to the crux of the matter. God wants us to cast out the log; to throw off the load of personal sin so we can fulfill our mission in an efficient manner as His servants. We are hypocrites, inefficient Christians unless we are willing to do so. And He wasn't just speaking to us preachers; His admonition is to us all.

Simply to see the speck is not sufficient. It is a common error to think that if we can see the speck in a brother's eye that we are qualified to talk against it.

This fault works both ways. Sometimes it is found in the faultfinder. Then again the man in whom fault is found becomes the mote picker and points out the sin in the one who is criticizing him, with seeking to correct his own fault. Then, of course, we have a couple of enemies within the group always at odds with one another and destroying the efficiency of the church.

Now, how do I figure that Jesus was an efficiency expert? This great silent man, overlooked by the efficiency experts of the Greek civilization and scorned and crucified and ignored by the efficiency experts of the great Roman government? I submit to you today that Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, was the greatest efficiency expert the world has ever seen.

Efficiency experts in government, in science, in education, in theology are busy around us like ants carrying sand, but do not forget that the winds of time and eternity are blowing, that one mistake may crush down ant houses that have taken years to build. Only that which is built for eternity is built well. For your examination, where is that great Greek civilization that overlooked Christ? Where is that great Roman government that crucified him? And where are the teachings that Christ transmitted to a handful some 2000 years ago? Again, I submit to you Jesus Christ, the efficiency expert. Only that which is built for eternity is built well and efficiently.

This being an age of sportsmanship, I don't think we have had Christ's magnificent sportsmanship brought properly to our attention. He was not a timid man asking for a handicap.

I think we admire David because he didn't demand that Goliath take off sword and shield and meet him on even terms.

We also thrill to the reply made by the 300 Spartans the night before Thermopylae when they were told by a spy that the arrows of the Persians would darken the sky: “Spendid,” they said, “we will fight in the shade.”

Ruskin told the people of England to destroy their railroads and coal mines, return to the simple Elizabethan England, and then he would teach them how to live.

They all asked for a handicap. Did Jesus ask that the laws and scriptures be annulled to give him free play? No, just a fair hearing. Did he ask that the law and government of Caesar be overturned to give him a better opportunity for expression? No. He said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.” Is not that true sportsmanship? Give each side a fair break and the best man will win. He who is the most efficient will come out on top. If Jesus was confronted by today's conditions, do you thing that he would ask that the clock be turned back to give him an edge? No. He would undoubtedly say, “Take things as they are, and give to science that which belongs to science, to labor and capital, the things that belong to labor and capital, but above all—give to God the things that are God's.”

If told that the smoke from the factories was darkening the sun, he would say, “Alright, we can worship God in the shade.”

Yet in spite of all this magnificent courage, Jesus has been called a weakling and a mollycoddle. Nietzshe, the great philosopher of materialism accused Jesus of preaching an effeminate gospel by working among castoffs and the waste elements of men. Let the unfit go, he said, let the beggars, the sinners, the sick, and the suffering be thrown into the ash heap and be rid of them, once and for all. Why waste time trying to salvage a few sinners?

Yet the very scientists and efficiency experts who accept this philosophy refuse to accept it in the realm of property values, for property is so much more worth saving than men.

A number of years ago, one efficiency expert stood beside a factory watching the coal tar pour out and run into the river, fouling the drinking water and spoiling vegetation. How could the Nietszche philosophy counsel him here? Never mind trying to utilize this waste, recognize it as such and let it run off, the sooner the better. Give your attention to improving the better parts of this process, there lied efficiency not in trying to save that which is lost. Of course, as we all know, the products of the coal tar became valuable and what was once the main product is now a sideline. There are many such examples, but time does not permit.

Jesus took that which was lost, not only saved it, but made it radiant in glory. In Jesus there was nothing base, nothing foul, nothing unclean. He took the Ten Commandments, drew out the shalt nots and converted them into thou shalts: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God” and ”Thous shalt love they neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Then again, he took the ten commandments and turned them into the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, converting the thou shalt nots into blessed are ye's. Thus Jesus took the negative out of the world and put in positives instead.

I submit to you the secret of Jesus' power as an efficiency expert was that he saw the positives in life and never the negatives.

“Love thy neighbor as thyself”
“First, cast out the log of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the speck of thy brother's eye.”

If we do this, then we will also operate as an efficient group of Christians.