Have you ever been in a conversation where someone missed your point? I certainly have. Also, more times than I care to admit, I have been the one who missed the point.
Sometimes I have taken things personally when the other person was talking about something that had nothing to do with me. I missed the real point of what the other person was talking about.
I suspect we are all especially prone to miss another’s point in heated discussions.
I wonder if I have misunderstood why Luke includes this saying of jesus.
Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? LUKE 6:41
How many times have I read Jesus’ words? I have often preached about these words.
But I never realized his words speak to the interactions between deeply polarized factions listening to Jesus… and to the even sharper polarization in the decades after Jesus’ resurrection.
Now I see two deeper levels to Jesus’ words
Jesus speaks to the divisions of his day
The Sadducees insisted on a literal interpretation of the text of Scripture; the Pharisees, on the other hand, gave oral tradition equal authority to the written Word of God. If the Sadducees couldn’t find a command in the Tanakh, they dismissed it as man-made.
In all likelihood, Jesus’ words addressed the sharp disagreements between them. He was not speaking to either side individually … but to both sides. Each thought they were superior to the other. He challenged them both to recognize that neither side really understood the kingdom.
Luke speaks to the divisions of the first generations of Christians.
Jews could not envision life without circumcision, dietary laws and life built around the temple, and many forms of ritual and sacrifice. The Gentiles, for their part, were bewildered by the Jewish claim that Jewish customs were part of Jesus’ message.
The “culture wars” of Luke’s time were furious.
Luke writes as a pastor trying to hold his flock together. In his Gospel, Luke selected material that pointed out the Jewish roots of those steeped from birth in Greek culture. On the other hand, he affirmed the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity as the fulfillment of what the Jewish people longed for.
Echoes of divisions in Paul
Paul wrote
“Whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human? … For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.” 1 Corinthians, chapter 3.
Fast forward to today…
Today we have those who cling to a late medieval view of the Church as expressed in the language and liturgy of the Council of Trent. Others seem to think everything is up for grabs. Each group sees the shortcomings of the other. Neither is open to how they themselves miss the point.
Jesus could well be addressing them when he said “Do you understand what I have just done? Wash one another’s feet in memory of me! “By this will they know you are my disciples!“
Pope Francis has been at pains to show how the decisions of the Second Vatican challenge both liberals and conservatives, inheritors of the tendencies of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
If you have any doubts, I urge you to go beyond media sound- about Pope Francis. In his major writings, he takes great pains to connect the dots between the Gospel tradition and our still growing understanding of the Our Father and the Eucharist transcending the incomplete understanding and differences between factions.
Let this picture speak of us today
If the image is not visible go to the link to this post,
Click below for an audio version of this Vincentian Mindwalk
Well, now I am embarrassed. I always took “in the eye” literally and couldn’t imagine how anyone could ignore a beam (or a splinter) in their eye. But, the image and your explanation opened my eyes that “in your eye” meant “in your point of view.”
I did a quick search of “obstructed view” and there are countless images of stadiums where there are seats directly behind a column or a beam. One can only wonder why the engineers/builders put those seats there, but they still generate revenue from them. Go figure.
In many years gone by, my wife and I had gotten “free” seats to a Philadelphia Phillies game where they were hosting the Pittsburgh Pirates (my hometown team). As it turns out, the seats were at a lower level but so far back that the upper decks obscured the view of anything hit in the air. So, using your example, it was a game of ground balls and strikeouts. We attended a night game in what would have been called in the old days “bleacher seats.” While the view wasn’t “obstructed,” we were so far from the action it was far more informative to watch the scoreboard than to watch the action firsthand on the field.
I too have spent so much time focusing on the wrong thing and not understanding. My parents enrolled us in the closest Catholic school in our area which was 12 miles from our home. The (dis)advantage was that we attended Mass everyday at the church associated with the school. Since it was pre-Vatican II, nearly every day was a “ferial” day so the priest could say whatever Mass he wanted to. The old German pastor had such a penchant for the Poor Souls that every “ferial” Mass was a “Mass for the Dead.” It got to be that we knew that Latin Requiem Mass backwards and forwards, especially the Agnus Dei which had its own special ending at “dead” Masses (“dona eis requiem,” 2x, then “dona eis requiem sempiternam” for the ending).
Oddly enough, I loved it. I would pretend to say Mass and use all those Latin prayers and hymns and have a joyous revelry in what was being said/sung. During Lent, our pastor would have an evening Mass on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so that more people could attend Mass during the week. I loved that – all in Latin – and I looked forward to each of those Masses and the Stations of the Cross that followed the Friday night Mass.
Then, when I graduated to high school, I began learning Latin and understood what some of those words meant and how many were taken directly from Scripture. But then also, Vatican II happened right about the same time as I was starting to experience those tensions that every teenager feels about their lives and the ways things have “always been.” Since I was in pre-Seminary, we also had Mass everyday and those Masses took on a newer understanding of Liturgy and the language that we use to utter praise to our God. Suddenly, Latin didn’t cut it anymore.
When the Church finally “abandoned” the Latin Liturgy for the vernacular, there were still parts of me that missed some of the liturgical dialogue (especially the sung interchanges), but the vernacular became much more appropriate for how we as a group were engaged in a public worship service.
Now, seeing a “revival” of that Latin Tridentine Mass disheartens me. Those of us who were so immersed in it found that it wasn’t those particular words or actions that brought about what was to happen in our lives. They were only a poor mechanism to catch our attention, to move our focus to the side of that beam in our eyes, to force us out of a complacent participation in the Mass. Some folks now call that “mystery” and I have come to realize that it was more “misdirection.” The Church was trying to make the Liturgy something to be more engaged in, but some of us (including myself for a time) took that beam and made it into a stone pillar.
There is a very small part of me that misses the chants and solemnity of the Latin tradition, but we are much better Servants of God when our expression of our love for God comes from our own words and our own experiences and perceptions of his Love for us.
Apologies for the lengthy reflection.
I think this is something we all struggle with. We are quick to judge and jump to conclusions without contemplation and self awareness. As such, your post is an invaluable reminder of the critical importance to search for truth, not to quickly jump to our own, often broken conclusions, to read between the lines, contemplate and pray before we pass judgement or assume a wrong. A lesson we, as humans, all need to learn and continue learning. Robert Cardinal Sarah, in his book, God or Nothing, dedicates a chapter, (Chapter IV, In Search of the Church), to some of the misinterpretations that have been popularized in regards to many of the Vatican Councils’ documents and Papal encyclicals. The book is a gem, if those who might read this comment have not read it.