Jesus and Salvador Dali

March 1, 2021

Scripture

For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?  How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?  Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye. (Matthew 7:2-5 NLT)

Jesus and Salvador Dali

A couple of years ago on while in Glasgow I spent time in a gallery gazing in awe at Salvador Dali’s painting Christ of Saint John of the Cross. Dali claimed to have a “cosmic” vision when he created this powerful piece. I was thinking that I needed Dali’s “comic” vision to picture Jesus’ teaching about trying to help someone with a plank sticking out of our face.

Our good intentions to be of help to others sometimes are skewed by our own lack of self-awareness – we have “stuff” in our lives that actually needs more attention than the object of our efforts. Jesus gets at the absurdity of it all by painting a word picture of me trying to help you with grit in your eye while a 2x4 is waving from my own eye. This is a picture well worth painting and meditating on periodically.

In a few short bursts Jesus advocates for judgment that is measured by how we’d like to be judged, for helping that is enabled by free clear vision and for treating others as we would like them to treat us. It is absurd in its simplicity – ask, seek, knock for the good gifts the Father has for us – tempered judgment, clear vision in helping and treating one another with shared respect.

Whether it’s personal, corporate, national or international relations this advice would go a long way to turning down the temperature of much of our discourse. Let’s be part of reducing global warming in relationships as well as environment.

A Prayer for Today

O God of patient kindness, harsh judgment comes too easily and often for me. In Jesus you revealed us a path to speak truth and judgment but tempered with mercy and kindness. Help us to ask, seek and knock for the good gifts you offer – the gift of treating others as we would wish to be treated. Your watchful but kind eye watches us – let us treat others the way we would want you to see us and judge us trustworthy …. For Jesus’ sake