Posted on by Abe Austin

The Mote in the Other Eye- Surrendering the Outcome

Distrust of Others)

In my previous post I talked about the popular trend of pinning all of the world’s problems on someone else and never taking accountability for one’s own side. I also admitted how I, too, have fallen into that trend many times, and how my conscience and Jesus’s words have always been there to convict me it is wrong to stay there.

At the end of the last post, I mentioned that when I recognize my folly and tell myself to focus on the beam in my own eye, there is a part of me that is worried about what might happen if I do so. That fear is based on a profound distrust of the “other side.” If I’m not there to keep them in check, who will be?

This is because our culture’s “us vs them” mentality leads us to shore up our own side even as we’re tearing down the other. In order to strengthen our arguments, we make ourselves blind to our own failings, excusing them as inaccurate or unimportant. So, now if I focus my energies on correcting myself instead, then that’s one less voice keeping the other side honest. Imagine if everyone on my side turned to self-introspection. We might take care of all the problems over here, but the other side’s problems will abound unfettered.

The Need for Surrender)

Well…yes, there is that potential outcome. There are other, more optimistic outcomes, but there is no guarantee of them. I do trust that good will ultimately prevail, but there is the possibility that if I focus on improving myself, the other side will run rampant in the meantime, and things will get worse for a while.

What this means, then, is that focusing on the beam in my own eye is not only an exercise in humility, but also a leap of faith. It means doing what is right in my own sphere with the hope, not the guarantee, that things will work out for the best because of it.

For this reason, I think an excellent companion to Jesus’s words on removing the beam from our own eyes is his later injunction that “if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” Matthew 16:24. Once again, he’s talking about picking up our own cross, denying our own self. And his use of the word “cross” makes clear that this is something hard, painful, and even dangerous.

Let’s take a moment to take these abstract concepts and personalize them. Just what would you call “your side,” and what would you call the “other side?” Conservatives? Liberals? The Patriarchy? Feminists? White supremacists? DEI peddlers? Colonizers? Immigrants? Whichever tribe you belong to, I’m sure that if you were honest there’s some house cleaning that is needed over there. Would you be willing to take up your cross and focus on the beam in your own eye? Would you be willing to stop hammering the other side as you set your gaze inward? It’s a lot to ask…but it is what is asked.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Mote in the Other Eye- The Problem of Others

Who’s to Blame)

Everyone knows someone who is making the world worse. Everyone can identify popular ideals and propaganda that are harming society. Everyone knows who is to blame for things being the way that they are right now. Everyone knows how they’d like to change the world if they could. And people certainly make their opinions known. My news feeds and social media threads are constantly inundated with criticisms and accusations of “them.”

And I cannot claim to have never taken part in this pastime either. I could speak at great length about who I see as responsible for the greatest problems in the world today, and the deep resentment that I’ve harbored towards them.

But part of me has always felt guilty when my mind goes to that place. Part of me knows that at some point I crossed the line from “judging righteous judgment” to full-on condemning. Part of me knows that my desire to make everyone do what is right is not actually from God. It’s a sneaky misstep, because it’s oriented towards trying to establish ‘right,’ but its method of control is evil.

Focus Inward)

When I consider all of this, I am reminded of the words of Jesus: “How wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?” Matthew 7:4. When I hear this, I realize that I’m not just wrong for letting my heart be filled with condemnation for another, but also because it has distracted me from focusing on the problems of my own side.

Of course, Jesus also suggested that after one had cleaned his own eye then he would see clearly enough to clean another’s. Honestly, I can’t speak to that, because I genuinely don’t feel that I am there yet. I suspect there are few who are. My focus for now is still on the first half of Jesus’s words.

The Reason for Reluctance)

I also want to make clear nowhere in Jesus’s injunction to focus on our own eye does he suggest that the other side doesn’t have problems. Even with my flawed judgment, I probably have identified some truly valid issues over on the other side. The idea that “they” need to change isn’t wrong, then, what’s wrong is thinking that I’m going to be the one to make them do it. I don’t have to stop my natural recognition of evil in the world, or condone any of it, but Christ is pointing out that everything would go much smoother if I acknowledged my own failings and worked on changing me, while “they” worked on changing “them.”

But what if I do work on me, and “they” don’t work on “them.” There is a real anxiety in this that manifests each time I try to pull myself back from policing the entire world. Tomorrow I will speak more at length on this fear, and how it can be remedied.