Matthew 7:1-23

Knowing Yourself

Matthew 7:1-5     Judging Others

The demand was clear. Yet, it stands in immediate tension with some of what follows (that presuppose judgment of some kind): taking the splinter out of another's eye, determining who dogs are and who are pigs.

Jesus’ further comment must be seen as an effort to dissuade the disciple from such action. The use of the passive voice can be understood as saying that ‘God will judge thus’, or ‘God will give you back just as much as you gave’. Yet, elsewhere in his teaching, Jesus would make very clear that God’s love is unconditional, and is certainly not to be measured by human standards. Obviously, the kingdoms of the world are awash with condemnatory judgments of others. Only as disciples change, can they begin to experience the Kingdom. At the same time, God’s judgment will simply honour the reality. Disciples who have definitively dissociated themselves from other individuals in the community have evidently narrowed the reach of their own love, and, in the process, limited their capacity to love and enjoy God, not only in eternity, but, more importantly, in the now.

Human judgment is unreliable. Jesus' illustration confirms what many psychologists have noted in human behaviour. People unable or afraid to face their own inadequacies and defects tend to bury them in their own unconscious. Yet the human psyche seeks wholeness. The unconscious psyche tends to react with emotional vigour to those defects that it detects in others but has repressed in itself. What people strongly reject in others are often the same defects that they are unwilling to face in themselves. In order to see others objectively, they need to become aware of their own repressed failings and face the fears responsible for the whole psychological process of repression.

Matthew 7:6     Profaning the Holy

It is not clear to what Jesus was referring. Commentators are uncertain. Possibly the original context may have made the point obvious, but the original context is lost. Perhaps, in this present context, it may refer to the fruitless practice of attempting to correct people who are not open to correction. Criticism simply tends to confirm them in their attitudes, and leads them to criticise their critics. The community of disciples suffers as a consequence. There are times when correction needs to be postponed, or approached thoughtfully, and only after the critics have had the time to examine their own possible projections, and correct themselves.

Matthew 7:7-11     Ask, Search, Knock 

Experience counsels caution: some prayers go unanswered. The comment needs to be understood in context. Jesus had taught disciples how to pray, and what to pray for, earlier in his discourse. Now he affirmed that God would heed that prayer. But disciples did need persistently to ask, to seek and to knock. They needed to discover their own deep longings for those things that Jesus had listed. They needed to own their heart desires; otherwise their prayer would be unfocussed or mechanical. To do that, they needed to know themselves; they needed to follow their inner journey and to sit empty before God.

Bread and fish constituted the staple diet of Galilean peasants.

Jesus referred his listeners to their own experience of care within their families. They knew how to love their children in practice. God loved them immeasurably more. But just as they were selective in responding to their children’s requests, so God would give only good things to them, specifically the good things that expressed the reality of the Kingdom (for which they had prayed in the prayer taught them by Jesus).

Matthew 7:1-12     The Golden Rule 

As a guide to behaviour, the same rule of thumb could be found elsewhere in both secular and religious texts, though it was certainly not the rule that informed Roman imperialism, nor is it used to guide national or international relationships in the modern world. Little wonder that the experience of God’s Kingdom remains elusive.

The Importance of Discerned Action

Jesus’ discourse moved towards its conclusion with a series of warnings. Matthew was consistent in underlining Jesus’ emphasis on the importance of enlightened action. People knew the experience of living in regimes that did not reflect the values of God’s Kingdom. If they wanted to know blessedness, there was only one way: the choice to accept the offer of Kingdom life, to step into it, and to act accordingly. The possibilities were real and worth everything, but the choice was up to them.

Matthew 7:15-23     The Narrow Gate 

The Roman way boasted of its triumphal gates and well-paved roads. Yet, the Roman way led ultimately to destruction. The choice for the Kingdom was difficult. It would be the choice of a minority; and, being a dissident minority, the disciples’ way of life would be opposed. They would know bitter criticism, opposition and even persecution. Jesus had already made that point [5:10-11]. To find life as envisaged by Jesus, they would need persistently to ask, to seek and to knock. If they did that, they would, indeed, experience true blessedness, even in the present.

 Matthew 7:15-23     A False Prophet 

Disciples would experience problems not only from outside, but even from within the community, from people who had come to join them. They would need to discern.

Jesus did not explicitly identify the types of problem they would encounter, but the context showed that they would consist in ways of acting that undermined the integrity of the community and its single-minded focus on values of the Kingdom. Jesus had already spelt out the ways to blessedness; he had listed the non-negotiable requirements of honesty and truth, integrity, constant openness to forgiveness and the repudiation of violence, the need to pray, to be closed to the temptations following from wealth, to trust, and to be circumspect about judgment and mutual criticism. But old habits die hard. Plausible arguments can be made for ways other than those of the Kingdom.

Discernment would be difficult, but it would be indispensable. Mistakes would be made. Jesus offered as a criterion for discernment the fruits of people’s various stances. Action, not words, would count. But even actions can be difficult to discern. Actions can express a range of motivations. Jesus had dwelt at length on the dangers associated with the pious practices of almsgiving, fasting and praying. And, in the process of growing, disciples would be open always to misreading the hearts of others and failing to address the beams in their own eyes.

There would be no simple answers for travellers choosing the hard road to life.

Personal discernment would be difficult. Disciples would easily fool themselves. What sort of actions were constitutive of the Kingdom? The ability to prophesy, to cast out demons and to work powerful deeds were not of themselves indicators – surprisingly, because they would seem to require the special assistance of God, and because they were so much part of Jesus’ own spreading of the Kingdom. Even enthusiasm was not enough. What mattered was to do the will of my heavenly Father – nothing else. Jesus had insisted that the community pray that God’s Kingdom come and God’s will be done, precisely because both were so problematic. He had assured them that that would be theirs if they were prepared insistently to ask, to seek and to knock.