Fault Finding Faith

Reflections on the seeing faults, being disciples, and sharing our stories based on today's readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030225.cfm

Today we see one of my favorite and most famous Gospel teachings: Christ rebuking the disciples for seeing the splinter in their neighbor's eye while failing to remove the wooden beam from their own.

This line is quoted so often, but usually not in its full context and because of this it can lose some of its meaning. It seems that some think Christ is suggesting that we should not notice faults in others at all. But the text does not support that conclusion.

The introduction to this teaching is Christ suggesting that they are all like the “blind leading the blind” and He tells them that this arrangement is doomed to fail. Christ, of course, does not want us to be blind. Christ both being “the light”, that by which we see, and curing blindness are both major themes running through all of the Gospels.

What is unique about this scene is that Christ actually gives us practical instructions for how to help cure our blindness and then He encourages us to help others do the same. And the instructions are very simple.

Instead of ignoring the faults in others, He suggests that we should see them as an opportunity to recognize how we possess these faults as well. Since we only know the fullness of our own hearts, these faults will of course be magnified when looking inward.

Once we have come to understand these faults from the inside, we can then help others address these faults in themselves. But so long as we see their faults as something unique to them we remain blind and will lead them into a pit.

For instance, if we see envy arise in another we may be quick to correct them and tell them the dangers of such spiritual attitudes. But how can we know these dangers and how can we have any insight into overcoming them if we have not recognized the depth of envy within ourselves and allowed the grace of God to help us overcome it?

In other words, Christ is suggesting that we are blind so long as we see ourselves as the righteous who are condescending to help other sinners, but that we gain a certain spiritual vision when we realize that we are all sinners helping our fellow sinners and in need of the help of our fellow sinners.

This way of helping has been essential to the Christian form of ministry since its inception. Unlike other spiritual traditions where there are sages and spiritual masters who are supposed to have hidden wisdom that can only be bestowed on a few elect, Christianity puts forward the disciples: a group of regular people with quite strong tendencies to error.

The sage wisdom of the disciples does not come from how they are superior to others, but from the recognition of their own shortcomings. And because this is the route to wisdom, it is not a path that is only available to a few chosen elect but possible for everyone.

One of the most effective parts of the early Christians ministry is that they were forthcoming about their own faults and failures. Evidence of their honesty was seen in their willingness to share unfavorable stories about themselves, and they were willing to share unfavorable stories about themselves because they knew that it is in those “low” moments in life that we often come to have the most profound encounters with Christ.

It is Peter’s three denials that create the beautiful moment of the three affirmations of Christ’s love for him after the resurrection, and it is Paul's persecution of Christ and His people that is transformed into the evangelical zeal that he has following his conversion.

Because both of them recognize how crucial their failings were to their faith they never withhold these details from the story. The story is unintelligible without them.

When we seek to share the faith with others, let us not try to ignore or excuse our faults and the faults of others, but remember that it is precisely in our faults that we encounter the Lord’s forgiveness. Let us remember we are all sinners, so long as we always remember that we have all been forgiven. And where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more!