Casting out the beam

Jesus taught, “first cast the beam out of your own eye so you can see clearly to cast the mote out of your brother’s eye.”

I’ve come to see that this is more than just a figure of speech telling me to pay attention to my own problems before criticizing others. It turns out it isn’t literally impossible for me to have a beam in my eye, and it is with great enthusiasm that I report that I have found out what the beam is, so now I can cast it out.

A beam is a structural member that holds up the floor and the roof of a building. The relevant structure here is my paradigm – my construct of the system of laws that govern my world. Everything I see is dependent on this construct – every deduction I make regarding cause and effect, every conclusion I make regarding what happened and why. And if a part of my construct is faulty, it will distort my vision, hampering my ability to see what’s what. It will be a “beam in my eye.”

So I found out what the beam in my eye is. It’s the notion that it’s possible for one person to be better than another, or for me to be a better or worse person based on my choices. I cast out the beam by realizing that this isn’t true.

There is nothing I can do to make myself a better person. There’s nothing I can do to make myself a worse person. There’s no way for me to be better than anyone else, or worse than anyone else. How does that make me feel? What does it mean?

It means there’s no need for me to ever criticize myself. There’s no need for me to make resolutions to be better. There’s no need for me to look to others to see if they’re doing better or worse than I am. There’s no need to feel anxious because maybe I haven’t done enough, or I haven’t done it well enough.

It is a big structural plank. Lots of things rest on it. Lots of things threaten to fall if I remove it. How can I get myself to be good if my behavior doesn’t matter? What motivation will I have to achieve anything? If I give up that plank, what makes me be good?

God makes me be good, just because God makes me that way. My being good is in gratitude, in joy, in delight – it is what I want. It’s not in trying to measure up, to be worthy, to earn God’s approval. God approves of me because God made me that way.

This was Job’s lesson: he thought God would be good to him if he was good. He needed to learn that God is good anyway, and that he was good because God made him that way; there was no way he could be otherwise. After he learned this lesson, he was healed.

The beam I get to cast out functions like a teeter-totter – giving the sense that one person can be up and another one down. In fact, no matter what we do, we are all of the same quality. We are each here in our nakedness, with all of our mistakes and failures, and all of our beauty, and all of our desire to be redeemed. We are all here with our love, and our loneliness, and our desire to be loved, and our desire to be holy. We are each the child of God.

One theological view says, “God loves you even though you are unlovable. This shows you how great God is.” Another says, “God loves you when you are good. Do well to be worthy of God’s love.” Both of those are just shadows of the truth, that God makes us lovable and good, and loves us that way.

If I can cast this beam out of my eye – this false paradigm that leads to comparison, then I will be able to see clearly to cast the mote out of my brother’s eye, for I will see him with compassion, and with oneness, and with love.


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