The Fourth Sunday after Trinity

June 28, 2026

Luke 6:36-42

Most of the parables Jesus tells are stories. Today’s parables are just brief images. They have the Lord’s characteristic absurdity. You have a blind man being led by another blind man. And you have an eye surgeon who is going to remove a splinter from a patient; but the surgeon has a beam sticking out of his eye, the kind of long board you’d pick up at a lumberyard. This is camels going through eyes of needles kind of stuff, or a farmer who just throws the seed everywhere. Jesus uses absurdity and hyperbole to make the point: Blind people shouldn’t lead the parade, and people with logs in their eyes shouldn’t be surgeons. He applies that to life in the church. Deal with your own blindness. Deal with the beam in your own eye.

What’s happened in recent years, though, is the splinter and the plank have been reinterpreted to mean little sins and big sins. Think of the most grotesque sort of wickedness, the kinds of things other people do – these are the planks, in the new interpretation. Meanwhile, more acceptable sins, things society deems small – these are the splinters.

But Jesus is not talking about degrees of sin, big sins and little sins. Are some things worse than others? Yes. It’s easy to get this confused, because the Bible says things like James 2:10, Whoever keeps the whole law, yet commits one sin, is guilty of all. One sin makes you a sinner. One theft makes you a thief. One hit, and the pitcher loses the no-hitter. If you look at a woman, Jesus says, you’ve already committed adultery.

But that doesn’t change the fact that some sins are worse than others.

If you honk your horn in anger, or say a bad word because someone doesn’t let you in, that’s wrong. But it’s worse if you decide to go full Mad Max and crash into him. Jesus tells Pilate that the one who delivered Him to Pilate had the greater sin. In Luke 12, Jesus says,

That servant who knew his master’s will, and did not … do [it], shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more. [vv47f]

There are degrees of sin and degrees of responsibility.

But that’s not what’s happening in today’s Gospel reading. The splinter is the other person’s sin. The plank, the beam, is your own.

What’s this whole passage about? Mercy. Forgiveness. “Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” It’s so easy to become consumed with someone else’s sin.

Jesus gives us the key to interpreting this passage with the word Hypocrite! He’s aiming at how quick we are to judge others when we should be judging ourselves.

So what’s our goal? Our goal is to become like Jesus.

I regret to some extent completely rejecting the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) phenomenon in the 90’s, and the Purpose Driven Life phenomenon in the following decade. There were major theological problems with both movements. It’s easy to miss the gospel when the focus is on human action. But Jesus doesn’t leave us where He finds us. There is a purpose to our lives. There is a purpose to your life, your specific life with that particular wife and this particular job in that particular place.

You find this idea of purpose in the words immediately preceding the speck and plank parable: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” “Perfectly trained” – it’s one word in Greek, and not an easy word to capture. It can mean fully equipped, like having all the right tools. It can mean a human body that is rightly aligned - all the bones are in the right place. I suspect Jesus used the word for the benefit of His disciples who were fishermen; it can mean nets that are mended and restored to good condition. Or perhaps it came from His own work in construction; it can mean a broken wall that’s been rebuilt.

What are we, by nature? God made us in His own image – but the image is defaced, marred. We’re a broken down wall, a smoldering wick, a battered reed, a torn net.

Jesus comes to forgive us. He also comes to restore us. To put us back together again. Jesus comes to build up the broken wall, to reset our bones, to mend our nets.

We are broken and dysfunctional, both in body and soul. So what would it mean to be healed? It would mean we imitate God again. What would Jesus do? He would forgive. Everyone who is perfectly trained is like His teacher.

“Yeah, but that person really hurt me! He didn’t stay by me when things got tough!” Jesus doesn’t tell us to forgive when someone has earned it. He says to forgive when they haven’t. Because you and I haven’t earned it either. Jesus gives us grace. And He makes us people of grace.

“To be forgiven is to be forgiving” [David Petersen]. Look at Joseph in today’s first reading. His brothers hated him. They were going to kill him, but decided to sell him into slavery. He ends up in Egypt, things are going well, and then he is falsely accused and thrown into prison. Eventually he comes to the attention of the Pharaoh, and is made prince of the entire land. There’s a famine, and the brothers who sold him into slavery end up coming to Joseph for food. After their father Jacob dies, they panic. “Now he’ll get his revenge!” they think. But Joseph forgives them.

And in doing so, he reveals a mystery. God works even through the sins of others. “You meant it for evil,” he says, “but God meant it for good.” In all of the sin – the treachery of the brothers, the lies of Potiphar’s wife – God was sending Joseph right into the position He wanted him. Joseph was sent ahead to save the very brothers who betrayed him. “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

And perhaps that is what is happening also, when you are sinned against. We know that all things work for good for those who love God. God is working your hardships, your strife, and even the hatred from other people, for your good, and for the good of the world.

So today He calls you to absolve those who harm you. Be merciful, as He is merciful.

By His mercy, all the splinters in your neighbor’s eye, and all the beams in your own, are fashioned into a cross. On that cross hangs mercy. On that cross hangs forgiveness. On that cross hangs the salvation of the whole world. From that cross, Jesus says, “It is finished. You are forgiven.” The disciple of Jesus now lives forgiven and forgiving.

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