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Gospel according to Luke 6: 39-49 (NIV)
39 (Jesus) also told them this parable: “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher.
41 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
43 “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 Each tree is recognised by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn-bushes, or grapes from briers. 45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
46 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47 As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. 48 They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When the flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (verse 46). If we imagine that Jesus was addressing one individual, what might that person’s attitude have been.
He would have been sufficiently close to Jesus to address him as “Lord” in the same way as did his disciples. He would have listened to Jesus’ teachings but his own words failed to reflect what Jesus taught. Had he spoken evil – evil about others or even evil about Jesus? Jesus judges what is good and what is evil – as we read in John 5: 30: “I judge only as I hear, and my judgement is just.” Jesus had just taught that “the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (verse 45c). Jesus heard this person’s speech and he knew his heart.
When Jesus spoke of the blind leading the blind and then of the arrogance of somebody trying to fix what is possibly interfering with another’s vision when his own vision is in a far worse state, he was amplifying his earlier statement: “The student is not above the teacher” (verse 40). Jesus is the teacher.
We are all students. Would any of us think of ourselves as above Jesus? And yet, is that not how a person acts when he (or she) says “Lord, Lord” but does not do what Jesus says? Is that not hearing Jesus’ words but failing to put them into practice? When we fail to put Jesus words into practice, are we thinking we are above the teacher? What arrogance! If Jesus is our Lord, we have no alternative but to do what he says.