Jesus was a man who said a lot, traveled around a lot, and spent time with a lot of different people. His mere presence attracted large crowds, drawn by the message he was spreading. People even traveled from other towns, just for a chance to listen to Jesus of Nazareth, rabbi and healer, God’s Messiah. Sounds a little bit like the campaign trail– no wonder religious and political leaders worried about what Jesus was up to!

Matthew’s gospel collects these sayings of Jesus together into one lengthy sermon, often called the Sermon on the Mount (because Jesus is on the side of a mountain as he delivers the message). We know from Matthew and the other gospels that Jesus traveled and taught in many other places. Usually, those teaching moments are recorded without the content of the speeches, so the Sermon on the Mount functions as a sort of “stump speech” for Jesus. We can infer that he often started off telling the crowd, “Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, the merciful…” or encouraged them, “Love not just your friend but also your enemy,” and taught them to pray, “Our Father in heaven…”

The Sermon on the Mount also has this command: 

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” -Matthew 7:1-5

Now, that does not sound much like any stump speech on any campaign trail I’ve ever heard from any leader. From school board to White House, candidates thrive on pointing out every flaw, real or imagined, in their opponent’s policy and personality. Following that example, talk show pundits and social media personalities and everyday folks gathering for a cup of coffee also thrive on pointing out just how wrong somebody else is. It feeds our sense of moral superiority to point out the flaws in everybody who’s not on our side. If everybody else is wrong, then our right-ness is assured. Isn’t it?

Jesus uses the example of a piece of dirt in one’s eye to firmly reject the idea that someone else’s wrongness could assure the judger's rightness. “You see the little speck in your neighbor’s eye? You got close enough to their face to find that bit of sand and point it out? But you didn’t notice that your own eye has been impaled by a tree branch?? Take care of your own sin before you go looking for your neighbor’s faults.”

It’s wise guidance. Don’t worry about somebody else’s little problems until you’ve dealt with your own. Don’t complain about your neighbor’s faults unless you’re sure you haven’t got bigger ones. Don’t go looking for sin in someone else’s life when there is enough for you to recognize and repent of in your own words and actions.

As we enter farther into an election season, this command from Jesus about judgment and self-righteousness is even more important for the next two months. Instead of giving in when tempted to judge or self-congratulate, pause. Instead of digging into somebody else’s values to look for flaws, look at yourself and the people you’re aligning yourself with. What’s stuck in your own eye? Are you willing to look in the mirror? 

Or, as The Message paraphrases it: “It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own…Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.”

Jesus is right. Let’s clean up our own acts before we go after anybody else’s.