In 1973, when I was eighteen, I was given my first opportunity to serve as the summer youth minister in the First Baptist Church of Canadian, a little farming community about 100 miles northeast of Amarillo.  Only one problem.  I didn’t have a car.  So, a man in the church loaned me his motorcycle.  It came with a really ugly helmet that looked something like a mixing bowl your mother might mix a cake in.  Only one problem.  I didn’t have a license.  I’d never driven a motorcycle in my life.  So, I went to get a license.  I just showed up to take the test.  How hard can a motorcycle license test be anyway?  As I’m waiting on the courthouse steps to meet the patrolman I saw someone else waiting who was holding a book.  The title was something like, “Rules you should know before you just show up to take the test to get a motorcycle license.”  I asked this person, “There’s a book?”  To finish the story, I flunked the test.  I was so embarrassed I never even went back to try again.  In mercy, someone finally loaned me a car.  And, before the summer was over, I even wrecked that. 

All said, I should have read the book.  I might have passed the test and never wrecked the car.  Of course, when it comes to driving, and living, even if you know the rules, there’s no guarantee you won’t have a wreck.  That’s especially true with relationships.  Knowing the rules of the relationship road doesn’t guarantee a spotless driving record.  Most of us just show up and flunk a few times before we’re teachable anyway.  But, just in case anyone’s interested, there is a book.  It’s called the Bible.  It’s a book all about relationships and how to have meaningful ones with God and each other.  It’s full of stories about people who did relationships well and about some who did them poorly.  We can learn from both.  There are whole passages chocked full of relationship wisdom.  The Sermon on the Mount is one of them, the text for the morning in particular.  In the words of Jesus are some wonderful principles of relationship meant to help us keep it between the ditches on this narrow road of relating to each other.  Our next test will come before the day is out.  We better read the book now.

When it comes to people, what we first see is not what we ultimately get.  I’ve been wondering lately about this piece of clothing Islamic women in the strictest cultures have to wear to keep their faces completed covered.  For sure, it seems to be a very tragic way of treating women.  But, it has made me wonder.  What would it be like if men in our culture had to build relationships with women based on everything but what they could see?  What we’re able to see when we look at others is what we think we’re getting.  We’re actually getting a great deal more that we can’t see.  That’s because we all wear veils that keep our true selves covered.  Very few, if any, ever know what lies beneath the veil of emotions and well-rehearsed scripts and expressions we use to keep anyone from seeing our true selves.  We may have stopped wearing costumes at Halloween after we grew up.  As adults, we still tend to wear them all the time. 

What others see when they first see us is rarely all that we end up giving them.  Jesus asked, “‘How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?’” It’s a rhetorical question.  No answer needed; it answers itself.  Jesus was reminding us of our limited vision.  One reason we should heed Jesus’ warning, “‘Do not judge,’” is because we’re too blinded by our own humanity to see clearly into the soul of another.  And, if Jesus were to give us Superman-like X-ray vision so that we could see into a person’s heart, what we’d see would more often than not break our hearts of ever judging another. 

There was this kid in high school.  He stumbled around drunk-like all the time.  His speech was slurred.  His eyes were terribly crossed; his glasses were thick as the bottom of coke bottles.  People made fun of him.  They thought he was what they called goofy.  The sad part of the story was that the year before he’d had a terrible brain tumor removed.  Along with it, the surgeons also removed a good portion of the part of his brain that controlled his motor functions.  He wasn’t goofy.  He was wounded.  Most people we write off as goofy or strange or even ill behaved, because they aren’t like us, aren’t goofy.  They’re wounded.  And, often, the only difference between them and us is just that they aren’t able to hide their wounds as well as we do.  We’re all wounded.  We all have cellars in our souls with shadowy dark secrets.  Some of us just know how to disguise all of that better than others.  Some of us never take off the costumes that mask what’s inside.  In relationships, What we first see is not what we ultimately get.

Jesus said, “‘Do not judge,’” in part because we don’t have enough information to pass good judgment.  And, we never will.  Only God can see beyond what appears to be to what really is in the soul of another.  Only he has X-ray vision.  We don’t.  We can’t judge because there is so much we can’t see.  Every time we meet a new person we ought to assume that, beneath what we can see, is a wounded heart.  What we first see is not what we ultimately get.

Second, We’ll eventually get from others what we first give them.  Jesus said, “‘in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.’”  Jesus wasn’t saying that, in the way we judge others, we’re setting the standard by which God will judge us.  That wouldn’t square with the rest of the gospel.  Here is the gospel.  “In (Jesus) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace (Ephesians 1:7).”  We will be judged by grace and grace alone.  Frederick Buechner says, “The one who will judge us most fairly is the one who loves us most fully.”  So, we know that Jesus wasn’t saying that God would judge us by the same standard we use to judge others.  He was telling us what we’ve already experienced to be true.  In our relationships, we’ll tend to get from others what we first give away.  Like tether ball.  What we send around to other side tends to come back our way.  And, what’s coming back our way is usually what we first sent around.

There’s a very practical edge to this.  If we don’t like the kind of treatment we are getting from others, and we’re looking for someone to blame, nine times out of ten all we need do is stand in mirror.  Very rarely do we have anyone to blame for our miserable relationships other than ourselves.  “‘The measure you use, it will be measured to you.’”  People tend to treat us the way we treat them.  And, if we don’t do the mirror work, then we can turn into really scary people.  The kind of scary people who like to go on very real witch hunts looking for someone to hang for all their misery.

Growing up in West Texas it was not unusual to see devil dusters cutting across an open prairie.  A devil duster is just a miniature tornado, really.  They come in all sizes but are usually quite small.  Not capable of doing any real damage, they are still furious little funnels of dirt and sand and can be fascinating to watch.  One day in elementary school, a devil duster kicked up in the dust on the playground close by.  Out of curiosity, I ran over and caught up with it and then stepped into the middle of it.  I will never do that again.  It was near death by sandblast.  It was a miserable experience.  But, when it was all said and done, I had no one to blame but myself for what I’d gotten into.  One sign that our relationships are in trouble is when we’re looking for someone to blame for our misery.  One sign that we are coming to maturity in relationships is when we begin to accept primary responsibility for our own miserable situation. 

The most miserable people in the world, and scariest, are those who are constantly looking for someone else to blame for their misery.  There are people who are true victims.  Rape, incest and other forms of assault, for example, make true victims of others.  Not because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  In the right place at the right time, they encountered the wrong person and became true victims of their rage and hatred.  But, in the give and take of everyday life, there are fewer victims than we like to think.  For the most part, we are getting back from others what we first give away.  Jesus is simply being descriptive of life as we know it to be.  He said, “‘Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.’”  He went on to say, “‘in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.’”  This is not about setting people up for payback.  This is about extending to others the same grace God has extended to us.  The substance of godly living, Jesus was saying, is to give away the very love we so desperately need.  It is only in giving it away that it ever comes back to us.  We’ll tend to get from others what we give.

Third, and last, we should not expect of others what only God can give.  Nothing gets us in more trouble with others than unrealistic expectations.  You’ve seen this at Halloween.  You open the door.  Some costume says, “Trick or Treat.”  You drop a penny sucker in their bucket.  They look disappointed.  I’ve actually heard them say, “That’s it?!  The lady next door is giving away . . ..”  I’ve been tempted to reach in the bucket and take back mine plus some.  Nothing more pitiful, really, than holding out our bucket expecting someone to give what they just don’t have.  Nothing sets us up for wrecking our relationships more than expecting something from someone they simply don’t have to give. 

A pastor I knew thirty years ago was having dinner at church one Wednesday night when a lady began to scold him.  He hadn’t gone by to see her husband in the hospital and she was hot.  “Did anyone call the church and tell us that your husband was in the hospital?” he asked.  “No,” she said.  “Then, how could you expect us to care when we did not know?” he wanted the lady to tell him.  That pastor later made a very messy exit from the ministry.  I hear tell he just stepped into a devil duster never to be heard from again.  I couldn’t help but wonder if, despite his courage with that one woman, it had something to do with the way he let people keep expecting a level of caring from him he didn’t have to give and only God could.  Another pastor friend of mine has learned a good skill and it’s kept him in the ministry.  It’s called honesty.  A woman in his church asked him, “Do you know what people say about preacher’s kids?” she asked her pastor.  Before she could tell him what he didn’t ask to know, he said, “Nothing, if they’re smart.”  Nothing kills relationships more than unrealistic expectations.

Jesus made us a promise.  After saying something about asking, seeking and knocking, he finishes with this promise, “‘If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!’”  There is much mystery in this promise to me.  But, there is this much certainty, too.  The more we keep our neediness focused toward God and less toward others the less we will tend to demand of others what they cannot give.  There is no hope for a relationship in which two people expect from each other what only God can give.  We should not expect of others what only God can give.

Years ago, I ran across a picture in a 1947 Life magazine that was one of the saddest pictures I’ve ever seen.  Somewhere in central Texas, a photographer found a puppy on the roadside.  It was starved and mangy and infested.  Most amazing of all, it was curled up beside its mother, who was dead and had been for some time.  Apparently, crossing the road, the mother dog had been hit by a car and crawled to the side of the road where she died.  Not knowing any better, the puppy had stayed with its mother even though she could no longer provide it with milk or protection.  The photographer rescued the puppy and it actually ended up living the high life in a New York City apartment.  But, I’ve never forgotten that picture.  It reminds me of what can happen to any of us when stay attached, sometimes in very sick ways, to relationships because we keep expecting them to give what they simply don’t have.  Especially the life, or joy or hope that only God can give.  “‘Ask,’” Jesus said, “‘seek and knock.’”  We just need to sure we’re knocking on the right door.  We should not expect of others what only God can give.

Just in case some of us need help with our relationships today, based on what Jesus has said, may I suggest a prayer we could all pray?  “Dear Lord, please help me today to see people through the eyes of your grace.  Please help me never to expect more of others than I’m willing to give.  And, please help me never to expect of even one other person what you alone can give.  In the name of the one who came to me so that I could have a relationship with you, Amen.”

And, Amen.