Putting Our Own House In Order

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye." (Matthew 7:3-5). I've kind of always read this as being a little sarcastic and almost like an invitation to kindly butt out of other people's business, and I suppose in some ways it is. But if you get to the end, it's clear that the Lord eventually does want us to help get the motes out of our brothers and sisters' eyes. We’ve just got to work on removing the beams from our own eyes first, because what's the alternative? If you've got a big piece of wood sticking out of your eye, you want to get that out primarily so you can see better, but also if you go near anyone you're liable up whack them in the face with the beam sticking out of your head. We've got to sort ourselves out first before we go mucking about in other people's lives firstly because if we don't we're most likely going to cause more harm than we seek to alleviate, but also because it gives us good practice. If we can put our own house in order, we'll be able to see more clearly how to help others get themselves sorted out. It's like when they tell you about the oxygen masks on the airplane, you've got to make sure your own mask is secured before you can go help anyone else otherwise you'll both be passed out. God gave us the capacity to not only notice the motes in others' eyes but the desire and empathy to help remove them, but we've got to get the beams out of our eyes first.