Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you

 

 "Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.  And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye?  Hypocrite!  First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.  Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. 

 

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!  Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."

 

- Matthew 7:1-12 

 

We are currently reading through the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 - 7).  Yesterday we read that Jesus taught, "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:  they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.  Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For after all these things the Gentiles seek.  For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

 

  "Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you."  My study Bible comments here that we will be judged with our own level of judgment because we are guilty of the same things we judge in others (Romans 2:1).  We have failed in repentance and in fleeing from sin also.  To pass judgment is to assume God's authority.  Moreover, my study Bible points out that the second part of this verse is found in Mark 4:24 and Luke 6:38, each used in a different context, as Christ clearly repeated this message many times.  This repetition teaches us something about the significance of the principle He names here.

 

"And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye?  Hypocrite!  First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."  Here is an elaboration on the warning against judgment, and a teaching on our own blindness to our flaws and what that does to us.  We are to look to ourselves to correct our own errors and mistaken thinking and practices before we can ever help others.  For Christ's teaching on mutual correction in the Church, see Matthew 18:15-35.  Let us remember also that Jesus is preaching to those who are His disciples, and who will in turn become teachers and authorities in His Church.

 

 "Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces."   Dogs and swine, my study Bible explains, refer to heathen peoples (Philippians 3:2; Revelation 22:15), but this would also include Jews who do not practice virtue.  According to patristic teaching, "dogs" are those who are so immersed in evil that they show no hope of change, while "swine" are those who habitually live immoral and impure lives.  The pearls are the inner mysteries of the Christian faith, including Christ's teachings (Matthew 13:46) and the great sacraments.  These holy things are restricted from the immoral and unrepentant, not to protect the holy things themselves, for Christ needs no protection.  On the contrary, we protect the faithless people from the condemnation that would result from holding God's mysteries in contempt.  Additionally, this extends the warning about judgment to protection from those who would respond with hostility to what is intended as helpful correction given through grace ("removing the speck in another's eye") such as Christ gives to His disciples.  

 

 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"  My study Bible tells us that in the Greek, the verbs ask, seek, and knock are present progressives:  "be asking," "be seeking," "be knocking."  Note the synergy here:  our effort is commanded, but not ever apart from the immediate help of God.  We ask in prayer; seek by learning God's truth; and knock by doing God's will.  Human beings are called evil not to condemn all of us, but rather to contrast the imperfect goodness in people (in other words, our goodness is also mixed with sin) with the perfect goodness of God (see Matthew 19:16-17).  If imperfect and even wicked people can do some good, my study Bible explains, all the more will God work perfect good.  

 

"Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."  This verse is known as the Golden Rule.   Jesus' expresses that it fulfills the demands of the Law and the Prophets; my study Bible remarks that it is also a practical application of the commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself (see Jesus' statement of the two greatest commandments, found at Matthew 22:37-40).  This Golden Rule is a first step in spiritual growth, according to my study Bible.  There is also a negative form of the Golden Rule which was already well known in Judaism ("Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you").  But Christ's fulfillment of the Law and Prophets renders this into a positive statement:  this is the action that begins to draw us toward God.  

 

Jesus teaches, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"  We may be tempted to think of these words, taken apart from the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, as indicating material blessings to be given by God in exchange for our good behavior.  But to keep asking, and keep seeking and keep knocking in this context is to seek the blessings of discipleship, the blessedness of the Kingdom, the reality of what it is to be an adopted "son" of your Father who is in heaven.  The good things Jesus preaches about are the fruits of discipleship, the spiritual gifts meant for those who love God, and seek to do God's will.  Jesus begins today's reading by teaching, "Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you."   These are words that teach us, as followers of Christ, to pay attention to what we are to be about -- not to what everyone else is supposed to be doing.  In the final verses we find in St. John's Gospel, there is a story that is illustrative of this same principle.  Jesus comes, in one of His resurrectional appearances, to St. Peter.  In a striking dialogue, meant to be taken as a restoration of St. Peter to his place as apostle after his three-time denial of Christ (Matthew 26:69-75), Jesus asks St. Peter three times, "Do you love Me?"  Each time Peter answers positively, and Jesus indicates that his work going forward is to feed His lambs (John 21:15-19).  This moving scene is tremendous in and of itself.  But -- perhaps just because it's St. Peter -- that's not all there is to the story.  Peter then turns, see the apostle St. John (the author of the Gospel) following, and asks Jesus, "But Lord, what about this man?"  Jesus' response bears out His teaching in today's reading.  He tells St. Peter, "If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me" (John 21:20-22).  If it is even so for one as great as St. Peter, the first among equals of the apostles, consider how it is so for us that our job is to look to ourselves, our place as disciples, the "plank" in our own eye that needs removal, our own flaws, and our own ways we're called to follow Christ.  If we think about it carefully, casting pearls before swine or giving what is holy to dogs is also outside of our purview, not staying in our own lane, so to speak, nor remembering what it is we are supposed to be about.  Moreover, the grace and mercy we are capable of expressing will be measured back to us.  Let us remember that Jesus is speaking to those who would be His disciples, and that this sermon's theme is the righteousness of the Kingdom.  Beginning with the Beatitudes, He teaches us about blessings that seem to stand the values of the world on their heads, and here the promises and teachings are all about how we grow in discipleship, and the good things bestowed by our Father.