Chapter 9 is a defence of Paul's practice of refusing support from the churches he founds, and it turns into the most personal thing in the letter: what he thinks he actually is.
What happens
"If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it! If I do so willingly, I have a recompense, but if unwillingly, then I have been entrusted with a stewardship… Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible… To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak; I have become all things to all, to save at least some… Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win… They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified."
What to notice
Anankē gar moi epikeitai — "a compulsion is laid upon me." Anankē is necessity, force, what cannot be otherwise. And then ouai gar moi estin ean mē euangelizōmai, woe to me if I do not announce it — Jeremiah's sentence in Greek, "I will not mention him… but then it is like fire burning in my bones, and I am weary holding it in, and I cannot" (Jeremiah 20:9), read here twelve days ago. Paul is not describing enthusiasm for his work. He is describing something he cannot stop doing, and his only claim to credit is that he refuses to be paid for it. Then the athletics, which are local: Corinth hosted the Isthmian Games every two years, second in prestige only to Olympia, and the victor's crown there was made of celery or pine — so "a perishable crown" is not a metaphor at Corinth. It is a description of the object. Two verbs at the end repay attention: hypōpiazō, literally to strike under the eye, a boxer's word — I give my own body a black eye — and doulagōgō, I lead it as a slave, from the same root he used four verses earlier of himself. The last word is adokimos, the term for metal that fails the assay. Not damned; failed on inspection.
A pilgrim's song, sung on the way up to the temple by someone who is not there yet. Its most famous stanza is about birds nesting in the sanctuary — a homely, slightly envious observation from a man who has to travel to get where they already live.
The selected verses
Psalm 84:3."My soul yearns and pines for the courts of Yahweh. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living Theos." Psalm 84:4."Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest in which she puts her young — your altars, Yahweh of hosts, my king and my Theos!" Psalm 84:5–6."Blessed they who dwell in your house! Continually they praise you. Blessed the men whose strength you are! Their hearts are set upon the pilgrimage." Psalm 84:12."For a sun and a shield is Yahweh Theos; grace and glory he bestows. Yahweh withholds no good thing from those who walk in sincerity."
What to notice
Psalm 84:6 is mesillot bilvavam — "the highways are in their hearts," which the lectionary renders as pilgrimage. The road is not something they are on; it is something they are carrying. And the next verse, just outside today's selection, is the great one: passing through the valley of Baca — the valley of weeping — "they make it a place of springs." The psalm is about people who improve the ground they cross. Set the sparrow beside Paul: the bird has found the thing he is running for, and did nothing to deserve it — she nested where she was. The psalm holds both without discomfort.
The last stretch of the Sermon on the Plain, arranged by Luke as a short course in seeing. Yesterday was about how to treat an enemy; today is about whether you are in a position to treat anyone.
What happens
"Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,' when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother's eye."
What to notice
The two objects are chosen for the size of the gap between them. Karphos is a dry chip, a bit of chaff, a speck of sawdust. Dokos is a roof-beam — the main structural timber of a house. It is carpenter's humour, and the absurdity does the work: the man volunteering for delicate surgery cannot see, because there is a joist in the way. But the ending is the part that gets misread. Jesus does not say leave your brother's eye alone. He says ekbale prōton tēn dokon — take the beam out first — kai tote diablepseis, and then you will see clearly to take out the splinter. The splinter removal is still assigned. What has been reordered is the sequence, and the reason given is optical rather than moral. That matters, because the lectionary read Matthew 18:15 five days ago — go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. Today's Gospel is not the counter-argument to that; it is its precondition. And the opening images set it up: a blind guide leads his companion into a pit; a fully trained disciple "will be like his teacher" — katērtismenos, a word for something mended and put back into working order. The bad outcome is not that the guide is malicious. It is that he cannot see and took the job anyway.
Take the beam out of your own eye first — and then do the other operation
Both readings are about a preparation that has to happen before the public work is any good, and both refuse the obvious conclusion that one should therefore stay quiet.
Paul is the clearest case. Everything in his paragraph is aimed outward — I have become all things to all, to save at least some — and the last three sentences turn violently inward. He is not disciplining himself in order to be holy in private; he says why in plain terms: "for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified."The training exists because the preaching does. And his word for the risk is not damnation but adokimos, the stamp on metal that fails assay: the coin looked right and did not pass.
Luke's beam is the same idea in a domestic register. The man in the story has genuinely spotted something — there really is a splinter, and it really does need to come out. His problem is not officiousness. His problem is that he is about to attempt precision work half-blind, and the person who will be hurt is the brother. Which is why the parable opens with the blind guide and the pit: two people go in, and only one of them chose the route.
So the day's shape is a sequence, not a prohibition. Get the beam out; then you will see clearly enough to help. Give the body its black eye; then preach without being disqualified. In both cases the self-work is instrumental — for the sake of somebody else's eye, or somebody else's hearing — which is what keeps it from curdling into scrupulosity.
Then Psalm 84 sits in the middle and quietly refuses to let the day become a training regime. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest in which she puts her young — your altars, Yahweh of hosts. The bird has arrived at the destination the pilgrim is walking toward, and there is no suggestion that she earned it. She nested where she was. The psalm holds the runner and the sparrow in the same stanza without deciding between them, which is more honest than either reading alone, and probably the reason it is here.
A Question to Sit With
The man in the parable is right. There is a splinter, it is in his brother's eye, and it hurts. He is not a busybody; he is a would-be helper with an obstruction he has stopped noticing, which is the nature of an obstruction that size. The uncomfortable part is that Jesus still wants the splinter out — he simply wants it done by somebody who can see. What am I currently right about, in someone else's life, that I am the wrong person to say out loud today, and what would it take to become the right one?