A young couple moved into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they were eating breakfast, the young woman saw her neighbor hanging the wash outside.

“That laundry is not very clean,” she said. “She doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.”

photo via wardrobeadvice.com

Her husband looked on, but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband, “Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this?”

The husband said, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”

Via Doc’s Daily Chuckle.

This joke reminds me of the word of Jesus in Matthew 7:1-5 (NIV) when he tells us “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.  ”Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  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?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Who among us isn’t guilty of judgment? It sometimes seems that as humans judging is beyond our control. We judge others on their appearance; their job; their language or accent. We put them in little boxes and decide who they are and what they should be doing based on our perception of their lives.

It doesn’t seem to matter how often we are surprised to discover just how wrong we are, we persist in our sin. Who are the easiest to judge? Those who are different. It is human nature to like and trust those who are like us. They talk like us. They have similar interests to ours. They look like us. It is easy to assume they also share our values. However, if a person looks different; or their interests are not like ours, perhaps they have a Northern accent.  It is easy to dismiss those people as freaks or unworthy.

I submit to you that conceivably we just need to clean the windows through which we see them. Wipe away the different. Wipe away the fear. See others through God’s eyes. They are not without blame, they are not without struggles. But neither are you my friend. Perfection belongs to God.