In forty years of ordained ministry, I have never preached on this morning’s gospel text, which is a pretty good indication that I have been avoiding it. I have discovered over the years that the texts I ignore are the very ones that most describe me. And when it comes to specks and logs, I am an expert. But then most of us are.

These three parables at the end of Luke 6 are the very end of Jesus’ sermon on the plain — Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount. As you may remember in Matthew, Jesus’ most famous sermon takes place on a mountain far away from the crowd — hard and demanding words for just a few — the inner circle — the chosen twelve. But in Luke, this very same sermon is preached down on the plain in the midst of the crowds with equally hard and demanding words but meant for …