Jesus' urgent counsel, "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged," can be paraphrased this way: "Be merciful toward others, so that mercy may also be shown to you." Yet the apparent simplicity of this thought is complicated by the fact that the second part of the saying speaks not of human judgment, but of God's judgment. At the same time, it is clear that in life those who show mercy rarely receive it in return, and even when they do, there is little reason to look here for a direct connection between one person's kindness and the kindness shown to that person by third parties, so to speak.

It is another matter that Jesus does not call His followers to seek any indulgence for themselves. Christians are simply required to remember how deeply tangled worldly life is: relationships, actions, disputes, conflicts, and everything else that fills human existence, and under no circumstances to pass final judgments, still less verdicts, about what we dislike or what at times truly breathes malice and sows destruction. This is not worth doing if only because every person is merely "a reed shaken by the wind," capable of great nobility, great folly, and even desperate madness...

For this reason, the words about the speck and the log follow in today's passage. Jesus is not simply advising us to be more modest or humble, and certainly not to try to convince ourselves that "I am worse than every creature." In His words one hears a simple friendly wish for every listener or reader: evaluate yourself soberly, and do not indulge in self-abasement. More than that, there is a call to action here: there is no need to pick over other people's bones, and no need for self-digging either; nothing is gained that way. Just wash the eye into which something has come from outside, and look at God, at His generous and understanding attitude toward people; imitate Him, and there will be no need to teach anyone, rebuke anyone, or grumble at anyone. What will remain is only love that persuades without words and builds everyone up...

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you..." Here it is fitting to recall an ancient wisdom spoken by Ovid, in order to see how close and at the same time how distant these two worlds are: enlightened, golden antiquity and the small community of the early Christian Church standing opposite it. "Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed saepe cadendo." "The drop hollows the stone not by force, but by falling often." It would seem that this says the same thing: constancy in seeking. It sounds like a call not to despair when no result is visible, but to dare further. Yes, the similarity is obvious... But if we look at this picture a little more closely, we notice that there is something dead in this stone, some indifference to the drop, and a cold static quality shows through the whole situation.

Christianity is entirely different. The main thing that distinguishes Christ's words is the presence in them of a living answer. Yes, this too is a call to constancy in seeking, but in a completely different way: it will be opened to you, it will be given to you... What can a drop expect from a stone? Nothing, only dead silence. Here, however, we have a living answer. There is a striking expression: if a person, praying to God, does not expect an answer, he is simply an atheist. And sometimes someone hopes to get through to God with monotonous prayers, morning and evening, which, like that same drop, resemble one another day after day, performed without creativity and, most importantly, without dialogue... No, the way to Him is only dialogue, only creativity, only standing over the abyss.

As we can see, readiness to grant good to the one who asks is presented as a distinctive feature of God, to which Jesus draws His listeners' attention. Of course, Hosea had already spoken of God's readiness to do more than deserved for His people, as well as for each individual person. The only thing required of the people for this is to turn to God and ask forgiveness for the sins they have committed. And the pre-exilic prophets already connected this readiness of God for undeserved benefactions with the very possibility of justification on the day of Judgment, whether for the people or for an individual person.

Jesus, as we see, connects with it the very possibility of the Kingdom as such. He says to the people listening to Him: you are able to do good deeds for those you love, for example for your own children, although in general goodness is contrary to your fallen nature; yet sometimes you are able to build concrete relationships with concrete people, even if only a few, despite your nature. But for God a good attitude toward every person is the norm; doing good does not contradict His nature. It is enough only to enter into relationship with Him in order to receive good, for there can be no other, non-good relationship with Him. And this in turn opens the road to the Kingdom for everyone: for the fullness of relationship with the Father and with Christ is precisely what brings a person into communion with it.

And Jesus bears witness that God is always ready for such relationships, so now it is up to the person. For Him, loving a person is no labor: relationships of love are the only relationships natural to Him. But in order to love, a person must always step over himself and build a relationship with another, whether God or neighbor, against his own fallen nature. Yet for a person the matter is made simpler by the fact that God is always ready to take a step toward him. And not only one step, but many steps in response to the one step taken by a person seeking relationship with God and the Kingdom.