Can You Pass
the Tests You Give?
March 2, 2025
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
An illuminating activity for all teachers to do is to do the work you’re assigning your students. Sometimes when I create a new assignment, in order to determine its level of difficulty or to determine how much time the task will take, I sit at a student desk and I do the exact assignment I have created.
Is it an essay? Then I sit and write the essay.
Is it multiple choice? Then I fill in all the bubbles.
Is it something I have to create? Then I sit and create the thing.
This is not a moment for “good enough” or “I get the point” – this exercise is only truly useful if you create the exact thing you’re demanding that your students do, and you do it in about one third of the time you’re expecting them to take themselves. If the work is too hard for you, how much harder will it be for your students? If this is a test you cannot pass yourself, why are you asking others to pass it?
The readings in today’s Mass remind us about the purpose of tests: they reveal what is true. As a schoolteacher I am keenly aware about how much people dislike tests, for they reveal what is otherwise hidden. Further, a test is something that, by its very nature, you either pass or fail. All the preparation we do before the test is what determines whether or not we’re going to be successful at it, and what we say and do is a clear manifestation of the goodness or evil that we have planted in our hearts. But when we test others, we have to be sure that we would pass that test ourselves.
from the First Reading
When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear;
so do one’s faults when one speaks.
As the test of what the potter molds is in the furnace, so in tribulation is the test of the just.
The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had;
so too does one’s speech disclose the bent of one’s mind. Praise no one before he speaks,
for it is then that people are tested.
-Sirach 27:4-7
from Gospel
“Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? … 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.
“A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. … A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”
Luke 6:39-45
I am struck by this line from the Old Testament reading: “Praise no one before he speaks, for it is then that people are tested.” I think we often use the phrase “reserve judgment” to mean that we should think the best of people until we are proven otherwise, but I think there’s a wisdom in the reverse being true as well. There’s a reason we conduct interviews for jobs, why we host debates for our political leaders, why we go on dates and talk – what is this person going to say? Is it wisdom or insanity?
We certainly do owe people the benefit of not making assumptions until we have more information, but we owe ourselves that same courtesy. Do not assume good or ill, virtue or evil, but approach strangers with just enough suspicion to keep yourself safe. Simultaneously, treat this stranger with respect and dignity as is befitting all people. But this advice goes beyond strangers, for sometimes we find ourselves, in employment and politics and other areas as well, faced with people we think we know but do not really know very well at all.
How much studying do we do for our political candidates? Do we just walk into the booth and select all the “D” or “R” candidates? Or have we learned something about each office and each candidate? And when we celebrate the victory of our candidate, do we own our votes when those candidates fail us?
But the readings are not really about how we judge (or fail to judge) other people: we are the ones being tested, specifically and individually, as the Gospel reading reminds us. How can I judge others if I would fail the test myself?
I know it’s all well and good for us to demand that our leaders be “better” than we are, but there’s something really false about expecting that our political leaders be morally superior to their constituents. Ideally, political leaders come from the communities they represent; ideally, political leaders are the people they govern. There is something false about confronting our representatives and saying, “I know we are terrible, but you should be better.” How much more powerful is it if you, as a good and courageous person, can confront your political leaders with, “I am a good person, and I demand that you be one too”?
We have to be able to pass the tests we use for other people – I am being tested, and so are you. We have to turn all of this inward and consider our own virtues – our wisdom, our courage, our capacity for kindness, our willingness to do what is right – and think about how we will perform when the moment actually comes.
Sometimes the test is planned. I can prepare myself for an altercation that I know is coming. I can talk myself through it. I can consider what the other person will say to me, what I will say in response, and how I will say it. I can practice body language, demeanor, witty turns of phrase, and every other thing to make the meeting turn to my advantage.
The real tests are not the ones we can plan for, however, but the ones that happen when we least expect them and under conditions we cannot control. How do we act when our comfort or safety are on the line? What decisions do we make when people’s lives are at risk? Do we act with selfishness, considering our own comfort and safety ahead of others’?
That’s the real test: that’s when we really see what it is the potter put into the kiln. And if we want to pass these tests as they arise, we have to cultivate the goodness of spirit and strength of character that will carry us through when those times arrive at our doorsteps. The fruit we bear is a testament to what is really in our hearts. ~