Tag Archives: Pharisees

Chapter-a-Day

Dutch Fronts

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When the wall collapses, will people not ask you, “Where is the whitewash you covered it with?”
Ezekiel 13:12 (NIV)

The Iowa town where Wendy and I live is a unique place. Pella was founded by a Dutch pastor and his flock back in 1847. They were fleeing religious persecution back in Netherlands and were intent on creating “a city of refuge” on the Iowa prairie. Visitors from the Netherlands today will often say that Pella is more Dutch than the Netherlands itself. Dutch heritage is so woven into the town that any commercial businesses must include classic Dutch architectural design flourishes on their buildings. Even Walmart and McDonalds comply (see the featured photo on today’s post).

Of course, the architectural flourishes are just that. Behind the doors of that cute looking shop on the square, it’s just a building like any other building. In some cases, that building is 170 years old and in critically major disrepair. This has led to locals using the metaphor of a “Dutch Front.” The front of the building looks cute, quaint, and Dutch, but on the inside it’s a hell-hole. The metaphor is often (and aptly) used to describe people who keep up self-righteous, religious appearances for public consumption, but whose actual lives are filled with greed, anger, slander, hypocrisy, and critical spirits.

In today’s chapter, God has Ezekiel prophesy against false prophets and professional diviners and spiritualists who practiced black magic. I was fascinated that God’s metaphor for false prophets was basically the same metaphor as our Dutch Front. In Zeke’s day, a strong wall around the city protected it from an enemy attack. God tells Zeke that the false prophets of his day were like a “flimsy wall” that had been whitewashed to look good. These prophets would tell people what they wanted to hear, that everything was going to be okay and that they would live in peace, while God was trying to warn them of the impending doom and destruction.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself meditating on this metaphor. Even Jesus used a form of it with the hypocritical religious Pharisees of His day:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”

There are two truths that I have observed along my life journey that come to mind as I reflect on Jesus’ words.

First, there is no one perfect and even the most sincerely devout individual has blind spots and imperfections. We are all works in progress. I have known critics and non-believers who are quick to paint any and all self-proclaimed believers with the same coat of whitewash in an effort to justify their unbelief and poor life choices. It is a very human thing to generalize an entire subset of humanity as “those people.” It makes easier for us to dismiss them instead of understanding them.

Second, Jesus was most critical of self-righteous, fundamentalist religious-types. Much like the false prophets, they played the religious game, they even thought they were being devoutly sincere, but they were blind to the spiritual reality. Their hearts weren’t seeking after the heart of God, but rather were seeking public approval ratings that made them feel good while ignoring the heart changes inside that desperately needed to be made.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself standing in the tension. Look hard enough and you will find my flaws. My wife, my children, and my inner circle of friends know them very well. As a disciple of Jesus, my first priority is not to seek and point out the flaws and hypocrisies of others. My priority is to be God’s perpetual and faithful cardiac patient. My heart has to perpetually change if I am going to be the disciple God calls me to be: My life, words, and actions increasingly blossoming with the Fruit of the Spirit. There is a time and place for calling out sin and hypocrisy just like Zeke in his day, and Jesus in His. Yet, I’m reminded that His criticism of the religious leaders was a very small part of His story, which was primarily about His healing and restorative sacrificial love for others. May my life increasingly reflect His.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Politics and Religion

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Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.”
Acts 23:6 (NIV)

It is a major election year here in the United States, which means that politics is already at a fever pitch and it’s only going to get worse. Both the trials of a former President and a number of important appeals before the Supreme Court with regard to hot political issues and elections have put politics and the legal system on a collision course.

Another hot topic of late is a new book by Salman Rushdie regarding his miraculous survival of being attacked and stabbed 15 times. Rushdie has famously been living under the threat of a fundamentalist Islamic fatwa calling for his death for decades.

Politics and religion are both kingdoms of this world and I have long observed that they often intertwine. They came to mind this morning as I read the chapter. Paul is on trial before the religious ruling council in Jerusalem, the same body that tried Jesus and had Him executed some 20 years earlier. Now it is Paul who has threatened their power and fundamentalist religious politics.

You’ve got to hand it to Paul. He was a lawyer trained by the very system that is now trying him. He knows that system and its internal politics as well as anyone, and he makes a brilliant political move. Paul knew that the ruling council was politically divided into two major factions who hated one another. He also knew that the major divisive issue between the two factions was whether there was a resurrection and life after death. So, he loudly proclaims “I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.”

It was a shrewd political play. Suddenly, he shifts the focus from himself and Jesus and stirs the festering theological rancor that divides the ruling council itself. In making a stand for “resurrection,” he makes allies of every Pharisee on the ruling council while tearing off the scab of a festering conflict within the ruling body itself. The entire ruling council erupts, turns on each other, and Paul is whisked away by the Romans amidst the tumult. Paul was a Roman citizen, and he knew that the Romans would politically refuse to let the Jewish ruling council harm one of their citizens.

Paul is safely placed under the political protection of Rome, while 40 of his fundamentalist religious enemies take an oath to neither eat nor drink until they’ve murdered him. I can’t help but think that Paul and Salman Rushdie could have a fascinating conversation about living under the threat of death from fundamentalist religion.

Politics and religion. Two kingdoms of this world combine to make a combustible cocktail. It was true in the events of today’s chapter. This is true in current events. All I have to do is read the headlines.

In the quiet this morning, I am once again reminded of the contrast between the kingdoms of this world, and the Kingdom of God that Jesus brought to this world. The Kingdom of God on earth is focused on each individual disciple who is empowered and called upon to live and relate in a manner consistent with Jesus’ teaching and opposite the kingdoms of this world. If my personal faith in Jesus and my focus on daily living as His disciple transforms into being just another member of an earthly, collective religious system then my faith withers on the Vine and I become just another religious minion subject to a kingdom of this world.

Note: I will be out traveling on business for the next two days. Lord willing, I will plan on posting again on Friday, April 26.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Jesus, the Impudent Dinner Guest

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Jesus, the Impudent Dinner Guest (CaD Lk 11) – Wayfarer

When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.
Luke 11:37-38 (NIV)

Along my journey, I have found that people across the spectrum, from antagonistic critics to well-intentioned church members, have an ignorant perception of Jesus based on what others have said about Him or how religious institutions have portrayed Him. It’s one of the reasons I continue on this chapter-a-day journey. As I return again and again to the primary source material, it never fails to inform me in often mind-altering ways.

For example, in today’s chapter lies an episode about Jesus that I’ve never heard directly addressed in a sermon or a book.

Jesus is making His way toward Jerusalem, stopping in towns and villages along the way to do His thing. He teaches, heals the sick, and casts out demons from the possessed. He is, however, facing increasing criticism and opposition. The greatest opposition is coming from the institutional religious authority over the very faith Jesus is from and represents.

In one town, a Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner at his house. The Pharisees were a powerful organization within the larger Hebrew authority system. Made up mostly of prominent, wealthy, and connected businessmen, the Pharisees presided over local religious matters along with lawyers who were experts in the Law of Moses. Think of a cadre of the most wealthy and influential businessmen in your town or city having authority over commerce and religion and civil affairs. Being invited to a Pharisee’s home to dine with his lot would have been a huge deal.

Jesus accepts the dinner invite and becomes arguably the most impudent and offensive dinner guest in recorded history.

First, Jesus refuses to wash before dinner. To this day, you’ll find washbasins out in the open in the restaurants of Jerusalem for the orthodox to ritually wash before eating. Jesus’ refusal is a slap in the face of his host, and He does it in order to make a point. Jesus looks at this local cabal of mucky-mucks and says:

“Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.”

This is rude. Jesus is insulting His host and his fellow dinner guests. In the culture of Jesus’ day, this was socially unacceptable. It’s hard to even put into today’s terms. It would be like taking your drink and throwing it into the face of your host. The Pharisee and his colleagues would have been appalled and immediately defensive, thinking “How can this country preacher from the sticks say I am not generous to the poor?! He doesn’t even know me! I always give exactly the tithe that God’s Law dictates I must give!”

Jesus raises the ante on His boorish behavior by reading their thoughts and continuing:

“Woe to you Pharisees! Yes, yes, I know you dutifully give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs to keep the letter of the law, but you neglect the heart of the law: justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.“

Jesus doesn’t wait for their reply to this before He raises the stakes even higher:

“Woe to you Pharisees! All you care about is having VIP seating in the synagogues and having people in town treat you like you’re all that and a bag of chips!”

There, dining with the Pharisee is a lawyer, who is not technically a card-carrying member of the Pharisee club, but a prominent colleague and social ally. The lawyer comes to his insulted host’s defense, calls Jesus to a social point-of-order, and informs Jesus that when He insults his Pharisee host, Jesus is insulting him as well.

Jesus quickly goes all-in to insult the lawyers as well.

“And you lawyers, woe to you! You load people down with your authoritative lists of ‘dos and don’ts’ that make their lives more difficult. You feel all powerful, telling people what to do, but then you sit there feeling smug and won’t lift one finger to help them.”

While Luke doesn’t provide the details, I don’t think Jesus got anything to eat. In fact, Luke implies that the Pharisee and his friends threw Jesus out of his house, or perhaps Jesus simply walked out, because the next thing the good doctor writes is: “When Jesus went outside, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely.”

In the quiet this morning, I find myself meditating on both the fact that Jesus acted in a rude and socially unacceptable manner and that in 2000 years since we rarely address or acknowledge this fact.

In His dinner party rant, Jesus provides a clue to both His anger and His impertinence. He states that from “Abel to Zechariah” (which is like me saying “From Genesis to Revelation”) it has been the institutional religious fundamentalism and authority thing that His host and friends represent that led to the murder of the prophets God sent to the Hebrew people throughout history. And, the handwriting is already on the wall. Jesus told His disciples in yesterday’s chapter: This same system will kill Him, as well.

I’ve observed along my life journey that the institutional religious fundamentalism and authority thing can be found amidst all of the world’s major religions. I believe that it’s what happens when sinful human beings turn religion into a kingdom of this world. I have always found it fascinating that it was the one thing that Jesus opposed so vehemently that He was willing to break every socially acceptable custom in order to call it out. Ironically, with acts like His impudent dinner behavior, Jesus pushes His opposition to call His bet, go all-in themselves, and kill Him.

The further I get in my journey, the more contrast the eyes of my heart see between the ways of God and the ways of the institutional religious fundamentalism and authority thing. And, the more my heart desires to pursue the former while joining Jesus in opposition to the latter.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

For or Against

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For or Against? (CaD Matt 9) – Wayfarer

And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”

But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
Matthew 9:33-34 (NIV)

In yesterday’s post, I talked about Jesus’ enemies who controlled the fundamentalist religious power in his day. As I read this morning’s chapter, I found myself continuing to observe and consider the contrast between Jesus’ words and actions and the words and actions of his detractors and enemies.

In one episode, a man who was demon-possessed and couldn’t speak was brought to Jesus. Remember that this was a rural, small-town, back-water region. Everyone knows everyone or at least knows who everyone is. It’s quite possible the many in the crowd knew this man, knew his crazy affliction, and had to navigate life with and around him. When Jesus healed the man and the man spoke for the first time, they were understandably amazed.

In today’s chapter alone a paralyzed man was forgiven and then walked. A dead girl was brought back to life. A woman with a chronic bleeding disorder was made whole. Two blind men see. A demon-possessed mute is freed from spiritual captivity and is finally able to speak. Just think about all of the goodness, wholeness, and life in each of these stories. Think about the parents, families, loved ones, friends, and communities who experienced the ripple-effect of these miracles as all of that shalom resonated through each of these individual’s circles of influence.

Now listen again to the Jesus’ religious enemies: “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”

As fundamentalist systems perpetuate, only those who maintain “in-group” status are truly “good” in that system’s eyes. That goodness is seen and understood by an individual toeing the line of the system’s prescribed thoughts and behaviors. Jesus is repeatedly refusing to do so. He forgives sin (which, according to the system, only God can do). He associates with “out-group” sinners and tax collectors. He doesn’t appear to religiously fast like the system prescribes. He breaks the Sabbath rules. So this man can’t be good. In a fundamentalist system, the only good, pure, ideal people are those who follow the unquestionable rules and dogma to the letter and avoid mixing with undesireables.

“Those who are not for us are against us.”

Jesus doesn’t fit. He can’t be good. Thus, he must be evil.

In the quiet this morning, I recalled this episode:

John spoke up, “Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn’t in our group.”
Jesus wasn’t pleased. “Don’t stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath slam me. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally.“
Mark 9:38-40 (MSG)

Jesus’ reaction was the opposite of his religious enemies. Rather than being exclusionary and controlling, the way of Jesus was to be inclusive and empowering.

When I was a young man operating in fundamentalist Christian circles, being “Christ-like” meant adhering to the code of moral and doctrinal purity (as dictated by church, denomination, and/or parental authorities).

As an older man who has followed Jesus for forty years, I’ve increasingly learned that being “Christ-like” means adhering to the law of love (as dictated by Jesus).

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Matters of Heart

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He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not with a true heart.
2 Chronicles 25:2 (NRSVCE)

In all my years as a follower of Jesus, I’ve observed that we as humans are far more comfortable with flesh than with Spirit. From our earliest years we’re taught to trust what our senses are telling us:

The stove coil is red and it’s radiating heat. Don’t touch it.

The meat smells funny. Don’t eat it.

Something in my knee just popped. Stop running.

I’m feeling light headed and nauseous. Better lie down.

Following Jesus, however, is a faith journey. God’s Message says that faith is “the assurance of what we hope for, evidence of that which we cannot see.” There’s no sight, smell, touch, taste, or hearing involved. Quite the opposite. Faith is beyond our physical senses. God continues to say over and over and over again that He judges not on what can be seen, but what is unseen; God looks at the heart.

When God was directing Samuel who he should anoint as king, He told the prophet: “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Yet I’ve observed continually that most followers of Jesus, and the institutions we create to organize ourselves, repeatedly revert back to our inherent human instinct to trust our base physical senses. We judge others on what we see in their appearance, what we observe in their behaviors, or we we hear about them from others. Our institutions create rules, both written and unwritten, about a person’s worth and standing before God based on how they look and/or behave. I’ve come to believe that we do this because it comes naturally, it is easy, and it gives us (both individually and as a group) comfort when others conform to the social, religious, and behavioral standards we stipulate and expect.

But that’s not how God operates. He says it quite plainly. “My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways.” (Isaiah 55:8) And, as the Bard so beautifully put it: “There’s the rub.”

Dealing with the unseen motives and intents of the heart, as God does, is messy. It requires discernment, wisdom, grace, and risk.

In today’s chapter, the Chronicler describes Judah’s King Amaziah as a person who did the right things, but not from a true heart. His actions were admirable, his behavior conformed to expectation, but his motivations were all in the wrong place. It brings to mind the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, of whom Jesus said:

“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?

“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.

“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You’re like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it’s all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you’re saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds.

“Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It’s on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse.”

The religious people of Jesus day were doing the same things I have observed in religious people of my day. Posturing, appearance, and propriety intended to prove righteousness from what can be physically seen and and audibly heard.

Jesus took a different approach. He gathered a motley crew of followers that included rough, uneducated fishermen, a pair of brothers with anger management issues, a sleazy tax collector, a thief, and a right wing terrorist. He taught them about faith. He exemplified the love he expected of them. He instilled in them compassion. They didn’t come close to measuring up to any kind of acceptable religious standard of their day. But that didn’t matter to God. “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 

God’s standard is as simple as a Broadway tune: “You gotta have heart!”

This morning I find myself wanting desperately not to be an Amaziah or a Pharisee. Screw religious trappings and the litmus tests of the institutional church.

I want more heart. And I want to find the heart of others, not their conformity to the standards with which I’m personally comfortable.

Chapter-a-Day

Jesus, the Meta Communicator

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Source: sepblog via Flickr
Source: sepblog via Flickr

One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?”

He replied, “I will also ask you a question. Tell me: John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin?”
Luke 20:1-4 (NIV)

One of our friends is a marriage and family therapist and over the years he’s commented on multiple occasions about the fact that Wendy and I meta communicate better than any couple he’s ever counseled. In other words, we communicate about how we’re communicating. Wendy and I don’t find this to be strange at all. We were both communication majors in college and theatre people by passion. We think about how things are being communicated all the time.

One of the things I love about Jesus is that He was a brilliant communicator. In today’s chapter, we find Jesus in Jerusalem the week before His execution and resurrection. He spends His days teaching in and around the Temple and He has stirred up a hornets nest of socio-political conflict. The crowds love Him. The religious leaders who control the Temple racket want Jesus rubbed out, but are afraid of His popularity and the potential political backlash if they move too quickly against Him. In an effort to publicly discredit Him and tarnish His popularity in the polls, the religious leaders send several waves of spies to try and trip Jesus up and provide them the ammunition to discredit the young rabbi.

But, Jesus (who had once claimed “I am the Word”) is a brilliant meta communicator. He sees through the questions coming at Him and immediately recognizes who is behind the question and what they are trying to do. So, Jesus applied a series of defensive communication strategies. First, He refuses to answer a direct question with a direct answer. Instead, Jesus responds to a question with a question and catches the chief priests in their own trap.

Wendy and I have noticed in recent years that our society and culture have slowly lost the art and ability to have honest, sincere conversations with people of differing opinions in an effort to explore ideas and opinions. The more polarized we become politically, socially and spiritually, the more our we find conversations are actually interrogations:

  • “Do you think homosexuals are going to hell?”
  • “Do you believe the Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God?”
  • “Don’t you believe a woman should have a right to do what she wants with her body?”
  • “Are you a Democrat or a Republican?”
  • “If a woman eight months pregnant is murdered, is it one homicide or two?”
  • “Do you really think a hunter needs an uzi?”

In my experience, questions like these are not typically asked with the honest intention to openly explore issues of life and society with another person, but instead are asked to trap the respondent into a corner from which the interrogator can easily label him or her. “Oh, well she’s obviously a [conservative, liberal, religious nut job, whacko, gun nut, feminist, misogynist, Republican, Democrat, homosexual, homophobe, and etc.]”. Once labeled, we find it easier to dismiss other people and their thoughts, words, beliefs, opinions, and person.

Today, I’m thankful Wendy and I enjoy a diverse group of family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances who represent a broad spectrum of thoughts, experiences, ideas and opinions. I’m grateful for those who show me love and respect despite their differences with me, and I want to follow Jesus’ command to tangibly love my enemies (which includes perceived enemies of thought, opinion, beliefs and politics).

Chapter-a-Day

Contrasts in Corruption

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Jan_Luyken's_Jesus_21._Zacchaeus._Phillip_Medhurst_Collection

A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.

When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” Luke 19:2, 45-46 (NIV)

In Jesus’ day corruption was everywhere. I realized as I read this morning that today’s chapter is bookended with a fascinating parallel. It begins with the story of Zacchaeus.

Zac was a “chief tax collector.” In the days of Roman occupation, the empire broke up territory into tax regions. The tax collectors were locals who knew their neighborhoods, local businessmen, and had first hand knowledge of where the local money was. Tax collectors had a base amount of tax that the Roman Empire demanded they raise and send to Rome. There were, no doubt, others in the regional political machine getting their cut, but beyond that the tax collectors could keep whatever they could extort from their own people. The more money they squeezed out of their neighbors the richer they became, and Zac was a very wealthy man. As a “chief tax collector” Zacchaeus would not only have extorted his own share, but he was likely getting a piece of the action from other collectors in his territory. He was a extortionist and racketeer, the first century equivalent of a local mob boss.

Contrast this with the Pharisees and religious leaders who ran the temple. They judged Zacchaeus as a traitor and a sinner and they would look down their ecclesiastical noses at the extortionist. But, the religious leaders were total hypocrites. They had a thriving racket of their own. Good Jews were required to make regular pilgrimages to the temple to make sacrifices and offerings for their sins. Jews regularly came from all over the known world to make their annual sacrifices. To take advantage of this, the Pharisees in charge of the temple minted their own currency and the priests demanded that people buy the supplies for their offerings from the approved temple merchants. Of course, the temple merchants only took temple currency, so people would have to visit the temple “money changers” to exchange their local currency at exorbitant exchange rates. At least with Zac and the money changers there was no pretense about what they did with their money. The high priest and the religious leaders were corrupt extortionists, but they cloaked their racket in pious religiosity. They used God to launder their public image and both social and religious leverage to line their own pockets.

Jesus visits Zacchaeus’ house (creating all sorts of gossip, whispers and condemnation from all the good religious people). By the end of the visit, Zac’s heart and life had changed. He agrees to give away half of his wealth and make amends with all whom he’d cheated (the list was likely to be very long).

Jesus visits the temple. Unlike the sinner, Zac, the Pharisees and religious leaders refuse to repent of their extortion and racketeering. They choose, instead, to plot to have Jesus killed. His teaching, and his driving of the money changers from the temple were a threat to their power and their income. They would have none of it. Jesus needed to be rubbed out.

God’s Message teaches that sin is common to all. Both the tax collectors and the religious leaders were infected with the same appetite for greed and power. There was no difference in their sin, only in their response to Jesus. The traitorous “sinner” Zacchaeus opens his heart to Jesus’ words and turns away from his racketeering ways. The good religious people close their hearts to Jesus’ words and sink to even lower into corruption in order to safeguard their wealth and power.

Today, I’m thinking about the contrast in these two stories. I’m aware some people think of me as a good, religious person like the Pharisees, but I don’t ever want to be like the temple leaders who played a religious game to hide their lust for wealth and power. I’m also aware that some religious people think that I am not being religious enough and I don’t tow the line on their religious standards. I am divorced, I have tats, I don’t hide my love for a pint of good beer and an occasional cigar. And, I hang out with those sketchy artists and theatre types.

I am admittedly not perfect, but I hope that, like Zacchaeus, my heart and soul will always be open to Jesus’ teachings and that my life will always be enthusiastically responsive to Spirit and Truth.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Leviticus 22

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“If anyone eats from a holy offering accidentally, he must give back the holy offering to the priest and add twenty percent to it.” Leviticus 22:14 (MSG)

I was never a “straight A” student. I did well in school, but was never overly concerned about having to have a perfect grade point average. I wanted to be a good student, but perfect grades didn’t matter that much to me. What mattered to me was not that I had memorized every factoid, brown-nosed every teacher, meticulously excelled at every class project. What mattered to me was that I was getting the big picture. I wanted to understand and internalize each subject and how it fit into the grand scheme of life.

Leviticus is a book that will drive a straight A student crazy. You can list out all of the rules and try to adhere to every one of them, but you’ll find yourself in a straight-jacket. Even God was giving the law so that the people would get the big picture: you can’t possibly live good enough lives to overcome the root problem of sin because rule keeping doesn’t change the condition of your heart.

By the time Jesus arrived on the scene some 1500 years later, the lesson had been completely lost. The straight-A, hard-core keepers of the law had created a religious class system based on who best kept all of the rules. They even went further to add rules to the rules which would ensure their power, profit and religious standing. Journey through the source accounts of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and you’ll find many example of Jesus calling all of the religious do-gooders to a legal point of order:

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

   “‘These people honor me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me.
   They worship me in vain;
   their teachings are merely human rules.’”

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

The point of Leviticus is not to get mired in the minutiae of the rules, but to see the larger truth(s) to which they point. Jesus made it clear that God’s great concern was not the keeping of the rules but the condition of the heart.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Matthew 21

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Jesus said, “Yes, and I tell you that crooks and whores are going to precede you into God’s kingdom. John came to you showing you the right road. You turned up your noses at him, but the crooks and whores believed him. Even when you saw their changed lives, you didn’t care enough to change and believe him.” Matthew 21:31b-32 (MSG)

Along my journey, I’ve worshiped in, served on staff, or been in positions of leadership in a handful of different churches and denominations: Methodist, Baptist, Non-Denominational, Community, Presbyterian, Quaker, and Reformed. It’s given me a wide variety of experiences.

As I read the accounts of Jesus’ run ins with the religious leaders of his day, I always picture the religious and denominational leaders of my day having the same conflicts and run-ins with Him. In almost every denomination I’ve experienced, I’ve witnessed or been engaged in run-ins with religious leaders and authorities who act not unlike the Pharisees and Saduccees of Jesus’ day. It’s made me wonder if all human religious institutions, even those dedicated to Jesus, don’t follow the same paths towards human pride, power, and self-importance. I begin to think that it’s inevitable given the nature of man.

Today, this leads me down a path of introspection. As we begin Holy Week, I’m thinking about myself and where I fit in the story. What character in the story of Jesus’ final days, crucifixion, and resurrection do I most identify with? Am I more like Caiaphas the high priest, or Mary Magdalene? Am I more a part of the human institution of the church or a heart and life follower of Jesus? I don’t want to be like the religious leaders whose life was dedicated to the practice of religion but whose hearts and lives would not change to embrace  the Truth. I want to be like the “crooks and whores” whose belief is evidenced by a changed life. I want to go to the grave still becoming more like Jesus.

Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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