16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.
19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. 26 Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.
Mark 5:16-26
42 “What sorrow awaits you Pharisees! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore justice and the love of God. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things.
43 “What sorrow awaits you Pharisees! For you love to sit in the seats of honor in the synagogues and receive respectful greetings as you walk in the marketplaces. 44 Yes, what sorrow awaits you! For you are like hidden graves in a field. People walk over them without knowing the corruption they are stepping on.”
45 “Teacher,” said an expert in religious law, “you have insulted us, too, in what you just said.”
46 “Yes,” said Jesus, “what sorrow also awaits you experts in religious law! For you crush people with unbearable religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease the burden. 47 What sorrow awaits you! For you build monuments for the prophets your own ancestors killed long ago. 48 But in fact, you stand as witnesses who agree with what your ancestors did. They killed the prophets, and you join in their crime by building the monuments! 49 This is what God in his wisdom said about you: ‘I will send prophets and apostles to them, but they will kill some and persecute the others.’
50 “As a result, this generation will be held responsible for the murder of all God’s prophets from the creation of the world— 51 from the murder of Abel to the murder of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, it will certainly be charged against this generation.
52 “What sorrow awaits you experts in religious law! For you remove the key to knowledge from the people. You don’t enter the Kingdom yourselves, and you prevent others from entering.”
Luke 11:42-52
Dear God, these are the New Testament and Gospel readings for the church today (although I did add a couple of verses around the original selections just for added context. Here’s what struck me as I read both of them together. It’s the first verses above from Galatians 5:16-18.
16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.
That last sentence in verse 18 is powerful. Paul is saying that if I’m directed by your Holy Spirit then I am not under the law of Moses. I am free to let the Holy Spirit’s fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control grow in me and move me however it will.
I was listening to a debate this morning about the government’s decision to publicly execute someone via firing squad. The Catholic church has come out against both the capital punishment nature of the execution (they believe in the sancity of life from conception to natural death) as well as the public display of it. Some evangelical leaders who are nationally known have come out saying that Genesis 9 commands us to shed blood if blood was shed. Hmmm. I’ll come back to that.
Then there is Jesus’s interaction with the Pharisees in Luke 11. He’s telling them how they are focused on the law but have no relation to tapping into being led by your Spirit.
When thinking about the death penalty, for example, I was thinking this morning about the parable of the wheat and the weeds, which has become one of my favorites over the last few months. We cannot tell what is a weed and what is wheat at this point in any human’s life. What might look like a weed we should pull might turn out to be wheat that will bear fruit. Some biblical examples of murderers whose lives you used later: Levi and Simeon. Moses. David. Saul/Paul. What if these men had been weeded out of this life after they committed their murders. What if Moses had never made it to the wilderness and eventually found the burning bush? What if David were killed after he killed Uriah and never fathered Solomon who was part of Jesus’s lineage? What if Paul had been killed for his participation in Stephen’s stoning and had never found you on the road to Damascus? What if your Holy Spirit is still active for our entire lives, and it’s up to you to separate the wheat from the weeds at the final harvest?
Father, the death penalty is just one example. I used to be a believer in it, but I’ve changed my mind over the years. I’d like to think the Holy Spirit’s fruit growing in me changed my mind, but some in the conservative Evangelical sphere would probably just call me “woke” because of it. Whatever the case may be, regardless of how I might selfishly want to see the world, I pray that your Spirit will counsel me and guide me. That you will grow your fruit in me. That the things of earth, the wisdom of this earth, and my attraction to the desires of my sinful nature will grow strangely dim in the light of your glory and grace.
I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,
Amen
