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Tag Archives: Pharisees

Emails to God – What Are My Intentions? (Matthew 16:1-4)

25 Feb

1 The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.

2 He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ 3 and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.

Dear God, I don’t think the Pharisees and Sadducees thought through it this carefully, but it would have been interesting to ask them two questions:

  • Why are you testing Jesus?
  • What answer can He give that will satisfy you?

I think they could come up with an answer to the first one pretty easily. It would be something like, “We are trying to determine if he is, in fact, the Messiah.” That is what they would SAY. I think the real answer is that they just knew he was NOT the Messiah and they were looking for a way to prove it. They thought that there just had to be a way to discredit this guy.

Regarding my second question, I don’t think they had a clue. They didn’t know what they were looking for. They just knew they would know it when they heard it

There are times in my life when I am asking questions that I don’t really know what I am looking for. I’ll be trying to implement a rule or come up with a punishment for my children, but sometimes it is an arbitrary rule that maybe my parents came up with when I was a kid because their parents came up with it when they were kids. Or perhaps I will be at work and decide to do a fundraising event or enforce a policy because that is the way we have always done it instead of questioning why we are doing it and what the end will be.

A good example of this is collecting data for our diabetic patients and how they are doing. In the past we have felt this need to track how our diabetes patients, as a whole, are doing in managing their disease. Then when the numbers would come back we would always feel like failures because, being a charitable clinic that serves low-income uninsured people, we found that so many of them were not mentally or emotionally capable of managing their disease. So what good were the numbers doing us? We weren’t using them to apply for a government grant. No one was auditing us for them. We finally decided that we were wasting energy on calculating the data because there wasn’t much we could do about it aggregately anyway.

Father, help me to be discerning about the different decisions I make. Reveal to me when I am being foolish and help me to critically look at my expectations of myself, my wife, my children, and my business. Give me eyes to see and ears to hear. Give me a sense of your vision and goals for the different areas in my life so that I will spend my energy on the things that are above and not the things below.

 
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Posted by on February 25, 2012 in Matthew

 

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Emails to God – Jesus, Do You Realize You Offended Them? (Matthew 15:1-20)

21 Feb

1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

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

10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”

16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Dear God, I love how Jesus was trying to make a point to the Pharisees and teach his disciples a principle at the same time, and yet the disciples seem to be wondering just how astute Jesus is. After Jesus goes on his rant “the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” I love that. They must have been so puzzled by Jesus. They must have been wondering, “How can He talk to them this way? Doesn’t he know he is going to get in trouble?” Then some of them might have thought, “Hmm. Maybe He is so in tune with God that He is obtuse when it comes to how people hear what He says.

If I were rating my top five weaknesses in my Christian walk I would say that the fear of offending people definitely makes the list. I want to be liked. I don’t want to push someone too far. I don’t want to do something that might make them feel uncomfortable. Most to the point—I don’t want to do something that might make them not like me.

Father, as someone who raises money for a living I try to stay uncontroversial because I never know whose money I might send away with a controversial statement. At the same time, even when I didn’t raise money for a living I steered away from controversy. I guess I can’t blame that. So I guess my prayer is that I ask you to show me where I am failing you. As lent starts tomorrow, use it to truly purify my heart. Help me to repent of the things that I do against you and turn from them in a real way. Help me to grow over the next several weeks. Use them to make me the husband, father, employee, employer, son, brother, and friend you need me to be.

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in Matthew

 

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Emails to God – Refining the Pharisees (Matthew 11:7-15)

15 Jan

7 As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 8 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. 9 Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’

11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. 13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. 14 And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. 15 Whoever has ears, let them hear.

Dear God, regarding the historical reference Jesus makes to John in verse 10, here is a chunk of that passage around the one verse Jesus uses in Malachi 3:

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.

2 But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, 4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.”

I am surprised that Jesus didn’t add more of the passage than he did. Who know? Maybe he did and Matthew didn’t record it. Or perhaps he left it implied so that it would be something the Pharisees would get but maybe the rest of the crowd wouldn’t. It could have been a backhanded insult to the Pharisees while he was exemplifying John.

When I think about Pharisees who were, indeed, refined and made into pure gold and silver, I think of Nicodemus and Joseph Arimathea. I think what made them different is that they were willing to have their hearts purified. They were open to being challenged and accepting the idea that they were wrong.

That has been one of the more interesting, and difficult, parts of exploring Catholicism for me. When I entered into the RCIA class I really did do it with an open mind—or as open as I am capable of making my mind. I looked to see if there were some changes in my theology that I needed to make. And I have, indeed, made a few. For example. I am willing to accept the idea of Mary, along with the other saints, praying for me. Sure. Why not? But there are still some concepts that have really challenged my own beliefs, and I’m just not quite ready to embrace them yet. Not embracing them will prevent me from “converting”, but is that a problem? No. In the end, I don’t want this to be about “converting” to Catholicism, but about simply refining and purifying my faith into something that will continually draw me deeper into you.

Father, help me to see you clearly. Help me to embrace you as wholly as I can. Love others through me. Love my wife through me. Love my children through me. Use me in the lives of others so that you might be glorified in both my life and their lives. As I am with my extended family this afternoon, love them through me. Give them a sense of you through me.

 
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Posted by on January 15, 2012 in Matthew

 

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Emails to God – “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:9-13)

24 Dec

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Dear God, I feel like I should “go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” The quote is from Hosea 6, and section is titled, “Israel Unrepentant,” in the NIV. It is the word “unrepentant” that helps me link the passage to the Pharisees and the tax collectors. I think that Jesus was appreciating the fact that he was with people who were at least willing to consider repentance, if not yet fully repentant, as opposed to being with the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, who were a little more proud and self-righteous. Jesus was saying to the Pharisees, “You need to be on my page. You need to be showing everyone some mercy.”

Am I willing to be repentant? Am I willing to show mercy? I hope the answer to both of these is yes.

Today is Christmas Eve. As I sit here in my comfortable home, heated to 68 degrees, about to spend time with family, get gifts that I desire but don’t “need”, I think about those who are struggling through life. Yesterday, while I was driving to my office I saw an older woman walking down the street. It was cold and she was bundled up, and I think she was walking from a convenience store to an apartment complex nearby. I got to thinking about her life struggles. What is her life like now? Is she widowed? Is she sad? Does she wonder how she will pay her bills? Then, for some reason, I thought about her dead husband (remember, my imagination was going off by now, and I had him dead and one in my head) and how it would probably break his heart to see her struggling just to walk from the convenience store to her apartment in the cold. Then I thought about how I would feel if that were my wife one day, and I were looking down from heaven. It made me sad. So then I thought about stopping and at least offering her a ride, but I figured it would probably scare her to be offered a ride from a strange man, so I drove on. But I vowed in my heart that I would think about her the rest of the day and not let her memory slip past me too quickly.

Father, help me to desire mercy from myself and to offer it readily to others. Love others through me. As I see family over the next couple of days, use me as an instrument of your peace. Help me to parent my kids over the next couple of days. Help me to husband my wife. Help me to love my siblings, parents, in-laws, nieces, and nephew. Help me to not seek anything for myself, but to give of myself for others.

 
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Posted by on December 24, 2011 in Matthew

 

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