9 February 2016 - more than thousands elsewhere

[ Today's Readings ]

This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
In vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.

The Pharisees have various things they do which aren't bad in themselves. The various washings and purifications are fine in themselves. But the Pharisees use them to assert their superiority over others. They use them to build their own pride. They don't provide these practices as occasions of mercy for others but rather for judgment.

You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
He went on to say,
“How well you have set aside the commandment of God
in order to uphold your tradition!

We can't be this fixated on our ideas and traditions. We need to place God's ideas and traditions first.

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter (see. Second Thessalonians 2:15).

His traditions must be the origin of our own. His Word must be more to us than all other words. Before we speak we must listen.

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers (see First Thessalonians 2:13)

If he does not have primacy and priority we will twist good things and use them to bad ends.

Yet you say,
‘If someone says to father or mother,
“Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’
(meaning, dedicated to God),
you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother.

We may even convince ourselves that such things are in the service of God rather than self. The risk is real. The only way to be sure we don't make this mistake is to allow him to be as present in our lives as he wants to be.

“Can it indeed be that God dwells on earth?
If the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you,
how much less this temple which I have built! 

We have more access to the presence of God than does Solomon. Jesus is the presence of God. Jesus himself is the Word of the Father. He must come before any of our own words. His presence must fill our lives that much. If we welcome his presence in this way he will heed our prayers and petitions. He will listen from his heavenly dwelling and grant pardon. He will teach our hearts the truth which Solomon knows:

LORD, God of Israel,
there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below

Let's learn the value of coming into the presence of God today. Let's learn to give him the room to dwell in our hearts just as he dwell's in Solomon's temple.

I had rather one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I had rather lie at the threshold of the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.