For they preach but they do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
and lay them on people’s shoulders,
but they will not lift a finger to move them.
This fault of the Pharisees is something against which we all must guard. It is far too easy to dump the burdens of obedience on others without the grace to facilitate that obedience. We judge and condemn when others display ignorance and lack of mercy. The behavior that we judge is often justifiably judged. It is often worthy of condemnation. But what of the people who practice it? Are we just weighing them down with ever increasing lists of what they're doing wrong? Or are we first showing where the grace to life those burdens can be found?
We need to be careful about what motivates our judgments. Yes, we do need to understand which actions are moral and which are immoral. We need to know the character of people to understand whether they would be good to have as friends, good to have as politicians, or if it would be better to be more cautious and guarded toward them.
We need to avoid making judgments just to assert our own moral superiority. Yet if we look at ourselves, isn't this our most frequent sort of judgment? When we last thought something negative about an important political figure, did we bring that thought to prayer or did we just leave it as a condemnation, shaking our heads in disgust from the moral high ground?
Jesus teaches how to avoid the temptations to self-aggrandizement and delusions of the grandeur based on our own moral virtue. He is showing us that, while being moral and making good judgments is important, it is not how we should seek to be recognized by others.
As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’
You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
Call no one on earth your father;
you have but one Father in heaven.
Do not be called ‘Master’;
you have but one master, the Christ.
We have one teacher, one Father, and one master. We implicitly compete with him when we use our moral judgments as weapons against others or as padding for our own pride. This path, quicker than any other, will lead to hard lessons in humility when our failings are unmasked. Let us learn instead to be humble. If we learn to trust in Jesus as teacher and master we will discover how to help others carry their burdens, just as he first carried our own.
We need to discover a different and better reward than that of building our own pride. We need a better reason to judge and do the good than simply to feel good about ourselves. Jesus himself wants to be that reward for us. When we seek this reward and not ourselves it is easier to wish the same thing for others, even for those who are for the moment our enemies.
And I saw that the temple was filled with the glory of the LORD.
The goal is not to be righteous people, secure in the fact that we have done everything right. The goal is a world that is in right relation to God. The more we let God carry our burdens, and through us to carry the burdens of others, the more this relationship will be restored, and the closer he will come.
The voice said to me:
Son of man, this is where my throne shall be,
this is where I will set the soles of my feet;
here I will dwell among the children of Israel forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment