.jpg)
I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that
of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
This might have been intimidating to hear at first. Surpass the righteous of the professionally religious? Be more righteous than the ones that enjoyed demonstrating their almost obsessive attention to the details of the law? Looked at in that way it may have sounded impossible. But Jesus was not actually much impressed with this supposed righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. He knew they appeared one way on the outside but that their hearts were another matter. He accused them of hypocrisy, and their righteousness of being a façade.
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother
will be liable to judgment,
and whoever says to his brother,
Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin,
and whoever says, 'You fool,' will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
Jesus was not content with a situation where people merely concealed their anger with one another, one in which people had violence in their hearts toward one another, but forced smiles through gritted teeth. He especially disliked the masquerade in the context of worship. People with war in their hearts would solemnly profess to be united in their worship of God. Yet the only thing that held them back from one another's throats was a fear of punishment. This constraint on violence was only enough to keep society in order. But it was not enough to lead to perfection. People whose impulses were only restrained out of fear had no motivation to strive to be better. Rather, they were content to do the least the law mandated. They were happy to see those with whom they were angry endure suffering even if they themselves were not the ones inflicting it. And certainly they would not lift a finger to help.
Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
and there recall that your brother
has anything against you,
leave your gift there at the altar,
go first and be reconciled with your brother,
and then come and offer your gift
We have heard so often of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees that we assume that we must have already graduated beyond such challenges and rectified character flaws such as this. But isn't a large part of what motivates us still how we appear in the eyes, not so much of God, but of others? Do we not also perform a role in order to be liked and accepted? And does this motivation for righteousness not leave something lacking in our hearts? There are probably areas within each of our hearts where we cherish secret affection for sins, even if we would not commit the full-fledged sins themselves. These are the sins that we would plunge straight into if we ever got word there status had changed to become acceptable. They are the areas of our hearts where we are content to stagnate rather than grow, not truly persuaded that when our hearts become more like the heart of God is when we will finally know true happiness.
To this day, whenever Moses is read,
a veil lies over the hearts of the children of Israel,
There is still something of a partial veil over our hearts when the Gospel is proclaimed to us insofar as we wish to hold part of ourselves back, attempting to restrict the transformative power of it to only more exterior parts of us while much of our inner world remains unredeemed. Again we see our secret need to be in control and our fear of surrendering ourselves entirely into the hands of God. But let us resolve to end the charade and to give ourselves entirely over to God, trusting him when he tells us that the results will be worth it. We will remain divided within ourselves until we are finally and entirely his.
but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed.
Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom.
We can't change ourselves in the way that we need to be changed. Only the light of Christ can do it. But he makes this gift so freely available that all we have to do to consent to his work within us is to look to him. His light will illumine even the darkest corners within us.
For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness,
has shone in our hearts to bring to light
the knowledge of the glory of God
on the face of Jesus Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment