Tuesday, February 7, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
If you don’t like the heat, you better get out of the kitchen
The Pharisees asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples wash their hands as their elders did?”
Oh boy, on that day, I wouldn’t have wanted to be a Pharisee. Jesus went OFF on them!
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.
But Jesus didn’t talk just about washing their hands. He dug much much deeper.
Moses said “Honor your father and your mother. Whoever curses father or mother shall die.” But YOU say, “Any support you might have had from me is dedicated to God, and I will do nothing more for you.” You nullify the word of God in favor of your own rules. And you do many such things!
I began reading today’s lectionary thinking of God and creation, of the works he made of all the earth, and then of man. I felt lifted up, given breath by God, appreciated as part of mankind, hopeful and full of life.
Let us make man in our image, and man will have dominion over all the fish and birds and animals. Male and female he created them. He spoke, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.”
But this joyous creation of God’s own image … what happened? It just didn’t really go anywhere, did it? It didn’t get going, no head of steam, no DESIRE to obey and flourish. We never got to the place of peace with God. There was this other voice, which we will hear on Friday, but which whispered into the ears of Adam and Eve sooner rather than later. They listened, and since then we have died instead of living.
The place of peace with God became nothing more than an idea, instead of a reality like breathing, which we take for granted, which we inhabit without striving. Jesus had his work cut out for him. Human tradition seemed (seems) to be all we had; the lifeblood of our intimate, umbilical connection with God drained down on the forsaken ground and left us and nearly dead. Even the Sabbath, God’s invention for himself which he made for us to claim and thrive within, was wrecked by human device.
Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken in the creation of the heavens and the earth. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.
But we began to judge each other and our ways of honoring God, and soon we fell into either-or-ing. We collapsed into right or wrong-ing. Of course that’s not always so bad – except when I am always right, and you are always wrong.
O Lord, our God, you have given man rule over the works of your hands, putting all things under his feet.
As is said also in Genesis 1. All the fish, all the birds, and the animals.
But.
Not each other.
Incline my heart, O God, to your decrees; and favor me with your law.
(Genesis 1, Psalm 8, Psalm 119, Mark 7)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
