“Listen and understand: What enters into the mouth does not make a person unclean.
What defiles a person is what comes out of his mouth.” After a while the disciples gathered around Jesus and said,
“Do you know that the Pharisees were offended by what you said?” Jesus answered,
“Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be uprooted.
Pay no attention to them! They are blind, leading the blind. When a blind person leads another, the two will fall into a pit.”
REFLECTION:
Sociology tells us that high culture is concerned more of HOW things are done rather than WHY things are done.
In eating, focus is given on how to use the knife, spoon, or fork than to address a starving stomach.
In grooming, there is more concern with fabrics and dress-cuts than getting oneself covered.
In praying, one worries more of posture or recitation than of engagement with God.
Jesus does not condemn the raising of the standards of how we live and believe in God.
He condemns how those standards are used to judge others. Worse, standards are raised so high that even those setting them fall short.
Yet, they pretend that they meet those standards. This is hypocrisy in its purest form.
The intention is to make goodness so unachievable to have the license to condemn others.
But Jesus comes to give us spontaneous access to God.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2020