Focus
Slow your breathing and become aware of the taking in and letting out of your breath. Focus on putting things aside so you will be open to what God is saying to you today.
Read
15 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. 6 So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:
8 ‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”
Reflect
In today’s scripture lesson we see that the religious leaders had been watching the disciples like hawks. It was as if they couldn’t wait to catch them so that they could report them to Jesus for not following all the rules and regulations of their doctrine. What may have surprised them is that Jesus was not intimidated nor did he back down. Instead he pointed out to them how they had not followed God’s commandment for the sake of their own tradition. It’s often easy to see the faults in others while ignoring our own faults. We may think we’ve found a loophole or that our outward actions are hiding things from God. We can allow our selfishness and self-centeredness to pick and choose which rules to follow and which to ignore. It’s like when we drive down the highway and the speed limit is posted as 65. If we can drive 75 and not get caught we think we’ve done nothing wrong. When we see those blue lights though following us we realize we just got caught. Just as Jesus knew what the Pharisees and scribes were doing, we can’t hide anything from God.
Pray
Dear Lord, you know how prone we can be to find faults in others and ignore our own. Forgive us of our hypocrisy, our selfishness and our self-centeredness. May we always seek to live our lives in a way pleasing to you. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Go with God!
