A PRAYER TO START
We have been created not only to relate to God but to relate to God in and through others. This was Jesus’ exhortation from the mountain teachings (Matthew 5-7) and what he has been demonstrating since. Yet, we all struggle as much, if not more, in our ordinary relations as we do in our divine. Because that is true, and because we know our Father longs for us to be righteous, we pray with joy and assurance this prayer fashioned by John Baillie…
O Father in heaven, who crafted my limbs to serve you and my soul to follow closely after you, with sorrow and repentance of heart I acknowledge before you the faults and failures of relating. You want me to come to you with a humble heart, even in such missteps, as I am doing now, imploring you to drown my sin in the sea of your infinite love.
O Father, forgive me for:
My failure to be true, even to my own standards;
My excuses in the face of temptation;
My choosing of the worse when I know the better;
O Father, forgive me for:
My failure to apply to myself the standards I demand of others;
My blindness to the suffering of others, and the time it takes me to learn from my own;
My apathy towards wrongs that do not impact me, and my over-sensitiveness to those that do.
O Father, forgive me for:
My slowness to see the good in others and to see the flaws in myself;
My hard-heartedness toward the faults of others and my readiness to make allowance for my own;
My unwillingness to believe that you have called me to a small work and my brother or sister to a greater one.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. Amen.
GETTING THOUGHTFUL
“What is it with you religious people?” Have you ever heard someone make such a comment towards you, or perhaps someone doing something they found odd or archaic in the name of some dutiful belief? You can substitute whatever adjective your like for religious like; “Christian”, “holier-than-though”, “bible”, and you can easily imagine a scenario in which someone might use this phrase. What scene popped into you mind? Is it positive or negative? What emotions are the person making the statement conveying? Are they someone who is and “insider” like you? What caused them to verbalize the question?
It’s not all that difficult to picture the condemning question coming from someone outside the faith, but we would not expect it so much from, say, the founder of our faith. Yet, Matthew 12 reads like a series of interactions in which Jesus continuously encounters situations in which he responds, “What is it with you religious people?”
It starts with Jesus being rebuked for letting his disciples plucking some heads of grain to sustain them on their journey; a no-no for those who knew the rules of the faithful, but not the story of their faith (12:1-7). Jesus’ response: What is it with you religious who know not the story of your faith, which would have given you eyes to see what was going on here, but are know the very letter of rules you like to control? You see, if the Pharisees had done what Jesus told them to do three chapters earlier (9:13), they would have extended mercy and not condemnation; and thus had the spiritual eyes to see that Jesus and his disciples were on a similar journey to claim the kingdom as the king who foreshadowed him, David, and his guard. Indeed, if the Pharisees had immersed themselves in the story of God, in order to know God, rather than assume a relationship with God because of obedience, and thus study him from a distance; they would have recognized in Jesus “something greater than the temple” (or system of worship) they so desired to honor.
Just a few steps later, having entered into the place of worship, Jesus is greeted at the doors by the those who looked like they belong to entrap him and make sure everyone knew Jesus did not belong there. How? By seeing if Jesus would go beyond the boarder-line Sabbath breaking to a willful forsaking of the religious orders simply to do something good for someone that required "work" (12:9-13). It is like the religious leaders did not hear Jesus’ first response, so once again he asks, What is it with you religious people who think the Sabbath is for show and not for good? Wasn’t it created in the first place to bring rest, peace and fulfillment to humanity? But you think it is to gain your standing rather than receiving what the Father offers freely: his healing and grace! Ironically, those charged with ensuring that God’s restoring work would be brought forth to all the world, were the very ones who acted in a way that they missed out on the restoration themselves.
Later, these same religious who questioned Jesus outside the temple and challenged him the synagogue, will curse him as one who is from the “dung king” of the false gods (12:22-37), excusing his presence as something outside of how God works. Once again, Jesus responds: What is it with you religious people? You think you have God figured out do you? Is your perception so limited that you do not even know how this kingdom thing works? You really think I could do what I do if I wasn’t opposed to what is broken and twisted, but for it? Come on now! Don’t you know that who you are really serving will be shown in how you treat and speak to others? Once again, ironically, those condemning Jesus, condemning themselves by their bigotry and lack of grace.
Finally, fed up with the word games that seem to come back on them, the religious try and different route, they ask Jesus to do something amazing (12:38-42). Surely if this way of Jesus is really God’s way then it will be easy enough for a spectacular exposition of affirmation to be offered up for the benefit of all. Jesus’ response: What is it with you religious people that you cannot see what is directly in front of you? Why do you need something big when but a short sentence called even the most hated of enemies to peace? Why do you need more than them to respond in faith? What Jesus offers these religious is the same thing offered to the enemies of God (and to the book's namesake) in the story of Jonah, a chance to repent; to turn and grab hold of him as they receive the mercy of the Father.
What is it with you religious people? Well, as Jesus mentioned on the mountain side (7:1-6) they are really bad judges; of God, of others, and even themselves. They thought they knew what it took to be apart of God’s kingdom. They thought they knew who was in and who was out. They even thought that they had the position to squash something they deemed unworthy. In the end, all they did was make more room for trouble (12:43-45). It seems that playing judge does come back to bite us! (7:6)
REFLECTION
Read Matthew 12:1-45, once through. As you do, consider what made the religious perceive Jesus the way they did, and why some of your friends and co-workers perceive Jesus (or religion associated with him) the way they do.
Remember, Jesus extends the same invitation to the religiously blind as to the enemies of God’s people (that’s what’s happening in the whole “sign of the prophet Jonah” exchange). What invitation are you extending to those around you?
Use the questions below to help you prayerfully reflect individually and/or discuss as a DNA group
What did the treatment of Jesus by the religious reveal about them and what they believed God to be like?
In what ways have those in your life who no-longer or have not-yet believed been exposed to religious people like Jesus was? What has caused them to be treated in a similar way as Jesus?
Read 12:15-21. The disciples saw something different in Jesus and the God he believed in. How did Jesus’ response to both the ones needing healing and the ones who did not recognize their own brokenness differ from how he was treated?
In what ways have you acted more like the scribes and Pharisees then Jesus?
In what ways could you act more like Jesus to the outsiders and the “insiders” in your life this week?
ECHO
In her poem titled, “45 Mercy Street”, Anne Sexton captures the pangs of one who found herself desperate for the faith she had lost, but not sure where it is to be found. Like many of our friends, family and neighbors who have fallen from “religion” and when they need it most desperately, are treated like Jesus; may these words allow us to feel their plight and with “mercy and not sacrifice” plead with them come and rest. May these words echo in your mind, your heart, and your courageous actions this week.
.
In my dream,
drilling into the marrow
of my entire bone,
my real dream,
I'm walking up and down Beacon Hill
searching for a street sign -
namely MERCY STREET.
Not there.
I try the Back Bay.
Not there.
Not there.
And yet I know the number.
45 Mercy Street.
I know the stained-glass window
of the foyer,
the three flights of the house
with its parquet floors.
I know the furniture and
mother, grandmother, great-grandmother,
the servants.
I know the cupboard of Spode
the boat of ice, solid silver,
where the butter sits in neat squares
like strange giant's teeth
on the big mahogany table.
I know it well.
Not there.
Where did you go?
45 Mercy Street,
with great-grandmother
kneeling in her whale-bone corset
and praying gently but fiercely
to the wash basin,
at five A.M.
at noon
dozing in her wiggy rocker,
grandfather taking a nap in the pantry,
grandmother pushing the bell for the downstairs maid,
and Nana rocking Mother with an oversized flower
on her forehead to cover the curl
of when she was good and when she was...
And where she was begat
and in a generation
the third she will beget,
me,
with the stranger's seed blooming
into the flower called Horrid.
I walk in a yellow dress
and a white pocketbook stuffed with cigarettes,
enough pills, my wallet, my keys,
and being twenty-eight, or is it forty-five?
I walk. I walk.
I hold matches at street signs
for it is dark,
as dark as the leathery dead
and I have lost my green Ford,
my house in the suburbs,
two little kids
sucked up like pollen by the bee in me
and a husband
who has wiped off his eyes
in order not to see my inside out
and I am walking and looking
and this is no dream
just my oily life
where the people are alibis
and the street is unfindable for an
entire lifetime.
Pull the shades down -
I don't care!
Bolt the door, mercy,
erase the number,
rip down the street sign,
what can it matter,
what can it matter to this cheapskate
who wants to own the past
that went out on a dead ship
and left me only with paper?
Not there.
I open my pocketbook,
as women do,
and fish swim back and forth
between the dollars and the lipstick.
I pick them out,
one by one
and throw them at the street signs,
and shoot my pocketbook
into the Charles River.
Next I pull the dream off
and slam into the cement wall
of the clumsy calendar
I live in,
my life,
and its hauled up
notebooks.