Exodus 13:17-15:18, Matthew 21:23-46, Psalms 26:1-12, Proverbs 6:16-19
Today is the 1st day of the 2nd month of the year, also known as February. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. Welcome to a brand-new month. And, I guess, you know, you get this far and we’re starting to really settle in. If you make it another couple week’s till Valentine’s Day then the chances are that you’ll make it the whole way. So, well done. Well done on the first full month of the year. It’s, you know, we’ve sailed outside of shore and we’re out into the deep now as we journey through the year together and head toward the end of the year and the next year. So, happy February. We’re still in the same week so, we’ll obviously be reading from the Common English Bible, which is what we’ve been reading from this week and we’ll still be picking up the story where we left off with the children of Israel newly set free and trying to figure out what comes next. And quite a bit of opposition still out in front of them. Exodus chapter 13 verse 17 to 15 verse 18.
Commentary:
Okay. So, paying attention that proverb would be important since it outlines seven things that God hates. So, it would be good to know the things that God hates and to look and see if we’re doing any of the things that God hates because I mean, if we’re gonna do things God hates that’s probably a nonstarter and probably not on the narrow path that leads to life. So, reviewing these things that God hates would be helpful to go back to today.
In the book of Matthew though, we have interesting conversation, but also confrontation happening between Jesus and the Pharisees. So, between Jesus, who is God made flesh, and the religion that had formed around God. And, so, we have to at least acknowledge what we’re seeing here. Jesus greatest confrontations and conflict were with what had become of the religion that grew out of the Mosaic law. So, there’s this law in place and there are the keepers of the traditions, right, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin collectively. And then there’s Jesus, almost a self-styled rabbi who hasn’t come up through the system. And yet He is more compelling and signs and wonders are following Him. And, so, they’re coming to Jesus and saying essentially, “who gave you the right to do this.” And, so, quoting from Scripture, “what kind of authority do you have for doing these things? Who gave you this authority?” Of course, Jesus knows what’s going on here. Like, they’re essentially telling Him, “you didn’t come up through the system. Like, you know, right, you’re an outsider. What do you think you’re doing?” But they can’t argue with the fact that the hearts of the people are turning toward Jesus and this is bringing up a lot of jealousy but also a lot of paranoia because there is a very, very tenuous power share going on between the Romans and the leaders of the Jewish religion and if they can’t control Jesus and the hearts of the people are beginning to turn toward Jesus and He’s gaining momentum then Jesus could be a problem. So, from the perspective of where we sit 2000 years in the future and being able to look back at the story, it’s sad and comical in a way that these people would be trying to defend their power, defend their power share, defend their control over the people and the hearts of the people against God. Oh, but my friends, we do it too. In all kinds of big and small ways we do it too. We’ll look at anyone who doesn’t believe the way that we do even though they may be believers in Jesus and love the Lord. Maybe they this see some things nuanced in ways that we don’t. And, so, we go after them defending the traditions, defending what we think the truth is. This is what the Pharisees were doing and basically what they had done over the millennia is build an infrastructure, a religious infrastructure, that would not allow God to do a new thing at all. Of course, that didn’t stop God from doing a new thing. In fact, He came in person to make all things new and do a new thing and in the process blew up a bunch of stuff. Let’s not think that He wouldn’t do that again. Let’s not think that He’s ever stopped doing that. We will never run a circle around God with our theology that He can’t escape or that he even really cares about. So, Jesus told a couple of stories and its…this is really a beautiful moment where we see how Jesus uses stories because He uses the stories to confront situations where everybody knows what’s being talked about and yet He’s simply telling a story. He’s not directly confronting a person but rather critiquing a situation that involves a lot of people. So, He says a man had two sons and he went to his first son and said, “son I need you to go work in the vineyard today.” And the first son said, “I don’t want to do that.” But then later he thought it through and obeyed his father. And then he went to the to the second son and said, “son I need you to go work in the vineyard today.” And the son said, “yes”, but he didn’t go. And Jesus question is, “who did the will of father?”. And the answer, of course, is the one who obeyed the father. Even though he said, “no, I don’t want to do that”, he changed his mind and he went and obeyed, whereas the other kid said that he would go and he didn’t. So, in this scenario the son that said, “no, I don’t want to, I don’t want to obey you” but then and later changed his mind, these are the people that Jesus is ministering to and He brings even tax collectors and prostitutes into His conversation as an example, people who might have heard the call of God, who might have been raised up to understand an awareness of God. And God comes and compels them to move forward but they’re like, “no”. They’re like living in rebellion, they’re living in sin but later change their mind and go and obey. Then ultimately they went and obeyed the father, whereas the person who gave lip service to what the father invited them to do and then didn’t do it, well that kinda represents for Jesus what the Pharisees, what the religious system has become, had become. And then He tells a famous story about the tenant farmers, right? So, a landowner leases the farm to tenant farmers who raise a harvest and then the landowner sends for his share and then there’s all kinds of this drama, people getting killed and all this kind of stuff until the farmer sends his son thinking, like, this is the heir, like, this is the owner of this property, they’ll respect him but they don’t, they kill him. And Jesus is asking the question, “what will the landowner do?” And, of course, they’re like, he’ll destroy those wicked farmers. But the thing is, those wicked farmers in that story were religious leaders, were the Pharisees. Like, they’re the keepers of the law, they’re the keepers of the traditions of God that God handed down through Moses, all the weight going back to Abraham. And then God comes and says, “okay, now it’s time to open this up, it’s time to…give me my share.” And they’re more interested in trying to take over the field. So, to try to take over the religious system and own and control it and be the de facto judge about who is right and who is wrong, who needs to be judged, and who needs to receive mercy, and the keepers of all the recipes for how to worship the Lord. So, in this story God sends His son and they kill the son, which is a bit of prophetic utterance about the future for Jesus ministry. But to properly think this through we have to wonder how much more success Jesus would have if He came today. No really, if somebody came claiming to be the son of God with signs and wonders…I mean…it would be kind of the same scenario. And, so, what becomes compelling is when we read the stories that Jesus used as illustrations during this confrontation and try to find out who we would be in those stories. And we can very easily go, like, “I wouldn’t even be in that story. That’s not like…if I’m in that story…I’m one of the disciples of Jesus” until we actually begin looking at our actions and our biases and the way that we treat one another, the way that we judge each other, which is something we’ve been talking about out pretty poignantly as we’ve wandered this far into the Scriptures. So, the work for today is really to do that, to revisit these particular parables and understanding their context trying to locate where we would be because we’re probably more like the Pharisees than we would like to admit. And, so, as we go through the Gospels we’re gonna keep observing the Pharisees and we’re gonna keep observing the way that Jesus interacts with them and, you know, we’re gonna continually be invited to decide or to observe what we’re most closely like and what might need to change, what might need to be repented of.
Prayer:
Jesus,
this is where we are, this is what has come up in the Scriptures today. And, so,
this is where we are and we open ourselves to Your counsel and we invite Your
Holy Spirit to speak, to show us all these little subtle things that actually
create our character in the way that we look at the world. And the truth is in
each of us there’s far more judgmentalism then we’re ever really aware of or
admit to and often this comes from our fear of just getting it wrong about You.
So, we get together and we really really try to nail down every aspect of what
it might be like to walk with You and be in a relationship with You and be
doing it right. And yet it just won't…it won’t distilled down into that kind of
a formula. And, so, we keep those efforts to get it right and become more and
more like the Pharisees just trying to define every eventuality when
relationships…just…they don’t work that way and You’ve invited us into a
relationship, an adventure, an intertwining, that we get to be on this earth as
You intended us to be because we die to ourselves and allow You to live through
us. So, come Holy Spirit into all of the Pharisees and that might be found in
our lives. We reject that and renounce that. We want to follow the path that You
are leading. And, so, as we see the stories unfolding in the Gospels we’re
continually given an opportunity to examine ourselves. So, come Holy Spirit
into that examination. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
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