There was once a woman who went on a shopping spree and purchased a very, very expensive dress. When she got home and modeled it for her husband, he was horrified when he saw the price tag, and he asked her why she had bought it. He said, “You know we can’t afford that.”
She smiled shyly at him and said, “Well, honey, the devil made me do it. I was trying it on in the store, and he whispered, “I have never seen you look more gorgeous than you do in that dress.”
Her husband listened open-mouthed and then responded, “Why didn’t you just say, ‘Get behind me, Satan?’ ”
The woman paused, looked pensive, and replied, “I did - and the devil said, ‘It looks great from behind too.’ ”
Today begins the season of Lent, and so this morning we focus on the same Biblical story that crops up every year on this particular Sunday. It is the story of Jesus spending forty days in the desert or wilderness, all the while being tempted by Satan or the devil, call it what you will, being tempted by the personification of evil – a lust for material goods, a greed for power, and a deep felt need for protection, for being in complete control of your own destiny.
This story is told in magnificent detail in only two of our four Gospels – Matthew and Luke. The writer of the Gospel of John does not mention it at all, and in Mark, the entire experience is summarized in two sentences.
In our reading today, the Gospel writer tells us that Jesus had been filled up with the Holy Spirit at the time of his baptism, and it was that selfsame spirit that led him on this wilderness quest in the first place. One does get the feeling, however, that Jesus did not have a whole lot of choice in the matter – or time to prepare.
As Episcopal priest, Jason Sierra, speculates, “Jesus didn’t strike out into the wilderness with a stack of scriptural commentaries…we might assume he left in a bit of a hurry: his wallet, cell phone, and keys still on the nightstand. His journey into the wilderness was a test in a way. And like most tests, he couldn’t use his notes.” It was just himself – and the Spirit – and the core of a message and a ministry held deep in his heart and in his soul.
Of course, what happened out there in the wilderness, no one knows because all three synoptic Gospel writers make it clear that Jesus was alone. There were no eye witnesses.
However, I do not believe that the Gospel writer of Luke envisioned pitch forks, horns, long pointy tails, and red long johns when he personified the essence of evil. I understand the encounter more as a dialogue going on inside Jesus’ head – ideas flowing in and around, creating various scenarios about how best to do this ministry to which he had been called. How could he be most efficient and effective in this important task?
I imagine the counterpoint to be a seductive voice, soft and sensible, offering alternative strategies – plausible ones that on some level really made a lot of sense. At one point, Evil even quoted Scripture, no less, which proves one thing for sure.
Evil was biblically literate and knew exactly where to find the passage needed to really put Jesus to the test. As United Church of Christ pastor, Kate Huey, notes, this facility with Scripture “just shows how easily the Bible can be, and has been, used for entirely wrong purposes.”
First, Evil bribed Jesus with bread, and oh, was Jesus famished by that point. How many days had it been since he had sat down to a good meal?
“More bread, more food; that would be tasty right about now,” Evil cajoled. “Here – smell this, fresh out of the oven! It is more of what you need to keep you going in the proper and refined way to which you could so easily become accustomed.”
More steak. More Big Macs. More exotic fruits transported in from the other side of the planet - come on, make your life worth living. But, Jesus answered, we can not live on bread alone. More is not the answer.
Then, Evil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and all the wealth that went along with it. They were stretched out, glittering in the sunlight, farther than the eye could see.
“This could all be yours,” Evil softly said. “It would be that easy. You could be king of the universe, the most powerful guy around. People would listen to you then. You can be sure of that. The world loves the trappings of power and prosperity.”
Bigger houses. Bigger cars. Bigger toys, whatever they might be. Then wouldn’t people stand up and take notice? But, Jesus answered, there is more to life than power. Bigger is not the answer.
And finally Evil whispered ever so softly. “If you threw yourself off this highest point on the Temple, would anyone care enough to save you? Do you think those angelic body guards would really come to your rescue? Or would you have to figure out how to protect yourself halfway down?”
More military firepower. More elaborate defenses. Increasingly de-humanizing technology. But, Jesus answered, don’t force God’s hand. Self-protection at all costs is not the answer.
And then Evil took his bag of bribes and tricks and left Jesus alone – for the time being at least.
Like Jesus, we all face temptation at one time or another. That is a given. How we define it and handle it is what is important and is certainly one truth we can derive from Luke’s narrative.
There was a young man who was sent to Spain by his company to work in a new plant. He accepted the transfer because it would enable him to earn enough to marry his long-time girlfriend. Their plan was to pool their resources and put a down payment on a house when he returned.
As the lonely weeks went by, she began expressing doubts that he was being true to her. After all, Spain is populated by beautiful women. The young man declared that he was paying absolutely no attention to the local girls. "I admit," he wrote, "that sometimes I'm tempted. But I fight it. I'm keeping myself for you."
In the next mail, the young man received a package. It contained a note and a harmonica. "I'm sending this toy to you," his girlfriend wrote, "so you can have something to take your mind off those girls." The young man wrote back that he was practicing on the harmonica every night and thinking only of her.
When the young man returned home, his girl was waiting at the airport. As he rushed forward to embrace her, she held up a restraining hand and said sternly, "Hold on there. First I want to hear you play that harmonica!"
How we define and handle temptation is worth considering, and I believe this passage in Luke can help us do just that. You know, in the face of all of those manifestations of evil that Jesus faced, the one thing he did each time was to speak the truth to power. He spoke the truth with power, to be sure, but he also spoke the truth to power.
That is, he was fearless in confronting head-on the overwhelming and powerful tide of evil. His actions are remarkable really, and they set the bar high for the rest of us. After all, the easy message of this passage for us is that we, as followers of Jesus, are obviously called to do the same. Speak up. Speak out. It is that simple.
Or is it? This is where these verses on temptation are difficult for me. If more is not the answer, and less seems impossible, then what is the answer? If bigger is not the answer, but smaller just does not work, then what is the answer? If self-protection at all costs is not the answer, but being a doormat appears the only viable alternative, then what is the answer?
I do not know for sure what the answers are, perhaps because the questions are seldom put to us so starkly. However, I do know that we as humans have an extremely well-developed facility to rationalize the world around us – to see a good side to everything.
Driving a Prius saves gas – even if we still commute to Portsmouth or Boston. The tobacco industry employs a good number of people – even though it compromises the lives of many more. A “just war” is surely within the scope of being a peacemaker.
Where are these voices coming from anyway? Sometimes it is hard to tell, but, as followers of Jesus, that is an important question to answer because we have to decide whether we are listening to the voice of the world or listening to the voice of God.
And the tempting voice of the world can make a lot of sense. More may not be the answer, but there is a lot to be said for a growing economy. Bigger may not be the answer either, but surely there is a good side to being the most powerful and the one to call the shots. Self-protection at all costs may not be the answer, but it sure beats living in fear, doesn’t it?
Who is speaking to us? The voices are all muddled and confusing. Is this the voice of the Spirit or the voice of the tempting world? When we try to go about doing God’s work, how do we know if we are doing it the world’s way – or God’s way? It all makes my head spin, so stop – I need some quiet. I need to begin to figure this out.
You know, maybe that is the point of this Lenten journey stuff. Maybe if we stop long enough and mindfully listen to our hearts enough, in the silence of these 40 days, maybe we will hear the voice of the spirit – and even be led by that selfsame spirit.
Maybe these next 6 weeks are a time to go into the wilderness – led by the Spirit, just as Jesus was – wrestle with the voices in our heads over the big questions– just as Jesus did – and when we come to the other side do the courageous thing and choose death – death to all the old ways of looking at the world – just as Jesus did – only in the end to find life, real life – just as Jesus did – and finally, finally, speak the truth to power.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Luke 9:29-36 "Listen To Jesus
Today we have come to the end of the Epiphany season. For the past few weeks, we have reflected upon the ways in which God is made known in our lives and in the world. Throughout January and this first part of February, we have pondered the significance of the Light of the World, come at Christmas, and how our lives have been influenced and impacted as a result.
The season of Epiphany began with light – the light of a dazzling star that led the Magi to Bethlehem – and the season also ends with light – the blazing light of the transfiguration that fairly burst the seams of the old ragged robe that Jesus wore.
Epiphany is the season of revelation. It is the season whose focus is God being revealed to us. It is the season of light bulbs going on when we think we “get it.” How fitting then that, symbolically, Epiphany is the season of light.
Of course, Peter, James, and John had no clue that the light of this particular day would be different from any other. The light of the sun had awakened them as usual, its pink and rosy fingers spreading across the dawn sky. The light of the breakfast fire was bright and lively and meant that their second cup of coffee would be steaming hot after all.
Who knows whether these faithful (if sometimes clueless) followers would have an inkling that, before the sunlight had faded first into twilight and then into darkness, they would be catapulted into a sacred moment so powerful that it practically blew their socks off when Jesus invited them to come along while he prayed that morning?
Surely Peter, James, and John made some association with the fact that Jesus was leading them up a mountain when he could have simply walked a couple hundred yards from their campsite to do his private devotions. After all, as obedient Jews, they viscerally understood the significance of mountains and mountaintop experiences, for they towered in the Hebrew imagination and in the sacred writings of the Torah.
It was on a mountain that Abraham chose faithfulness to God over everything else and would have killed his son, Isaac, had his God not intervened with a well-placed ram in a nearby thicket to sacrifice instead.
It was on Mount Sinai that Moses encountered God, with the thunder growling and lightning flashing, and eight days later retraced his footsteps from the midst of the holy black clouds to the Hebrew people who were cavorting in the valley below with their golden calves and graven idols. It was said that Moses’ face glowed like the sun that day of his return, and in his arms and in his heart he carried the Ten Commandments.
But then again, maybe Peter, James, and John made no particular association with the mountain because the writer of the Gospel of Luke tells us that no sooner had Jesus knelt before the Almighty than the disciples fell asleep in the sunshine. And when they awakened, they were smack in the middle of a holy moment like none other they had ever known. This event trumped the water into wine thing, any of the healings they had been privy to, and even that calming the storm bit.
Of course, because the three of them had been snoozing, they missed the part when Jesus actually became transfigured or changed. They simply saw the result: their rabbi bathed in dazzling white, his face shining with the same glorious light that Moses once had glowed with in antiquity.
Jesus was sparkling and those not educated in the sacredness of this story might liken – not him for certain but his sparkles - to Edward Cullen when the sunlight briefly caught him on the plaza in Volterra, Italy, in the recent movie, “New Moon.” And please know that I am not comparing Edward to Jesus. I am comparing their sparkles in order to give you a visual. It was as if Jesus had caught fire from within, the spiritual embers that could not be quenched finally bursting forth with explosive and creative energy.
And to top it all off, Moses the great Lawgiver himself had also made an appearance. He stood on one side of Jesus, and Elijah the most respected Prophet of them all was posed on the other, the trio glowing, their radiantly bright faces glistening. They had clearly been talking with one another, and the disciples caught the last bit of their conversation, something about Jesus’ departure, his own personal exodus, the one he was about to complete in Jerusalem.
But who cares what they were talking about? Peter had bigger fish to fry. Here was a chance to be helpful (and faithful) – and Peter always sought to be helpful (and faithful).
How could he memorialize this magnificent event? How to keep this going was Peter’s chief concern, in spite of the fact, that, as Baptist pastor, R. Alan Culpepper writes, “Faithfulness is not achieved by freezing a moment but by following on in confidence that God is leading and that what lies ahead is even greater than what we have already experienced.”
However - “Booths! Tents!” Peter fairly babbled. “How about building little shrines…”
But before he could finish blurting out his big idea, he was interrupted by a cloud - a cloud and a voice that completely overshadowed him. “This is my son, whom I love – listen to him.”
And that was it. Moses faded back into the deep mists of time along with Elijah, and Jesus looked just like he always did – dressed in the same beige robe with the torn hem and the grease spots where he had wiped his hands after dinner the night before.
You know, we read this story annually on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. The writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include it in their Gospels, so we hear it from slightly differing perspectives in a three year lectionary cycle. But no matter whose version we read, every year too many of us get all tangled up in exactly what happened rather that what the story means.
Was it a factual and historical event that you could have filmed on your cell phone and then posted on Facebook? Was it a vision? Was it a story created by the early church to teach that the messiahship of Jesus was supported by the law and the prophets? Or, in the end, does it really matter because the truth of the story lies in its meaning and not in its historic literalness?
Oh, we could take this story in so many directions, for its symbolism is rich and deep. We could reflect upon the astounding similarities between this event at the end of Epiphany and Jesus’ baptism at the season’s beginning. At both times, God’s voice proclaimed Jesus to be his own and so affirmed and confirmed his ministry and his message.
We could point out how Passover that year would not be over before Jesus would climb another mountain, this time carrying his own ignoble cross, there to be executed for stirring up the mob and freaking out Pilate and the Roman authorities who just wanted to keep order in Jerusalem. Not glowing then, Jesus was bleeding and weighted down by the sin of the world – the pettiness, the malice, the betrayal, the cowardice. Yes - mountains figure prominently in the Jewish psyche.
We could ponder the idea of Peter, James, and John obediently following Jesus up the mountain that day, not really knowing what they were in for – and ask ourselves (for we proclaim to be followers too) how obediently we follow, knowing full well that following leads only to the cross, to the death of our old selves. How much do we trust the meaning of the transfiguration? How much do we trust the meaning of Easter?
With that thought in mind, we could also focus on the close connection that Luke outlines between Jesus and the Hebrew tradition of Moses. And that is where I want to briefly go this morning.
The literary similarities are several. First of all, the climax of both narratives happens on mountaintops – Moses on Sinai and Jesus on what we have come to call the Mount of the Transfiguration. In addition, both stories point to an encounter with God that was dazzling and spectacular. Over and above the burning bush thing, Moses returned from Mount Sinai with a face touched by the glow of the Almighty. And at the moment of his transfiguration, Jesus too glowed, but not just his face, his whole being.
However, there is a significant difference between the two encounters with God. As Lutheran pastor, Anne Svennungsen, points out, "On Mt. Sinai, Moses received Ten Commandments (no murder, no adultery, no coveting, you know them) – (but) on the Mount of the Transfiguration, the disciples received only one commandment – listen to Jesus." And surely those latter words have echoed through the millennia to us here this morning.
Listen to Jesus….
Blessed are the poor, the ones who have lost it all. God's kingdom is there for the finding. Blessed are those who are ravenously hungry now, for they shall be filled with food and even with a Messianic meal. Blessed are those who mourn, whose tears flow freely because, for them, joy comes with the morning. Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit you.You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.
Listen to Jesus….
Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person…If someone grabs your shirt, gift wrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. Listen to Jesus….Love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when you’re at your worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.
Listen to Jesus….
Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.
Listen to Jesus….
Don’t judge….It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this I-know-better-than-you mentality again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your own part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
Listen to Jesus….
You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives.
Listen to Jesus…
And don't say anything you don't mean….You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace…When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.
Listen to Jesus….
Let me give you a new command: Love one another – all your neighbors. Love everyone – and remember that everyone – everyone in the whole wide world is your neighbor. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other and for all God’s children.
Listen to Jesus…..
(Biblical quotes are from "The Message")
The season of Epiphany began with light – the light of a dazzling star that led the Magi to Bethlehem – and the season also ends with light – the blazing light of the transfiguration that fairly burst the seams of the old ragged robe that Jesus wore.
Epiphany is the season of revelation. It is the season whose focus is God being revealed to us. It is the season of light bulbs going on when we think we “get it.” How fitting then that, symbolically, Epiphany is the season of light.
Of course, Peter, James, and John had no clue that the light of this particular day would be different from any other. The light of the sun had awakened them as usual, its pink and rosy fingers spreading across the dawn sky. The light of the breakfast fire was bright and lively and meant that their second cup of coffee would be steaming hot after all.
Who knows whether these faithful (if sometimes clueless) followers would have an inkling that, before the sunlight had faded first into twilight and then into darkness, they would be catapulted into a sacred moment so powerful that it practically blew their socks off when Jesus invited them to come along while he prayed that morning?
Surely Peter, James, and John made some association with the fact that Jesus was leading them up a mountain when he could have simply walked a couple hundred yards from their campsite to do his private devotions. After all, as obedient Jews, they viscerally understood the significance of mountains and mountaintop experiences, for they towered in the Hebrew imagination and in the sacred writings of the Torah.
It was on a mountain that Abraham chose faithfulness to God over everything else and would have killed his son, Isaac, had his God not intervened with a well-placed ram in a nearby thicket to sacrifice instead.
It was on Mount Sinai that Moses encountered God, with the thunder growling and lightning flashing, and eight days later retraced his footsteps from the midst of the holy black clouds to the Hebrew people who were cavorting in the valley below with their golden calves and graven idols. It was said that Moses’ face glowed like the sun that day of his return, and in his arms and in his heart he carried the Ten Commandments.
But then again, maybe Peter, James, and John made no particular association with the mountain because the writer of the Gospel of Luke tells us that no sooner had Jesus knelt before the Almighty than the disciples fell asleep in the sunshine. And when they awakened, they were smack in the middle of a holy moment like none other they had ever known. This event trumped the water into wine thing, any of the healings they had been privy to, and even that calming the storm bit.
Of course, because the three of them had been snoozing, they missed the part when Jesus actually became transfigured or changed. They simply saw the result: their rabbi bathed in dazzling white, his face shining with the same glorious light that Moses once had glowed with in antiquity.
Jesus was sparkling and those not educated in the sacredness of this story might liken – not him for certain but his sparkles - to Edward Cullen when the sunlight briefly caught him on the plaza in Volterra, Italy, in the recent movie, “New Moon.” And please know that I am not comparing Edward to Jesus. I am comparing their sparkles in order to give you a visual. It was as if Jesus had caught fire from within, the spiritual embers that could not be quenched finally bursting forth with explosive and creative energy.
And to top it all off, Moses the great Lawgiver himself had also made an appearance. He stood on one side of Jesus, and Elijah the most respected Prophet of them all was posed on the other, the trio glowing, their radiantly bright faces glistening. They had clearly been talking with one another, and the disciples caught the last bit of their conversation, something about Jesus’ departure, his own personal exodus, the one he was about to complete in Jerusalem.
But who cares what they were talking about? Peter had bigger fish to fry. Here was a chance to be helpful (and faithful) – and Peter always sought to be helpful (and faithful).
How could he memorialize this magnificent event? How to keep this going was Peter’s chief concern, in spite of the fact, that, as Baptist pastor, R. Alan Culpepper writes, “Faithfulness is not achieved by freezing a moment but by following on in confidence that God is leading and that what lies ahead is even greater than what we have already experienced.”
However - “Booths! Tents!” Peter fairly babbled. “How about building little shrines…”
But before he could finish blurting out his big idea, he was interrupted by a cloud - a cloud and a voice that completely overshadowed him. “This is my son, whom I love – listen to him.”
And that was it. Moses faded back into the deep mists of time along with Elijah, and Jesus looked just like he always did – dressed in the same beige robe with the torn hem and the grease spots where he had wiped his hands after dinner the night before.
You know, we read this story annually on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. The writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include it in their Gospels, so we hear it from slightly differing perspectives in a three year lectionary cycle. But no matter whose version we read, every year too many of us get all tangled up in exactly what happened rather that what the story means.
Was it a factual and historical event that you could have filmed on your cell phone and then posted on Facebook? Was it a vision? Was it a story created by the early church to teach that the messiahship of Jesus was supported by the law and the prophets? Or, in the end, does it really matter because the truth of the story lies in its meaning and not in its historic literalness?
Oh, we could take this story in so many directions, for its symbolism is rich and deep. We could reflect upon the astounding similarities between this event at the end of Epiphany and Jesus’ baptism at the season’s beginning. At both times, God’s voice proclaimed Jesus to be his own and so affirmed and confirmed his ministry and his message.
We could point out how Passover that year would not be over before Jesus would climb another mountain, this time carrying his own ignoble cross, there to be executed for stirring up the mob and freaking out Pilate and the Roman authorities who just wanted to keep order in Jerusalem. Not glowing then, Jesus was bleeding and weighted down by the sin of the world – the pettiness, the malice, the betrayal, the cowardice. Yes - mountains figure prominently in the Jewish psyche.
We could ponder the idea of Peter, James, and John obediently following Jesus up the mountain that day, not really knowing what they were in for – and ask ourselves (for we proclaim to be followers too) how obediently we follow, knowing full well that following leads only to the cross, to the death of our old selves. How much do we trust the meaning of the transfiguration? How much do we trust the meaning of Easter?
With that thought in mind, we could also focus on the close connection that Luke outlines between Jesus and the Hebrew tradition of Moses. And that is where I want to briefly go this morning.
The literary similarities are several. First of all, the climax of both narratives happens on mountaintops – Moses on Sinai and Jesus on what we have come to call the Mount of the Transfiguration. In addition, both stories point to an encounter with God that was dazzling and spectacular. Over and above the burning bush thing, Moses returned from Mount Sinai with a face touched by the glow of the Almighty. And at the moment of his transfiguration, Jesus too glowed, but not just his face, his whole being.
However, there is a significant difference between the two encounters with God. As Lutheran pastor, Anne Svennungsen, points out, "On Mt. Sinai, Moses received Ten Commandments (no murder, no adultery, no coveting, you know them) – (but) on the Mount of the Transfiguration, the disciples received only one commandment – listen to Jesus." And surely those latter words have echoed through the millennia to us here this morning.
Listen to Jesus….
Blessed are the poor, the ones who have lost it all. God's kingdom is there for the finding. Blessed are those who are ravenously hungry now, for they shall be filled with food and even with a Messianic meal. Blessed are those who mourn, whose tears flow freely because, for them, joy comes with the morning. Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit you.You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.
Listen to Jesus….
Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person…If someone grabs your shirt, gift wrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. Listen to Jesus….Love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when you’re at your worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.
Listen to Jesus….
Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.
Listen to Jesus….
Don’t judge….It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this I-know-better-than-you mentality again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your own part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
Listen to Jesus….
You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives.
Listen to Jesus…
And don't say anything you don't mean….You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace…When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.
Listen to Jesus….
Let me give you a new command: Love one another – all your neighbors. Love everyone – and remember that everyone – everyone in the whole wide world is your neighbor. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other and for all God’s children.
Listen to Jesus…..
(Biblical quotes are from "The Message")
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