When you read this passage do you grieve for the
country? The complaint the Lord makes
here could be said about the United States today. The country is not a substitute for Israel
and it is also not co-extensive with the church, never has been. We are not God's chosen people as a nation
but there was a dream and a vision for a Christian witness that required the
freedom available to all sects of Christianity in the colonies in a way it
wasn't available in England. We, the
church, are the inheritors of that dream of a city set on a hill. What have we done with that dream? The church has done those things that the
prophet lists here and we bear the shame of that failure just as Israel did in
Isaiah's day. There is a promise for the
righteous, it will be well with them and they shall eat the fruit of their
deeds. They will, however, join the rest
of the nation in exile. We are to trust
Him in all things and in all places and we are to pursue His righteousness as
well. The righteousness of God is Jesus
Christ and our promise is that if we follow Him we will persevere and all will
be well. Let us keep our eyes on Him and
not on the world around us, let us be the ones to whom the world looks.
Just as Isaiah did in the first reading, here Jesus condemns
the leaders of the people, particularly the scribes. They seek the honor of being learned in the
Law and the prophets but they fail to understand them and fail to practice
them, their learning is nothing more than vanity. They have missed the truth about the most
important thing in their world, that Messiah is not David's son for David
referred to Him as Lord. Elders did not
defer to their ancestors in this way, so there was something very basic that
had been overlooked about Messiah, that He preceded David in some way. It only makes sense if Messiah pre-existed
and was worshipped by David. Wouldn't
you love to know what the scribes thought about Jesus' statement on that
issue? Ultimately Jesus says the widow
who put in so little was greater than all the rest for she trusted fully in
God, was willing to sacrifice everything for Him. How much differently would we operate a
church if we saw such sacrifice? Would
we spend money differently as the church if we knew we were receiving someone's
last pennies?
Paul reiterates what was decided and communicated in Acts
15, that sexual ethics are important.
Today, we hear it argued that sexual ethics is immaterial and that there
is only that little bit in Leviticus so how important was it even then. The reality is that in the early church the
issue of sexual mores was a primary concern, not some afterthought and here,
Paul warns the church at Thessalonica that this is a serious matter. The world around them was unconcerned about
such things and it was, therefore, necessary to warn the church on these
matters. Leadership in sexual morality
was from the church and was part of what make the church distinct from the rest
of society. Isaiah mentioned it in that
first reading as well, "the look on their (referring to Jerusalem and
Judah) faces bears witness against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom; they
do not hide it." Let us not be
deceived even by church leaders about sexual ethics and its importance. We are still called to be different with
respect to the proper use of our bodies.
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