|
Imagine the scene - a small building - a Synagogue. It is the Sabbath day - a day of rest no washing no shopping a day to worship. A day of no hurry. Apart from feeding and watering the animals, looking after the children the elderly, the sick, it was a quiet day.
Jesus was in the Synagogue the local Jewish place of worship. Was it the case that the previous week's notices had announced that `next Sunday our preacher will be Jesus of Nazareth`? For whatever reason there were, in the Synagogue on that occasion,
the people, including the crippled woman,
the Synagogue ruler,
and Jesus.
Perhaps the crippled woman was there every week but this time on this day Jesus spotted her and had compassion on her. He called her forward, and said "Woman you are set free from your infirmity". He touched her, and immediately she straightened up (the cause of the problem was cured). And what was her reaction? She praised God.
But the Synagogue ruler amazed, shocked, surprised and indignant, felt that this was not the sort of thing that should happen on a Sabbath day in his Synagogue. Perhaps he felt threatened, out of control of events. Anyway, he challenged what Jesus had done and others there (Luke goes into the plural) joined in with the Synagogue ruler in criticising Jesus.
Jesus reacts, telling them they are hypocrites. They feel humiliated but what about the people? They were delighted for the woman, and other wonderful things they knew Jesus was doing. Who was right? How would we react in such circumstances? Would we side with the Synagogue ruler or the poor woman, now cured, and Jesus?
Really every day we should be delighted with all of the things Jesus is doing. If we have eyes and ears to be aware of them.
Was it not hard on the Synagogue ruler when Jesus called him and some others "you Hypocrites"? This incident is one of the times when Jesus was indignant and pointed out that curing the woman of an eighteen year affliction was of greater significance than giving oxen and donkeys their water on the Sabbath.. No gentle Jesus meek and mild here! He was angry at what he considered to be a hypocritical attitude.
How would we feel if Jesus called us hypocrites as he did them? In the Concise Oxford Dictionary hypocrisy is "the practice of claiming to have higher standards or beliefs than is the case". We are coming into uncomfortable territory here but that is the way of Jesus. We would like him to smile indulgently and benevolently on us turning a blind eye to some of what we say and do. We would like him to say "there there, it doesn't matter" or "I`ll look the other way". Jesus does not do that.
William Barclay in his book `the mind of Jesus` says that Jesus condemned three sins most sternly:-
1. Self-righteousness - look at the parable of the Pharisee and the tax-collector who thanked God that he was not as other men are.
2. Externalism - the Pharisees identified goodness with certain external acts: with abstention from certain foods, with elaborate and complicated rules for ritual washings, strict schedules of formal prayer and the meticulous giving of tithes.
Jesus insisted that goodness had little to do with the condition of a man's hands but everything to do with the spiritual condition of a man's heart. He likened the Pharisees to those who clean the outside of the cup but forget about the inside - to whitewashed tombs which gleamed white on the outside but which were inwardly full of decayed dead bodies and bones. We do not get away with thinking "the Pharisees were a long time ago so it has nothing to do with me"! All Jesus` teaching is for all time including ours and that means you and me.
3. Hypocrisy - was the sin which Jesus most often condemned. It is by its fruit that a tree is known and by our deeds that we are known. A hypocrite is someone who acts a part. Someone who presents the world with a version of themselves which is in fact a lie! It was precisely that which Jesus uncompromisingly condemned - and still does.
This brings us to Jesus` conception of sin. It is necessary to bring in the concept of sinfulness as well. Jesus says that it is the attitude of the heart which is important. It may be that our outward activities are beyond reproach, but that does not make us good people. What decides is the attitude of the heart!
We are to love God and our neighbours as well as ourselves. Our actions are a test of the genuineness and depth of out love. Allow me to be simplistic for ease of illustration. Peterson "the message" Exodus 20 "Don't set your heart on anything that is your neighbour's - don't even think about it - don't even want to think about it!"
Here is a moral and spiritual revolution. The ordinary view of sin (wrong doing, wrong living) was and still is that if we abstain from wrong actions we are good people. Jesus says that the thoughts and the desire are just as important as the action and the deed. It is his teaching that we must not only avoid the forbidden thing but that we must not even want to do it in the first place.
This is where sinfulness comes in. We can be seething with resentment, hatred, or jealousy over a person or a group of persons, on the inside, and polite and smiling about them on the outside. Jesus says that is a no-go area. We ought to be concerned about our desires and attitudes, some of which we know to be wrong, as well as saying or doing the right things.
We can be very unkind and unloving, even non-accepting - and say so! Jesus instructs us to change from that to loving our neighbour. We can say that people make themselves unlovable or unlikeable or non-understandable. Jesus says "change your attitude to a more loving and tolerant one" We ought to remember that only God in Jesus can see, understand, and judge this amazing complex of human nature.
In a sermon a few weeks ago, Christine Shepherd said that she was preaching to herself, and saying things she needed to hear. Preachers, all of us, should be able to say that our sermons are good for spiritual health which is damaged. We are not as spiritually healthy as we ought to be or claim to be. So I am speaking about and to myself as well.
We may dislike ourselves over our struggle with sin and sinfulness, but the bottom line is that we love because God first loved us. That may be hard to accept when we just don't like ourselves and the way we behave.
But upwards and onwards. Struggle on to become more like the person Jesus wants you (and me) to become - greater in maturity, so that with Paul we can say "it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me". Let us yearn for more love to be good people full of the Holy Spirit.
Returning to our Gospel reading, Jesus `opponents were humiliated but the people were delighted with all of the wonderful things he was doing and we should rejoice and be delighted with all of the things he is still doing today.
Kevan Tailby
Click to return to the list of further sermons.
Go to top
|
