Mtr Kelli Joyce

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!"

Dear Friends in Christ,

Jesus was not always nice. Compassionate, yes. Ready to ask God's forgiveness for his enemies, yes. But nice? The Jesus of the Bible is not committed to civility in dialogue.

Jesus struggles most with the failings of the people who are closest to getting things right, but are unwilling to hear where they miss the mark - the devoutly religious people of his time. He calls them out, in no uncertain terms.

When we read the word "Pharisees," it's easy to think this means someone else - hypocrites in general, or fundamentalists, maybe. Or worse, sometimes we think they're a stand in for the Jewish people. (They are not.) When we see the word "Pharisees" in scripture, our ears should indeed perk up, but not because Jesus is about to critique someone else. The Pharisees are us. To be a Pharisee was to be someone earnestly trying to follow God's will. Trying to do what's expected of us; to get things right.

Jesus doesn't dismiss their attention to following God's law. He just wants them to put first things first - justice and mercy and faith. Following God in the details of religious practice is good and right, but it's a waste of time without the foundation of faith in God and commitment to pursue justice and mercy for those around us. Put first things first, and then move on to the details.

There are two takeaways from today's reading, I think. The first is perhaps obvious: we should each look at our lives for places where we may be majoring in the minors, and letting our desire to be right in the details overtake our obligation to be just and merciful and faithful.

The second might be more controversial: it is appropriate to be angry, publicly, when people who claim to speak for God are acting in ways that contradict the most fundamental aspects of what God wants from us. We are called to kindness, but we are not called to make peace with injustice, or to stay quiet in times of moral crisis because speaking up might upset someone else. Christ's example should give us courage to speak of justice with boldness without worrying that we should "stick to religion" - because justice and mercy are the core, and the details come later. If we don't speak out in the face of injustice, we will be straining at gnats and swallowing a camel.

In peace,
Mtr. Kelli