Psalms: 72 *119:73-96; Ecclesiastes 9:11-18; Galatians 5:1-15; Matthew 16:1-12 The disciples are their dim selves in our Gospel reading from Matthew, and Jesus is more than a little exasperated by that dimness. He is very clear with them about what he means when he says Beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.....it is about their teaching and their closed-mindedness and their strict adherence to rules and their inability to change.
It is our human condition to look for comfort and familiarity. That understanding of life can infect the church and inhibit the church's ability to grow and respond to God's voice in the world. We have the biggest change agent in history, Jesus, as the leader of of our church, and whose name we bear when we say we are Christian. And yet one of the most constant refrains we hear in church is We don't do things that way because we have always done them this way. Who are the Pharisees and Sadducees today? Is it us?
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Copyright 2010, The Rev. John F. Dwyer. All Rights Reserved.
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