Daily Liturgy and Scripture

Why did Jesus rebuke Peter? Did he have a death wish that he was eager to get to? I doubt it. Jesus was working out the purposes of his Father, and the purposes of God are always for the best. Peter was being a bit short-sided, but his heart was in the right place. He didn't want to see Jesus die, because of course Jesus being alive was better from his point of view. God's point of view may not always make sense, but if it did... we would probably be God!

The poor disciples. They missed it again. Jesus is bringing wholeness to those around him arguing with the religious leaders, and the disciples still miss the point. Maybe this is the drawback from Jesus’s choice not to to take all the star pupils out of rabbinic school, but don’t give up on them yet. They will understand. Probably many of us have had the same issue.

The Pharisees seem to be holding an unflinching line on purity laws (hence their comment about the disciples washing their hands), a clear connection to their strict adherence to the law. Jesus, however, points out that a law about honoring parents receives some flexibility to preserve the spirit instead of the strict letter of the law. Jesus himself came to BRING that spirit, so trying to subvert it, even its presence in the law, is to miss the life that Jesus came to bring.

As John’s ministry sadly comes to an end, Jesus begins to very much come into a next-level ministry. As John was broken and the Gospel increased, so was the bread broken and increased when Jesus met the crowd on the hill. It’s no small thing that the apostles were told to feed the people, and came up with a meager amount of food. Jesus didn’t scold them, he just made it more. As we are broken, coming to God sometimes with very little, so can we be empowered if we’re disciples of the Kingdom.

Jesus was notable enough that people realized he was exceptional for a man of such average birth. That certainly seems to work against them, however. Jesus is right there among them, the Son of God incarnate, and all they can see is the carpenter’s Son, the brother of his siblings. Too much familiarity can keep us from seeing the exceptional, and those around Jesus suffered with the same thing.

Judgement rests with God alone, and so the parable of the weeds and the seeds is a somewhat difficult one. We are certainly tempted to do that work for God: judging others, we separate ourselves from them when they seem opposed to us. God alone sees the heart, however. Those who seem to be against us may only have a personality conflict, or perhaps we both have theology that needs fine-tuning. Only by both sides trusting the Spirit can we find the true unity of Christ.

Jesus mixed up his teaching style to reach many different types of learners. This makes the parable of the seeds full of meaning: not only was Jesus teaching, he was talking about the different ways the very message he was preaching is received. It was made to be available to all, and that came true fully with Jesus walking among us.

To stand before the religious leaders and defy them was gutsy. Jesus did more than defy them, though. He called them wicked, bad trees with bad fruit. The Pharisees were a sect focused on keeping purity, so this would have been a major insult. By attempting to control the people and their relationship with God, they had actually gotten further from God themselves. A good solution might be to learn how to bring wholeness instead of condemning every minor behavior, but that's a hard lesson to learn when you're committed to legalism.

This episode in the temple gives Jesus a prime example of what new life in him means: while the law is not erased, it receives its life through him. Where as before, Sabbath laws were focused on keeping a strict set of rules, Jesus brings wholeness. The law was good to give boundaries and show God’s people where they should draw lines, but Jesus lives out a fuller life. Bringing wholeness to the world, even on a day of rest, is never out of bounds for him.

There are no lone wolves in the Kingdom of Christ, not even Jesus himself. John comes before Jesus, and John is part of the plan. Then Jesus comes, but Jesus is working with the Father, even revealing the Father. This is a rare form of community: not only does everyone belong, but we are heirs with the very Savior who we worship.