Jesus quotes from Isaiah when he says, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." This is the meat of all Jesus seems to say and do. He heals, forgives, gives, teaches, encourages, etc, and then these leaders come arround and want to know why he doesn't follow the rules. Jesus' response: we can get so caught up in how to follow the rules that we fail to recognize we are not following what God really desires. A rule becomes a thing to keep, but not something that has us thinking what should change in us; why are we keeping this rule.
It is so cool that Jesus moves on and is immediately forced to put his previous teaching into action. When the woman asks for something, he simply responds that he has a plan to follow that doesn't include her. When she, in essence, responds that his plan most certainly should include her, even in just a small way, he includes her.
So, the teachers would have said that she was not clean enough to get some bread, but Jesus concluded that she was hungry enough, and gave her the bread she needed. For Jesus, all the rules and commands profit us nothing if they are not changing our heart toward God and our neighbors; if they don't point out to us the importance of hungering for God, and the message we can carry to those who are hungering (whether they know what they are hungering for or not). It reminds me to check my heart before every quick decission or judgment about a person or situation based on my dogma and doctrine. That isn't easy for a guy who just wants to fix stuff, and finds it very easy to make quick judgments. Because hey, I'm right! But it is my heart God is after, not my self confidence or blind alegience to a set of rules. I can be so right, that my heart can be far from God. Lord, I give you my heart.
I have always thought that part of the problem is that "rules" is a very "our" word, not really God's word. Jesus paints a picture of how he desires for us to live...I think we're the ones who apply the word "rules" to that picture. Maybe our perspective needs to change before we "get the picture" so to speak.
ReplyDeleteThe compassion Jesus had for the hordes of people and the individuals amazes me. He looks beyond their appearances, status, nationality and sees their heart and their sorrows and pains. Even the disciples who were with Jesus on a daily basis and saw the mercy and compassion he had for others had a tough time following his example. When the Canaanite woman kept asking for help, they turned to Jesus and said, "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us." (I wonder if they were caught up in the rules too, since Jesus had instructed them to just go to Jewish people?)
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that is my nature to avoid conflict or to speak up or go against the status quo when no one else is. I think I need to make a more conscious decision to make compassion for others the driving force behind my actions rather than worrying about what other people think.
I think rules are easy. Either you keep 'em or break 'em, very black and white. But compassion is a gray area because it makes you really search your heart and decide if you are willing to go against the grain, or even against justice. It would be so much easier if God was the rule (which seems to be how the pharisees saw him). But God is love, and love, from my experience, is a much more difficult thing to figure out and get right. That said, I'll take the rewards of getting love right over the reward of keeping the rules any time.
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