Today's Scripture Reading (December 11, 2023): Matthew 6
We struggle with priorities or what
we think should be paramount in our lives. Often, we get those priorities messed
up. I am in an ongoing conversation with a friend about what should be
important to our faith. For my friend, the answer is simple: the ritual is essential.
Get Baptized, call God and Jesus by the appropriate names (he opts for Yahweh
and Yeshua), say the magic words (here he loses me a bit because I am not sure
what the magic words might be), drink wine (preferably Jewish wine) in our
Communion celebrations, among many other rituals, and you will be saved. But his
priority is on the things that he does.
I have never been very good at the
rituals of the faith. I understand that for my friend, part of the stress on
ritual arises out of the knowledge that for most of his life, he ignored God or
even walked against his will. As a result, he worries that he hasn't done
enough to earn his salvation, although I am sure that is not how he would
describe it. My friend wakes up at night wondering what other acts of penance
he can perform to make himself worthy of God.
The problem
is that worry has a way of focusing us on the wrong things. That is probably
why Jesus instructs his followers not to worry. Worry often tempts us to go
down the wrong paths. Worry lies and too often deceives us to the extent that
it becomes difficult to know right from wrong.
There is a
well-worn story of a businessman who wanted to reward himself for a business
that was going well. And so he decides to buy himself a Jaguar.
The day he
picked up his shiny new car, he decided to drive it to his appointments. His regular
route would have been to go downtown, but the taxi drivers there were insane,
and he didn't want to risk something bad happening to his car, so he decided to
take a longer route. He was traveling down narrow residential streets when a
brick suddenly came out from between two parked cars. The businessman slammed
on the brakes and jumped out of his vehicle, understandably angry at the destruction
committed against his new prize. The new Jaguar now sported a brand-new dent
and scratch on the side of the car. The man ran and found a boy and lifted him
up, yelling, "Why did you throw that brick at my car?"
The boy shook
with fear as he looked at this man and said, "I didn't know what to do. I
was supposed to take my brother to my grandmother's, but his wheelchair hit a
rut, and it tipped over. My brother is lying on the street in the heat, and I
can't get anyone's attention to come and help." The tears started to fill
the boy's eyes. "We are in trouble, and I don't know what to do?"
The boy led
the businessman to his brother, who was still lying on the hot cement of the
summer day. The man helped the boy get his brother back into the wheelchair,
made sure that the boy got to his grandmother's, and then went back and looked
at his car. And then this businessman made a strange decision. He decided he
wasn't going to fix the dent or the scratch. The dent would be a reminder of
the day that worry caused him to lose sense of his priority, the day that a
piece of metal became more important than a boy in trouble. The day that worry
deceived him about what was important in his life.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Matthew
7
No comments:
Post a Comment