Shade Tree Wisdom 5/6/09

What a beautiful day, partly cloudy. Right now it is sunny, there is a slight breeze stirring, and the day promises many blessings. Wonderful gift of God.

The religious powerhouses in Jesus’ lifetime were surely the Pharisees. They spent their time setting rules and then obeying them. They had rules for everything possible, hundreds of them, to cover every eventuality. One might suppose Jesus would try to use their expertise to establish his Kingdom.

Instead, He quoted Isaiah to them, ”This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain, their teachings are but rules of men“. Is. 29,13. Mark 9, 6.7. He told them, “you have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own rules. V.9. Then He gave one example. You tell the parents you are to honor “whatever help you might have gotten is Corban, (that is a gift devoid to God). . .thus you nullify the Word of God”. V.11-13.

Instead of rules for ‘right living’ this is the way Jesus spoke. During a discussion and in answer to Jesus word to “love your neighbor as yourself” Luke 10,27b, a lawyer asked “And who is my neighbor?” A question designed to evoke lots of discussion, the sort that starts “but what if . . .” or “and when this happens, what then”.

Look at Jesus' answer. He tells a story of the Good Samaritan. He tells them a parable. And what does that mean? Well, the hearer has to get into the story when he hears it. He can picture himself either as beaten by robbers and left there, or moving along the road and either ‘getting involved’ or not.

But the parable does what no discussion can do, get people involved and thinking of their own skin in such a situation. Then the answer to “Who is my neighbor” gets much clearer. So the parable, the story, gets people much more involved, and gives an answer that is much better than lots of discussion. It makes the hearer think, and sends him or her away trying to understand what ‘neighbor’ really means. Not just the person next door, or across the back fence, but every person who has need, and the eye suddenly sees the world differently.

May I add, think on these things.
GPD 5/6/09