Living in the Spirit
November 1, 2014

Scripture Reading: Matthew 23:1-12

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. —Matthew 23:1-4

 In society today we sometimes identify behaviors that are outliers of our culture’s normal actions as “sins.” I worked as a waitress in high school and college. One summer one of the assistant managers, a recently retired military officer, was in pursuit of a new career. We had to fill a large bucket with ice from an ice machine in the back of the restaurant and bring the ice to a bin next to the soft drink machine. I was in the process of filling the bucket one day when this manager stopped me and told me I was doing it wrong. Taking the scoop and the bucket from my hand he demonstrated his proper way to fill the bucket. After showing me what he considered to be the correct and only way, he handed me the bucket and scoop and said, “Now do it right” turned on his heels and left.

I stood there for a moment very perplexed because I could not comprehend what he had done differently than what I had done. It finally dawned on me. He had used his right hand and I my left. Because of the crowded area in which the ice machine was located there was only one place to place the bucket which required this lefty to reach across my body to scoop the ice out of the machine. It was awkward but I can assure you it was much faster than my trying to use my right hand. I had been accommodating to a right-handed world all my life and I did not think a thing about it, but he saw it as wrong. Being left-handed was considered to be the mark of the devil at one point in time. Many parents forced their left-handed children to use their right hand to avoid the stigma. This belief was based on misguided use of scripture.

Forcing a child to change their handedness was an unnecessary burden and is no longer practiced in most areas but we do still identify other ways of being as “bad” that are merely outside what we consider normal thus tying heavy burdens on those who do not meet our measures of perfection while ignoring the things which all of us do that separate us from God each day. We do so at our own peril and our society’s peril.

Prayer: Lord, help me to first take the log out of my own eye, and then enable me to help my friends who may or may not be burdened with a speck in their eyes. Amen. (Taken from Luke 6:41-42)

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.