URC Daily Devotion 17th January 2019

Religious people have a tendency toward legalism.  We don’t mean to, but it’s an effective way of keeping us from breaching sacred boundaries.  The Commandment to observe the Sabbath is pretty strong (most of us don’t follow it with anything like the rigour that our Orthodox Jewish sisters and brothers, or some of our co-religionists, do).

To refrain from work is a good thing, it ensures we rest, spend time with those we love, and devote some of our week to God.  Yet these worthy aims became bogged down in legalism to the point where there was a debate about whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath.  Of course Jesus turning the table on the religious folk made them furious.

Yet so many of us can become furious when things don’t conform to what we think is right.  We get angry, or disparaging, about the wrong type of hymnody or liturgy; sniffy about whether the minister does, or doesn’t, vest in liturgical garb.  We can become very patronising about other churches which do things differently – despite the oft quoted myth that the URC is terribly ecumenical in outlook.  

Instead of reading this passage with smug satisfaction that we’d be like the Pharisees, pray that God will open our eyes to see the aspects of our lives that we miss, blot out or ignore.