🦁 Epiphany 5-3

Readings: Psalm 147:1-11, 20c; Isaiah 46:1-13; Matthew 12:9-14. 

Reflection

Good morning. This is Tim Tribble, broadcasting from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 147, verses 1 to 11 and 23, Isaiah 46, 1 to 13, and Matthew 12, verses 9 to 14. And our reading today and the book of Isaiah. This is talking about the idols and the false gods. So this is the point in time that the Jews are intermingling in Babylon, the idols of Babylon. This is after they have been defeated by the Babylonians and they're starting to intermixed in the Babylonian culture and bell beal boughs down nebo and E.B. Stoops. Their idols are on beasts and livestock. They stoop, they bow down together. They cannot see the burden with themselves gone to captivity. And this goes on to listen to me. The house of Jacob, all the remini of the House of Israel. Love God, trust God, be with God. This is what it is about. And there's a lot of false things that we can get, including, you know, we wind up getting involved in. 

But who's like, God, Who? There is no one. No God, No. No entity. No. Whether, however you want to phrase it, there is nothing more powerful than God. 

And he works with us. He loves us. He's had covenants with us. The Old Testament Covenant, the Blood Covenant. Now we have the covenant, the sacrifice of his son, Jesus. He is there for us. Let the Holy Spirit down. And the Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is down in the world now, as God's representative and listening that you know what my belief is that that's how we communicate with God is through the Holy Spirit now. So we don't need to have idols. What's an idol? What are we worshipping? What are we doing? What are the priorities in our life? That's a better way of putting it. What are the priorities in our life? What are we doing at any moment? Do we get up in the morning? You're listening to First Formation, but what else? You know, what are we doing to to be in that state of prayer? 

So that's something to look out to think about is what are what in our lives are we putting ahead of God? What in our lives are we doing that are become more important to us than than what we need to be doing doing in the love of God. And I tell you, you know, I say, Well, says this every time. I'm not good at it. Yeah, I'm sitting a recording first formation. 

But, you know, there's it's still there. There's lots of things. And all of us have room for improvement. It's not Knock yourself down, but it's also to be aware or be thinking. There's always something extra more that we can do, you know, in God's world are reading in Matthew chapter 12. This is the Pharisees trying to trap Jesus. This is called the Man with the Withered Hand. Background of this is Jesus performing miracles. Jesus was in the temple. People were coming to Him out in the in the world by the Sea of Galilee. He was out amongst the people he was teaching, and he was healing. He was casting out demons. He was healing people who couldn't walk. The story of Zacharias, they lowered him down the ceiling, get up off the bed, all these different things, freaking the frickin establishment out. 

So he's in the synagogue. Man comes in with the withered hand. So the Pharisees say, Hey, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? They're trying to trap him in in Jew in the Jewish religion starting Friday night. So their Sabbath, by the way, is Saturday, not Sunday like us. So their Sabbath isn't. It starts at sundown on Friday night and goes to sundown on Saturday night. So with that period of time and obviously the hours vary during the time of year and what latitude you're at, but during that period of time, there are very strict things that they're supposed to be doing. One of them is you are not supposed to work. And if you look, there's stories. So you, the Hasidic Jews, especially in New York City, they won't do. You can't drive a car. You don't cook. I mean, there's just all these things that go about that they're not allowed to do. These are all the rules, the law. And Jesus says, hey, you know, you have a sheep, your sheep falls into a pit and you're going to die. Aren't you going to save it? That's money. It's your income. There you go to left it out, right? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep? 

So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. Of course he healed them. And this really pissed off the Pharisees who went out and conspired against how to destroy him. 

It is good, is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. There you have it right there. So we do good. It's not. There's the rule of law. There's the intent of the law and the spirit of the law. They don't want you out doing things. Some of you are old enough to remember blue laws. I wasn't here in California. We didn't have them here in California, but they had them in the South. And when I was stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland, was where I got introduced to them. They found out way at the malls not open on Sunday. The movie theater was, but not the mall. You can go shopping. You couldn't buy alcohol. The state run liquor stores were closed. Bars were closed. All these different terms of the bars were closed and there's all this stuff. And these these were called blue laws. And these are hold back. And this is the back when there was a lot of Christian influence in government. And so they said, you know, you made laws so you can't do things. They want everybody. You're supposed to go to church on Sunday. Now, obviously, you know, things have changed. I'm not even sure. I mean, this was 40 years ago when I was in Maryland, so I'm not even sure that that's even a thing anymore. But it was at the time and it had been for years and years and years going back, and they were called blue laws. There were all these these laws and things to get people to act a certain way. But what's the spirit of the law? What's the the letter of the law? And in here, Jesus makes a very, very clear statement. 

You can break the law if you're doing good, if it is a good thing. So he's healing the man with the withered hand. He heals his hand and he says, this is good. You can do good on the Sabbath even if it does work. So again, think about that one word. When we're doing things, when we deal with laws, is it the letter of the law in faith? And I'm talking about religious laws right now. If we have the other rules, you know, certain denominations have certain rules and things that go with them in their doctrines. So is it the rule of the law or is it the spirit of the law? And Jesus said, if you're doing good right there, if you're doing it as good, lawful to do good on the Sabbath, Amen.