Tomorrow we start the holy season of Lent with our commemoration of Ash Wednesday. In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us a warning, to watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. So often Jesus’ disciples don't understand what he is talking about. They think he is talking about bread. We also might miss his point, or we might focus on some surface issue or some issues on the fringes on his main points in the messages he delivers us. In today’s Gospel, Jesus points out that being able to feed them was not a problem, as he references his miracle in the multiplication of the bread and the fish.
The leaven of the Pharisees is found in their pride and scrupulosity, in the way that they place more importance on a rigid adherence to the law. At the same time, the Pharisees violate the spirit of the law as they try to mold God and their approach to religion into what they themselves want rather than being open to God’s will. We might have a tendency to do same thing in our lives of faith. We might be busy telling God how to be God, barraging God with words in our prayers rather than being open to listen to him.
Jesus also refers to the leaven of Herod. This could be making an idol of our material treasures and wealth and being attached to pride and selfishness, the very things that Herod clung to in his power and arrogance. We are called to be careful of many things on our journey of faith. May we not fall into temptation. May our hearts and prayers be set on the Lord rather than the things of this world. May we not fall into the trap of having a rigid, distorted concept of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment