Matthew 21:23-32

Year A - Pentecost +16 or Community Practice ¹⁶
September28, 2014

Matthew 21:23-32

If the two greatest commandments are to Love G*D and Love Neighb*r there is no way to split authority in “heavenly” or “human” realms. These are intimately bound together.

Not to put too fine a line on it, this separation ends up privileging heaven over human. Listen  to the danger here as Greg Brown sings, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy from his album, “Freak Flag”

I don’t know why we as people
do the things we do.
We are mostly fine just the way we are
if we could only get a clue.
This longing for an afterlife
has damn near wrecked this place.
Mercy, mercy, mercy:
tears on a face.

http://youtu.be/OF2l_OWaWlw

This separation of heaven and human leads us to deny our own experience. The condemnation is not so much what we have done, but what we have failed to learn when the opportunity was upon us — “...even after you saw it, you did not change your mind.”

May your cry for Mercy be heard by yourself, bring the tears, and then the change.