molehills and mountains

Sometimes I think we’re more guilty of making molehills out of mountains than the opposite. Our skills at rationalization and our tendency to justify things we want make it easy to reduce a significant requirement to something simple.

When we do that, we’re just like the religious leaders of Jesus’ time. Matthew 23:23 is part of a long tirade he made against that group: 

“‘Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.’”

Note that what the Pharisees did wasn’t bad - they gave a fair tithe out of their spices. But they took that small act of obedience and offered it as evidence of their devout faithfulness, all the while ignoring the fundamental requirements of the covenant.

Lest you think this was a new idea, take a look at Micah, especially Micah 6:8, in which God reminded his people through the prophet that this contract between them called for justice, mercy and faithfulness. In fact, Micah built a detailed case that God’s people had become so legalistic that they thought their meager tithes justified all kinds of abuses against the vulnerable.

That’s what we do, isn’t it? We point to our church attendance and giving record and Sunday School participation as evidence of our piety, and then go on to skewer rivals and rend reputations with our poison tongues. We cheat customers or partners and blindly ignore the needy at the same time as we demand every penny of cash and second of time and iota of attention we think we deserve.

God is clear throughout scripture: unless we do justice (work to ensure that everyone gets what’s fair) and love mercy (give people more than is fair, and give up our right to what’s owed us) and live faithfully (that’s the humble walk with God), nothing we do in God’s name counts for much.

Justice, mercy and faithfulness are the mountain we climb as disciples. Let’s not be satisfied with crowing from the top of the little molehills of our tithes and attendance.