daily java

Daily Java:

One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God! But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.” But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?” This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did (Luke 13:10-17)

The woman cured! She had an evil spirit for eighteen years and had been bent over double. Jesus, with a comment, heals her. She stands upright for the first time in eighteen years! It is exciting!

But then the bureaucrats come in. Yeah, yeah, the healing is good. But people, there are six days in the week to be healed. This one is the Sabbath and is a holy day. So from now on, if you people want to be healed, you need to come on one of the officially authorized days during office hours please.

Jesus does what everybody wants to do to a bureaucrat. He lambasts them.

That is rank hypocrisy, he says. You feed  your animals on the Sabbath, don’t you? And water them. This woman had been tied up for eighteen years and you people, for sure, haven’t been able to do anything about it. And now you gripe when I do it because I didn’t do it your way.

It is like the guy who is mad at the preacher because, not of what he did, but how he did it. He doesn’t preach out of the right translation, he doesn’t sing the right songs, he doesn’t preach acceptable doctrine (the stuff I believe), he doesn’t wear a tie, he doesn’t stand behind the pulpit.

The church is growing, but the music is too loud, the people are disorderly, I don’t know anybody, they aren’t dressed right.

The church is feeding people that need it, but the kitchen is always messy, they come at all hours, we can't get anything else done.

It is a big youth group bringing many kids to Jesus, but these kids look weird, they are loud, they do not show the proper respect.

Some people will never be happy about anything, it doesn’t matter how good it is. And they will do their level best to tear it up, even though it is good and doing good things.

That sense of griping, officiousness, bureaucracy stifles and kills any good work. It is just plain hard to keep any momentum going when that is allowed to rule.

That is one reason we  are having so much trouble in our country today. Common sense has been eliminated and bureaucrats rule.

When that is knocked down, when someone “speaks truth to power” in a real way (not in a partisan or political way), people are happy.

They loved it when Jesus shoved these bureaucrats’ words back down their throats. To complain about, not the thing being done, but the way they are being done and using that as a tool to get their own way. The audacity.

Many a church has been torn down by such people. Good things happen until someone gets mad because things are being done in a way that doesn’t suit them. The problem is they were not consulted nor in charge.

So rather than realizing that good is being done, they will tear it all down.

They tried with Jesus and even thought they had won when they killed him. they hadn’t, of course, but there are the bodies of good men and women all over who have tried to do things against the grain. It is a shame.