Things Undone

By Michael Pemberton

 "But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." -Jesus addressing the experts in Lk:11:42

 The wind driven snow seemed to be finding a way through some tiny opening between my hat, scarf and coat.  My neck is just warm enough to melt it into a cold drip that went down the middle of my back in occasional runs.  Try as I might, I couldn't seem to seal it out.  Not that I cared all that much because I was having too much fun at my first snowboarding lesson.

 Things seemed to be progressing along just fine for about the first hour or so.  At least, I think they were for a 38-year-old desk jockey like me.  I could turn right or left, brake and even clear air off a couple of bumps on the bunny hill.  Yep, I'm doing just fine as I start my fourth run.

 Suddenly, I could do nothing right!  Turns ended in falls, jumps in crashes.  Every time I try to brake, I end up on my bottom.  Snowboarding isn't half as much work as getting up after you fall.  I begin muttering to myself and showing my frustration by slamming my boot into the binding.  Secretly, I am ready to give this up as a bad idea, except that my 13-year-old daughter keeps passing me by.

 As I reach the half way mark on the bunny slope, and my wit's end, my instructor whisks by me and calmly comments, "You need to keep your hands out."  My hands!  That it!  I knew I forgot something.  Sure enough, soon as I put my hands out, I'm back to having fun.

 Crazy isn't it?  To get so caught up all the stuff happening with my feet that I forgot my hands.  What an idiot.

 But I take comfort in the Pharisees.  They got so caught up in weighing spices and making tithes of herbs that they forgot judgment and the love of God.  And they had hundreds of years to perfect their form before Jesus came along to correct them.  What?  Forgot the love of God!  How in the world does a few grams of pepper outweigh the love of God? I don't know.  But it seems to me that people get caught in that trap all the time.  We get so focused on some set of things we think we should be doing for God that we forget the God we are doing them for.  The very act of tithing is supposed to show that we judge God to be loving in giving us what we are tithing.  The act reinforces the judgment and the love of God.  Or it should.

 Every now and then Jesus has to remind me to "Keep my hands out."  He had to remind one church that they had left their first love.  I'm sure he does the same for you, after all, he IS faithful.  How do you react?  The Pharisees got really upset.  How dare he critique their perfect form!  Wouldn't it be good to check yourself over today to make sure that you have the right focus in your life?  It would certainly be better than getting frustrated with having to measure a tithe and forgetting the giver.

 By the way, did you notice that Jesus said that they should not have left the tithing thing undone either?  I can stand all day and say that I am focused on the love of God, but my life needs to show it.