After that, Pharisees and religion scholars came to Jesus all the way from Jerusalem, criticizing.” (Matthew 15:1 MSG)
It is far easier to criticize than it is to participate.
Think about anything that requires skill: an organized sport, a five star meal, a painted masterpiece. It’s easy to pick it apart, to cast votes on quality or consistency or creativity. Anyone can judge accurately or inaccurately. But participating in the sport or meal or masterpiece? That involves risk. Few have the courage and tenacity to try.
The Pharisees and religious scholars stood on the sidelines of the miraculous and jeered. They criticized because they could not bring themselves to participate. Jesus calls them out: “their heart isn’t in it…” They saw the Savior in the the flesh and they did not recognize Him because their minds were engaged in religion but their hearts had long ago been closed off to real relationship with the living God.
What a warning for us! We are either participants or critics when it comes to the Kingdom of God. We cannot be both. I think of the theater critic from the Greatest Showman. He could not appreciate the circus because he could not allow his heart to engage in the frivolity and make-believe. His hardness of her insulated him from the infections joy that every child-like circus-goer enjoyed.
The Kingdom of God can be like that if we aren’t careful. We can sit back and pick apart every aspect of the service. We can make claims about what God should and could do. Or we choose to be involved, to get our hands into the ministry already underway and recognize that God is in this place, participating with us.
Lord, please set us free from the steel trap of spectatorship.We see You moving, may we come alongside as participants, not critics. Guard our hearts from pharisaical thinking. May we walk and work and eat and rest in step with You. Amen.