If the Pharisees had known what it meant to love the Lord with "all your mind" (Mark 12:30) and not to reduce righteousness to rote rules, they might have understood why mercy is better than sacrifice (Matthew 12:7), and why money donated to the Temple does not absolve you of obligation to your parents (Matthew 15:1-9), and why people hanging around Jesus don't feel like fasting (Mark 2:18-22).
I have often wished the Christian life were a to-do list dispensed daily from on high, eliminating guesswork:
* Today, call your mother
* Increase your tithe by $20
* Send Calvin to Philmont Christian Academy
* Read this book, not that one
* Move to Winnsboro, Texas
* Plastics!
I would gladly comply with that kind of piety. But I think the Christian life is by faith in order that it be by engagement of "all your mind" (Romans 14:5b).
Other articles by Seu:
Finishing Well
The Older Woman
The Dirt on Dirt
From 1999, after the death of her husband:
An hour at evening: A lament from a wife at her husband's grave
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