Posted on 10/30/2005 10:49:15 AM PST by 2Jim_Brown
This Sunday’s Gospel reading at Christ the Victor Episcopal Church, Chicago’s new, traditional Episcopal church, is about hypocrisy. The Pharisees in Matthew 23:1-12 are shown by Jesus to covet places of honor; prestige; and titles.
Aren’t they a bit like you and me?
Like most human beings, we cling to the glories of the man-made culture in which we live rather than to the culture of heaven — God’s law. We can all be hypocrites at times.
But, Jesus demonstrates here — as he does so often in the Gospel — that when we see that God’s interests and our best interests and the best interests of others are actually the same thing — then we truly feel God’s love.
When we see that God’s love is not a distraction from life but is truly life then we are truly alive. We should define all of our relationships by our relationship with God. When we do that, we will no longer suffer from the same hypocrisy that personifed the Pharisees. That is what Jesus is preaching to his followers — to us — here today.
Come hear the Gospel and the sermon on it at the second floor gallery of the United Church of Rogers Park, 1545 West Morse Ave., Chicago, Illinois, at 5:15 p.m. this Sunday, October 30. Reach us on the Internet at http://www.theceec.org, the web site of the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches.
http://www.prleap.com/pr/18238/
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Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
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