Faithfulness: a Weightier Matter
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
I want to talk with you about faith.
The NIV and the NET call it faithfulness. You can also call it commitment, giving time, consistency, perseverance, relentlessness, dedication and devotion. Remember that gnats and camels were both unlawful for consumption in the Older Testament. This is vivid imagery if ever I have seen it. This figurative speech approximates the aphorism don't throw the baby out with the bath water. In trying to get rid of a nuisance, your hands have committed a catastrophe.
Fasting, standing, wondrous tunes, white shawls, removing our shoes and bowing to God are all constructions of our hands. We should do these things with our hands, rather than leaving them idle, but there are weightier matters. Faithfulness. I struggle with this, and I imagine that I am not alone. As followers of The Way we should be able to carve out time in our schedules that we pretend are soooooo busy with finals, work et cetera to examine ourselves. If faithfulness is one of the weightier matters of the law, then we should use it as a measuring device of our obedience to God's instructions.
Do we make promises that we can't keep? Do we make promises that we can keep, but still fail to do them? Do we make promises that we don't feel like keeping? Is our ministry focused and regular or spread thin and sporadic? Do we have 5,000 friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter and Instagram that we have shallow relationships with, or a few nearly unbreakable bonds with fellow laborers for Christ? Do we have a side chick? Do we want to put marriage off until 10 years from now? Are we dating people we know we will never marry? Do we listen to each other? Do we listen to God?
I'm disappointed in my answers to these questions. No, not all of them. Lacking faithfulness is a sin we should never forget. Dr. Cornel West recently spoke about why he critiques President Obama, and the interviewer asked "why do you hate Obama?" Dr. West's response was splendid. "I don't hate Obama, I'm Christian, I am a hater, I hate injustice." When we stop being faithful we are committing injustice. We must hate this injustice, which is another way of saying sin. Never should we hate a sinner, but we should always and everywhere hate sin.
Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on us sinners, send us the grace to hate the sin of neglecting faithfulness, strengthen us to be devoted to you first and then our afflicted neighbors, unto the ages of ages amayn.
Furthermore, we must love each other.