July 26

[media presentation below]

GospelThink

Saturday, July 26

MATTHEW 13:24-30

Weeds.

Prayerthoughts

a. I am part of the good seed that has been sown. Given my circumstances right now, what are the three good things that I do. How can I do them better?

b. What are the three evils in this world that I encounter? What can I do about them? (This is the task of the meditation.)

c. There are good and bad people in our world. Do I judge people? Perhaps I should add a prayer for them when I find myself judging them.

d. We often want the Lord to take the evil out of the world. I have to believe that the Lord knows why he has allowed them in the world. Again, I should take the time to pray for them in my daily prayer.

e. The Lord gives his definition of eternal damnation—burning. We should listen carefully, and then deliberately choose to follow the Lord’s directives in our lives.

f. My prayerthoughts…

Today, I will carry out letter b.

Some Thoughts on the Liturgy

AMONG THE WHEAT—EVERYTHING REFORMED

+ The Gospel is one of Jesus’s earliest parables or stories

- told basically as a scare tactic

- Jesus’ explanation of it according to Matthew is in a daily Gospel next week

- it’s statement is: that there are good and bad people in the world

- the weeds and wheat

- and the bad people will have an evil end—burning

- and the good people will have the presence of God—gathered in his barn

- looked at as an end-result, it is a rather straightforward statement—either happiness or punishment at the end of one’s life

+ The element that is left out is the reason why Jesus is telling the story and something impossible from the image he is using

- namely that the weeds can become wheat

- Jesus wanted his audience to do something about the end-result

- and if they were in the category of weeds, the bad, they should correct it, and make sure that they were in the category of wheat, the good

+ That is, in religious language—language that the Lord also used in his teaching—that we must reform our lives

- as the Israelite people who after listening to the law as delivered by Moses spoke their reform out loud:

We will do everything that the Lord has told us.

(and a little later:)

All that the Lord has said, we will heed and do.

+ The directive for our spiritual lives therefore from this liturgy becomes:

- we have to strive to be in the category of the wheat

- and the way to do it is to thoroughly reform our behavior patterns—everything that the Lord has told us

+ The idea of “thoroughly reform” is an interesting one

- that meant exactly what it says “everything”

- “everything” encompasses all that we do

- whether our language, our actions or our thinking

- change everything that needs changing

+ The liturgy then is a call to continue our conversion

- thoroughly reform our lives

- and make sure that we are among the wheat gathered into the Lord’s barn, and not among the weeds to be burned.

MEDIA PRESENTATION

Song: "The Hills" -- The Weeknd

"FEELING GOOD" IS NOT THE SAME AS LOVE

The Gospel

MATTHEW 23:23-24

MATTHEW 23:23-24

Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you pay tithes of mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.”

Gospelthink: I tell you to do the important things that the law says. Do I try to follow the Lord's law completely?

"I'm just trying to get you out the friend zone 'cause you look even better than the photos. I can't find your house, send me the info. Driving through the gated residential, found out I was coming, sent your friends home. Keep on trying to hide it but your friends know. I only call you when it's half past five, the only time that I'll be by your side. The only time I'd ever call you mine. Hills have eyes, the hills have eyes. Who are you to judge? Hide your lies, girl, hide your lies. What about love?" [lyrics adjusted]

Jesus knew about fake people, people who said one thing and did another, people who promised things that they were not capable of producing. He also knew about fake love relationships in the sense of the people who said that they loved God and in reality did not act like it at all. Many of the scribes and Pharisees were hypocrites, and he was not afraid to tell them so.

The Weeknd's song "The Hills" is a song about trying to keep a relationship quiet, but because people are talking--"The hills have eyes" is how he describes it--the couple cannot keep it quiet. The man in the relationship seems to want a relationship that is more or less capable of making him feel good, and at the end of the song, he asks the question, "What about love?" It is a question that seems to say that he really has not found love, even though he is trying to have the feelings of love.

In other words, he is trying to fake a love relationship, and he understands that he cannot do it. He was being hypocritical in calling the relationship "love" when it is really just a relationship that makes him feel good. He seems to understand that in reality, the relationship is nothing more than "lies" that each tells the other.

One of the most important parts of growing love relationships is determining when a relationship is really love. Unfortunately, couples often give into the good feelings of simply being together, and do not try to develop the deeper parts of love such as communication and true caring about the other. They are hypocritical in calling it love, but they call it love anyway.

In his lifetime Jesus understood when people were only faking love. It was not a situation of romantic love, but his lesson still holds. It is a lesson for all of life: people cannot fake any love relationship.

PRAYER

Good and gracious God, Your Son was able to determine people who were hypocritical in their approach to love. Give us the grace to always love in a sincere manner both in our romantic endeavors and in the rest of life. Be with us, we pray.

+++++

GUIDE FOR CLASSROOM PRESENTATION AND PERSONAL ENRICHMENT

Theme: We cannot fake a romantic love relationship.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. What is the definition of a "hypocrite" in today's world?
2. Gospel text analysis: "Strain out the gnat and swallow the camel." Explain the meaning of the phrase.
3. Why was Jesus so "strong" in his speech against the scribes and Pharisees?
4. Text analysis: "Get you out of the friend zone." What is the meaning of the phrase?
5. Why does the man in the relationship say "Who are you to judge?"
6. What is your definition of "love."
7. What is most important in any dating relationship?
8. What makes a relationship "fake"?
9. Name some parts of true love.
10. Do you agree with the meditation's analysis of the phrase "What about love?" Yes or no and why?
11. What does the song "The Hills" teach young people today?