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Imagine that you’ve been blessed with what you’ve always dreamed of – an incredible view just outside a big picture window.
You can see mountains. And seasonal bursts of wildflowers. And dynamic cloud patterns. And approaching storms.
Author Eugene Peterson adds, “Several times a day you interrupt your work and stand before this window to take in the majesty and the beauty, thrilled with the botanical and meteorological fireworks.” And you can see it all from your own family room.
Then one day a passing bird defiles your window with a white streak. A little Windex and a few paper towels set everything right.
But then a shower leaves streaks on your window panes.
And the little kids who come along with some old friends leave behind grubby fingerprints and a multi-colored smear of PBJ. They’re not even back in their car seats before the Windex and paper towels are out again.
After all, it’s an awesome window. And it’s huge. Frankly, it’s amazing how many different objects can attach themselves so easily to the glass, obscuring the view that inspired you to buy this house in the first place, and that always sets your heart at rest.
Over time, you develop a bit of an obsession with keeping it clean.
You buy an extension ladder, a squeegee, and some durable buckets. You put together two scaffoldings – one indoors and one outdoors – that allow you to reach the most distant corners of the window with a cloth.
It isn’t long before everyone who works at Home Depot calls you by your first name.
Peterson then observes, “You have the cleanest window in North America – but now it’s been years since you looked through it. You’ve become a Pharisee.”
How in the world did that happen?
The prayers we pray, the spiritual books we read, and the worship gatherings we experience can be very good things. They may in fact turn out to be the very windows through which we catch glimpses of God.
But they themselves are not God.
The Pharisees were widely considered to be the spiritual “good guys” during the time of Jesus. They were intensely serious about obeying God’s laws. For instance, according to the Mishnah – the vast collection of Jewish oral traditions that were put into written form about the third century AD – there were 39 primary kinds of labor not allowed on the Sabbath.
The first 11 of those were steps in the preparation of bread: sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, and baking. Those were followed by 12 prohibitions concerning the preparation of clothing, after which came seven restrictions for preparing the carcass of a deer for either food or clothing.
The Pharisees were nothing if not meticulous.
Faithful Jews were prohibited from lighting a fire – or even lighting a candle – on the seventh day of the week. Nor could one look into a mirror that was fixed to a wall. If you did, you might see a gray hair and be tempted to pull it out – and that was clearly “work.”
According to the Pharisees, the small print meant everything. Perfect compliance with the rules was at the heart of what it meant to know God.
Jesus could not have disagreed more – which is one reason why many of the Pharisees were relieved, even glad, to see him nailed to a cross.
Sadly, myriad “irreligious” people in our own time have little interest in pursuing God because they assume it’s all about keeping the rules. Why would they want to align themselves with people who seem to care intensely about the spiritual equivalent of window cleaning, and then judge those who don’t “do it right”?
Ethical codes can be wonderful things – God-provided boundaries for wise living.
But we must not bow down to such regulations as if they were God.
Jesus did not come to give us more rules.
We can spend our days absorbed by the sheer wonder of the Creator’s majesty. Or we can occupy ourselves with what Peterson calls “housecleaning for God.”
So get off your ladder. And put down the Windex.
Ask God to seize you again with the view that captured your heart in the first place.